Hacker News Reader

Comment by kgo | Hacker News Reader

If you use full disk encryption, it'll encrypt/decrypt on the fly, no extra hard drive needed. Type in password when you boot and you're done.

If you're talking about an encrypted file container on a USB stick, the same problems exist with other encryption software. But I only remember typing in my password when mounting one, I'm not sure where it's asking you for your password over and over.

If you want a USB stick with decent usability, spend 99 bucks on an ironkey, and you'll get real hardware encryption as well.

View on HN

>ironkey, and you'll get real hardware encryption as well.

Perhaps, or perhaps they just XOR your data with your passwd like a certain tape maker did for their super hardware AES mil-spec encryption.

Well here's what they said about that when it happened:

https://www.ironkey.com/usb-flash-drive-flaw-exposed

Of course, like anything, they could have other unknown vulnerabilities. But like they say in the video on that link, they're a security company that makes a storage product, opposed to a storage company making a security product.

they're a security company that makes a storage product, opposed to a storage company making a security product.

I laughed a bit thinking of extreme trade off in those two statements (so allow me to respectfully embellish [is that possible?]):

Security company makes a storage product: It's secure because they have no idea how to make a storage product and therefore your data is not actually stored anywhere that it can be retrieved in the event that you've provided the correct key.

Storage company makes a security product: The data is stored properly. It is then encrypted using whatever sample code was discovered in a search for the acronym "AES" with a bunch of redundancy in the event that something with the physical media fails. This redundancy is stored in the clear.

A vulnerability in storage results in inaccessible data. A vulnerability in security results in overly accessible data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com