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Hardware Firewall On a USB Key
An anonymous reader writes "An Israeli startup has squeezed a complete hardware firewall into a USB key. The 'Yoggie Pico' from Yoggie Systems runs Linux 2.6 along with 13 security applications on a 520MHz PXA270, an Intel processor typically used in high-end smartphones. The Pico works in conjunction with Windows XP or Vista drivers that hijack traffic at network layers 2-3, below the TCP/IP stack, and route it to USB, where the Yoggie analyzes and filters traffic at close-to-100Mbps wireline speeds. The device will hit big-box retailers in the US this month at a price of $180." Linux and Mac drivers are planned, according to the article.
firewall schmirewall, I can't wait to see what "wrong" things people do with this.. a Linux machine on a USB stick? For 180$? Awesome.
Except that all of your traffic is now going over your USB port twice... and the USB port is your most processor-intensive I/O. I have no idea how the numbers will work out... but there is a good chance that this will eat a lot of processor time.