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IBM's New USBKey Device
John Brown writes: "[T]oday I called 1-888-Shop-IBM and talked to a representive about the possibility of buying a Thinkpad X20; I wasn't too happy with the fact that it lacks an internal floppy drive, so the guy told me that during the next week IBM will be releasing a storage device called 'USBKey' which basically looks like a (guess what...) key (it is even meant to be kept in your key-ring), but fits into a USB port, allowing you to store up to 8MB of data in it. Amazing! You may very well live in a world in which 100Mbits/s is a common thing, but for the rest of us a highly portable and universally accepted data medium which allows you to store 5 times more than 1.44MB is good news." I would also like to see AOL start sending out (rewriteable) 8MB USB keychains. Note: no reason that such things should be limited to 8MB, either -- we featured a similar toy a while ago; I wonder if IBM is licensing it. Update: 02/06 04:39 AM by T : Thanks to PongoX11, who writes: "It looks like the drive you heard about
already exists. I work in a computer retailer and remember seeing these on the shelves."
Ok, so $6/MB may seem a bit excessive, but when you consider that it's a completely self-contained unit, requiring no reboot to use, extremely portable, and five times larger than the 1.44 MB floppies that are starting to feel a bit small, it sounds a lot more attractive. Memory sticks are nice, but I don't have the hardware for them, so I'm out of that market unless I want make a substantial investment. Seeing as I don't, I think I'll be quite happy with this. As it stands my university network is fine for my needs, but for those in the real world, it makes a lot of sense.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
USB at this point is well nigh universal, lots of us would love to carry a few MB of stable material (hey, bring along your own plug-in encryption) and floppies are just too delicate. If this thing is robust enough to take the random static of hanging off my key-ring it'd be great.
Potential Advantages:
- Nearly universal hardware support.
- Potentially widespread OS support (most USB implementations ship with some standard device-types, if this can mount as a supported file system then it's already out there.)
- Reasonably sized media.
- Big-name supplier.
Potential DisadvantagesI don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I agree about floppies. Indeed, I keep about 3 or 4 boot floppies around, in case one goes bad. And working the university help desk has shown me how often floppies go south. Every week, someone gets a paper eaten by a bitchy floppy. I have found ZIP disks to be a fairly usable replacement. Tons of PC's have ZIP drives now, and they hold a LOT more.[no, I don't work for IOmega. My first ZIP drive actually had the old click of death. Their support, however, promptly replaced it, free of charge, even though I had bought it second hand online, so they're one company I like:)]
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
What about the fact that USB ports have a finite number of insertions/removals before the port itself will need replacing (approximately 10,000 if memory servers me correct) I was about to get a token key security system for my laptop using a USB key and didn't for just that reason..
"it's all going down"
From the specification page at the above site:
(Secure version of product)
Password Protection Max 15 Characters
Operating Temperature 0C ~ +50C
Storage Temperature -20C ~ +80C
Relative Humidity under operating 20% ~ 80%
Relative Humidity under storage 5% ~ 95%
Insertion 5000 cycles
Data Reading Speed(ThumbDrive Secure to Host) 750Kbytes/Sec(Depending on PC system)
Data Writing Speed(Host to ThumbDrive Secure) 350Kbytes/Sec(Depending on PC system)
Safety Compliance FCC class B, CE
--
Jon - TheSpork
If they could just bump up the capacity to about 64MB ;)
If you want 64Mb of portable, USB-connecting storage, just buy a Rio 500 and download Riorio.. and you can listen to music too!
Seriously.. I was kind of keen to get an MP3 walkman, but the factor that pushed me from being "kind of keen", to actually spending the cash, was the ability to do a bit of leeching via the fast net connection at work, and conveniently take the files home..
That's what those business-card-sized CD-Rs are for. Burn one with a copy of Putty, a Zip extractor and a few other essentials and carry it in your wallet.
<ASIDE>I wonder what proportion of Internet kiosks/cafes let you insert and access arbitrary CDs. It would be handy for securely checking your mail when on the road.</ASIDE>
If they could just bump up the capacity to about 64MB ;)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Chances are your USB ports are uselessly located around the back of your machine anyway.
If you have one in the front of your case, it's probably not soldered to the board, and may be replaceable.
It is said that who has the money sets the stsndards. Chances are such a key would also contain a mandatory digital signature/ID (issued by Verisign, and as hard to fake as a passport (not to mention illegal to have more than one of)), eyeball-tracking cookies and software/media keys. It would become a universal ID card/software dongle.
Floppies have one big advantage over this thing. Floppy drives are accessed through the front of the machine!
I still can't believe that so few computer manufacurers put a USB port on the front of the machine. Every time I want to plug a nice "convenient" USB peripheral in, it takes 10 minutes of wrestling with the computer (with a 60 lb monitor on top) that's stuck against a wall...
This device would be thrice as sweet if my computers had USB ports in the front. As is, it's no floppy replacement.
I don't know about the device the article author is referring to, but the USB key I played with could do challenge/response, so it must have had an onboard CPU.
The article's device might be. That's why I made it clear that I was playing with a different device. There's really no need for you to fly off the handle like this. Makes you look weird.
Ugh, I'll have to keep it OFF my keychain.
This would make a WONDERFUL way to secure a notebook - an 8 MB key!!! More than gratuitous, but it could hold keys for other computers as well.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
As much as I hate to not be able to upgrade one piece at a time, hate to see stuff that still works (or that can be repaired) wind up in landfills, and grudgingly admire the way they've been able to keep kludging or grafting new stuff onto a 20+ year old design, maybe it's time to quit trying to come up with rocket boosters for an open cockpit bi-plane and start from scratch, rethinking everything, power supply, processor, bios, OS, storage, security, both physical and electronic, display(s), case and form factor, expansion methods, maybe even something instead of the WWW that doesn't require having to use 2 or more browsers because of incompatibilities, something that'll combine and replace your cable box, VCR, TIVO, Playstation, stereo, TV, home security system, thermostat, and computer in one modularly configureable system with *real* plug and play.
If the hidden forum thing still works, I'd be interested in reading what other Slashdotters think about what this new platform should have, do, etc. at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=no_legacy
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
with your "floppy", yet hard duality, have been deprecated.
--
+&x
i can confirm that the usb floppy that came with my sony z505r is indeed bootable. that's how i started the install of FreeBSD.
Disk on Key from M-Systems has up to 32 Mb 'keys' now and plans up to a 512 Mb USB device this year. They claim to work with Win, Mac, and Linux.
. And how do you transfer files from one computer to another?
Uhh....you take the key out of one computer's USB port, and insert it into anoter computer's USB port. Presto.
If you actually put it on your keyring, you have to leave your keys hanging out of the computer. Bad Idea. If you don't put it on your keyring, you'll likely lose it, or someone will "liberate" the unit from your PC/laptop when you're not looking.
Personally, I'm often on a corporate LAN. If I want 8MB of removable media, I'll just ftp it to my webserver where I can access from anywhere.
-This sig intentionally left blank
It was pretty cool, but with only 200k, I don't know how secure it could have been. It did have one plus on this USB model: by not actually "plugging in" to the module (just press it briefly in a little socket) it avoided any wear-and-tear on the plug. Unfortunately, as it was lightweight metal, it bounced against my other keys and got lots of little dents. Dunno if it made it not work; I didn't go back often.
I doubt it was even 200k, it was prolly more like 4k...iButtons are mostly intended to provide a unique ID (each one has a hardcoded serial number), and a little space to store a key, and possibly some other data...All the other information is stored on a workstation or server - the iButton just proves to the system that you really are you.
As for durability, Dallas Semi says they last around 10 years.
--K
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and ... disagree with you there.
Its really sad that the hardware industry cant get together long enough to build a successor to the venerable 3.5" 1.44MB floppy. Many have tried: Zip, Jazz, Sony SuperDisk but none will succeed as long as bean-counter types prevent the IP from being a non-licensed public technology.
Here we are raving about a USB flash memory unit -while i agree it is cool tech- doesnt anyone else see it as a little bit silly for us to have to take advantage of the ubiquity of USB in order to get portable media w/ >1.44MB storage?
Why cant we simply get a cheap replacement to the floppy?
In case of emergency, break glass.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
There are already USB "thumb drives" that have
8M and up Flash ram on them.. Nothing new here.
However, what IS interesting, is the iKey 1000/2000 from Rainbow Technology.
The 1000 has about 8 k of ram, and actually has some Crypto functions on the key!! So you can do proper hidden key authentication. Also can contain certs.
I have been reverse engineering this device a bit for Linux, and have some preliminary code to drive it, however am talking with Rainbow about getting proper specs and/or GPL'ed SDK code..
The ikey 2000 has full PKI on it, so it can actually be used to generate full Public/Private key pairs, were you NEVER see the private key.. (And can't get at it at all).
Ill be working on this one for Linux once I have finished the 1000.
Anrhony
Okay, some dude reads slashdot, finds a story and quickly posts a response. Yes, had the dude read it carefully he would have found the actual catalog link and links to similar devices. wtf?
Did anyone read the hardware prerequisites? ThinkPad this, ThinkPad that...you have to own a ThinkPad. That, and they say it works without driver support...provided you're running Windows 2000 or Windows ME. So, I wouldn't go around praising (or criticizing) it as yet another media format...instead, call it what it is: yet another specific toy for yet another specific piece of hardware. The two aren't independant: I can't take that key and plug it in to just *any* computer that has USB, it has to be one of the listed ThinkPads running one of the listed operating systems. What if I wanna plug it into my Mac? Or, for you types, my Linux box? What gives?
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
that's all well and good about replacing floppies...but can I boot off of it?
I post links to stuff here
I've played with one of these devices which looked like a key, plugged in the USB port, and had a private encryption key on it (in addition to the storage space). The device came with Windows 2000 software that encrypted your files and you needed to insert the key and type a passcode to decrypt the files.
A company I know is experimenting with these devices to see if they can modify PAM to use the USB keys. The concept is in many ways similar to the Java ring that McNealy demonstrated in 1999, but the key shape is (I think) more convenient to store, carry, and definitely more convenient to plugin to your computer.
Four problems I noted while playing with one of these devices.
First, the model I was using was made out of cheap plastic. It felt flimsy and lightweight. I keep my key chain in my jeans pocket, and I was concerned the flimsy plastic would break (which would be an absolute disaster).
Second, when the USB key is on your keychain it is REALLY inconvenient to plug it into the USB port on a laptop. Your keys get in the way and the weight of the keys dangles down and puts huge stress on the USB key. If the USB key becomes at all popular, I can see a strong market for those little retractable cords that some people use with their ID cards.
Third, the USB key is actually quite thick. On my laptop - which has two USB ports close to each other - you couldn't use the second port while the key was plugged in. The company had thought of this and supplied a small extension cord, but this wasn't at all convenient to carry around.
Fourth, a thought experiment rather than an actual experience. When you lose your house keys you curse a lot, then you hire a locksmith to bust into your house and change your locks. If you lose your USB key then there's no recourse. If I had highly precious data, I'd be storing it all on backup tape UNENCRYPTED, or I'd be making sure there were copies of the USB key stored in multiple (safe) deposit boxes.
Except that an iButton only has 200K on it and is intended to only store secure log-in information.
The USBKey is general storage for data. Just because it also fits on a keyring doesn't mean that it is anything like an iButton.
Did you ever hear of this neat new invention they've come up with called "Ziploc Bags"? I think that would have saved you a lot of work.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I'd rather have one like the Q, but with an optional cap on the connector end.
And for those of you wondering about Linux support, these things should be just like my PNY Compact Flash/Smart Media reader for USB... it emulates an IDE drive. Actually, the flash cards themselves emulate an IDE drive, and the USB part just acts as a USB to IDE interface.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Here is a link to the the USB Key at ibm it cost 49 dollars
Freebsd supports the memory stick slot in the vaios? really?
It sounds like nothing more than an iButton with extra memory. iButton has been selling these things for a while, but with java and less memory. Check it out here.
Not a bad idea at all, but a month ago when my partition table evaporated I'd have been hard pressed to boot from the internet.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I simply cannot see this device taking off for a number of reasons, a few of which have already been mentioned.
1. These really don't hold that much - 8 MB can't even store very large word-processing/spreadsheet documents let alone presentations/databases/mp3s (can't forget them)
2.USB is not completely popular yet, or at least not completely supported. Many computers are still in use that don't have a USB port, or that don't have them installed.
3. USB ports are most frequently in the back of a computer, making these little things very hard to use - my primary desktop is in a cabinet with minimal access to the back (but it's easy to pull out for hardware changes..I just don't need to mess with my cables often). This reminds me of A/V in ports on TVs and VCRs - too often they're annoyingly in the back.
4. Way too expensive. These should be $10, not $50, so students would want to buy them over a $0.50 floppy disk.
5. As others have pointed out, if put on a keychain one would have to leave their keys in the USB port in order to access it - dumb..if it was removable (without removing keyring, like a button trigger), then there's the ever present danger of losing such a small device.
Just my thoughts, but hey, I could be wrong. Watch me buy one in the next few years in spite of myself.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Except it's not removeable media. It's much more reliable than magnetic media, and pretty ubiquitous these days.
It's called (and I'm serious here) the Internet. Even if you have a slow connection (slow being your typical 56k modem) it's really worth it. It's easy to get ftp or http space these days on 24/7 servers with high bandwidth, even if it's 10-20M, it's enough that:
For instance, every month I create documents locally that are printed and copied at Kinko's or similar facilities (word of warning: avoid Kinko's. Their service sucks, and they've screwed us over more times than I can remember). Instead of taking a Zip disk, or 3.5", I just upload the Postscript over my pathetic 33.6 to public webspace, and grab it again with Netscape at the printer's. No worrying about whether they support this media format. No worrying about corrupt disks (which is the reason I don't use portable magnetic media anymore).
The two main concerns I can see are that the server may go down, or the location you're heading to might not have internet access. The former is fairly easy to eliminate (find multiple servers, or get something more reliable). The latter is becoming less and less of an issue, and already may be less of an issue for you than finding a box with a 3.5" floppy or Zip/Jazz/SuperDisk/etc.
The real danger is that we get stuck in a rut of thinking portable non-archival media (i.e. not CDROMs, etc.) is necessary for every day life, when other solutions (such as using the network) are already there. You're right: we don't need unnecessary toys. The solution is already in place, people just need to use it.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I mean, 8 megs on a regular computer is hardly anything, but if you could plug this into a handheld you'd double the capacity. Perhaps when bluetooth is standard, they'll come out with a keychain bluetooth storage unit - it could even be totally sealed (well, until you had to change the battery) to protect against accidental washing!
Kiss me, I'm blueberry-flavored!
It's been out for a while actually....
http://www.agatetech.com/products_q.html
I personally refuse to use floppys now (entirely too unreliable) and this seems like a great idea for students that don't have/use net access to transfer files between home and school.
It'd also be nice to have a small battery and an IR feature for PDAs.
The IBM MicroDrive is up to 1 GByte these days, and did you ever take a look at its shock rating? 15 HUNDRED G's (non operating) and 175 G's operating.
I occasionally drop my car keys, but I've never done anything to them that could damage a MicroDrive. I can't *throw* one of these things hard enough to break it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I think the 3.5" floppy is well due for replacement but I seem to have to resort to them quite often when the OS gets corrupted and can't boot into a state where it can recognise CD-ROM, Zip or network drives.
In my experience, it's the only thing on an x86-based PC which is guaranteed to work at any time on any machine, which I think is probably the only thing keeping it alive.
Otherwise, it's a fantastic idea.
Simply for porting data, we have the Internet, and 8MB really isn't that much more than 1.44MB.
In addition it's more expensive.
Imagine however it being used as a key to control a laptop. The laptop not functioning AT ALL without it. It could store a pretty long key.
If you lost the key, you would just buy a new one, and download your key from your main computer into the the USB-module.
Simple, easy securing of Laptops.
Not perfect, but probably good enough.
A little offtopic, but has anyone seen (or done) a formal or informal study on the reliability of floppy disks? I swear they didn't used to be nearly as bad as they are now -- It seems like 1 in 10 go bad on me within 6 months, where I used to have scores of them last me for years...
usbdrive.com
Q-drive
---
USB storage is also far from a "universally accepted data medium". How many computers do you know that will boot off of a USB drive (Don't count Macs. They make everything too easy :). What percentage of Linux users even have USB support running? NT users?
Personally, if i needed this sort of storage, i'd go for the PC card route to avoid yet another dongle waiting to break off from the back of my computer.
Trust me to jump on the bandwagon before it's even started rolling :)
:)
IBM has actually been advertising this device on their website for a couple of months now, it seems to me to be a great way to keep your 4096 bit RSA keys in a safe, non-computer-hosted location, along with any really important stuff that you really can't handle being stolen. All the staff based in Canada have been telling me that they won't have them in stock for at least six weeks, but they can't give me details about the situation south of the border, so I can't comment on that.
All I can hope now is that the protocol is really simple so those of us that prefer free OSes will be able to mount it too