Tipstaff

Pretty much what I'm doing now, actually, but with write protected SD cards via a fast card reader. Seems to be doing ok so far. However, I'd still like to get that "larger" drive protected.. just incase the system isn't 100% clean.

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Zelig

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/pro...pocket_drives/

Software write-protect... max of 8 GB though, so I don't know if it would be any better than the SD card solution you have already.

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Tipstaff

Funny you should mention it, Zelig. My LG USB pen drives come with the very same kind of software, and infact this is exactly what prompted me to look for some sort of software write protection. I mean, if they could do software security for a pen drive, why not software write protection, right? So far... it's been a long frustrating nightmare trying to find something.

In this case though, it's software security.. or rather encryption. What you do is parition the drive to have a secured zone, one that you can only access via a password (you can even setup the whole thing as one big password protected drive if you like), and anything in that zone is encrypted. Some use basic encryption (a simple password protection), while others use a more advanced form such as either 128bit or 256bit AES based encryption. The problem though is that while the data can't be "technically" infected just by placing the drive into the system, once you input your password to get access, the whole drive is wide open.

Good idea, though.

BTW, I appreciate all the ideas, guys. I know I keep shooting them down, but it does help me figure things out, so please, keep'em coming.

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BlueMak

I don't know if this is even possible but here is an idea:

have an external drive and create an image (like an ISO or whatever, don't know much about images) of all the programs you need, if it is possible to have more than 8GBs (double layer dvdr) on such an image then that is great. You can use a program to access the image without making the image accessible to write to it (does this make sense?).

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"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,
You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis

Tipstaff

Yep, it does, actually. You can do something similar with Symantec Ghost. When you run the Windows version of Ghost you can open up, and then export stuff from images. Also, WinRAR can open up some ISO images, however it can also write to them too, but then again, not to all of them (it depends on what standard of ISO was used). The trick would be to find something that would allow me to open images AND run a program from within it. I could make an image, and then mount it using Daemon Tools or MagicISO. 'Course, there's still the problem of how to make that image transportable, yet still protect the medium being used to do so.

Intriguing idea. Thanks, Blue.

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Zelig

Are you sure about that? I haven't used the drive or software myself, but from this, it looks like it has full write protect.

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Tipstaff

Oh, snap! I looked at the drive numerous times, and totally missed that. Seagate damn well needs to put that right on the first page where they list the drive, and not bury it somewhere on their site <Stupid SOBs>. As soon as I saw not one mention of write protection I dismissed it imediately.

Thanks, Zelig. Nice find.

Edit: LOL.. stupid Seagate. You should see the price listings for this drive. They have 4 drives: 2.5GB ($100), 5GB (which they no longer sell), 6GB ($110)(and you have to wonder why I buy the 2.5GB for $10 less?), and 8GB ($150).

OH, something else I found out. There are 2 revisions of these drives, and apparently I have to get the rev.2 units to get the units that have write protection. They also, apparently, use Microdrives, which I"m none too fond of (most times they are slow.. like.. 3600rpms, which means an average of 6MB/s transfer speeds). I'll have to call Seagate tomorrow to confirm things.

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BlueMak

I saw that but didn't think you would be interested since it has small capacity. Their largest drive is like a double layer DVDR.

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"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,
You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis

Tipstaff

Capacity isn't an issue though... well.. not really. Most people either don't have DVD drives, or those that do, won't read dual layered discs, which is really the reason why I haven't gone that route. They should, however, all have a USB port of some type, and as long as the drive I get has USB 1.1 support, true 1.1 support, then I should be fine.

Just an update to this little adventure:

I've been running things using a fast card reader, and a couple SDHC cards I have (which have the write protect switch on them), and so far so good. A couple apps complain that they can't write to the drive, however I'm not too worried about that as the ones that are complaining are the ones that backup information before they do their changes. I've also been able to get most of my apps to install perfectly fine off of the drives, which at first wasn't easy (some just don't like being installed off anything except the CD they came on... or a copy of it).

I also got the chance to talk with Seagate, and sure enough, my concerns were confirmed. The Pocket Drive uses a Microdrive, so transfering data to it will be slow, to say the least. Still, even with a one year warranty, and slow speeds, having one of these around would be very usefull. Now all I have to do is wait for my supplier to actually have one in stock before I can do any testing with it.

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BlueMak

I guess an external slimi USB dvd drive will not be a good solution.

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"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,
You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis

Tipstaff

You know, I never thought of that one. It still means I'd have to carry a binder... even a small one for the DVDs (carrying the disc in the drive would eventually either destory the disc, or the drives lens), which is what I'm trying to avoid, but as a backup.. it would work in pinch, wouldn't it?

Thanks for that idea, Blue.

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H3X4D3C1M4L

The best idea, and what I've found to work in your situation (which I find myself in constantly), is to carry around a 1GB USB drive formatted as NTFS (my solution for fixing 98 machines is to use something else other than 98 haha) with everything I find myself using in more than 50% of the time. I simply set the permissions on the volume for SYSTEM and EVERYONE as Read only, list directory. No write or full control. Then on my system at home (or my 'control' system) I set my user account to have full permission which superceedes the Everyone and SYSTEM having ro permissions. Then if there's anything else I might need to take along, a 2.5" USB hard drive set up in a similar fashion works quite well, being able to store everything and also handy as a backup drive for cloning smaller stuff (an empty FAT32 partition serves well for that, nothing to corrupt and keeps the tools separate from the work space).

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Tipstaff