The Security Mentor

I got tired of hearing one term after another for those handy USB flash drives: "thumb drives", "pen drives", "travel drives", "jump drives", ad nauseam. So I just call them "nerdsticks". The name is starting to catch on.

There are some nerdsticks marketed as being password protected. The ones I've read up on are not really secure: they just try to hide one partition, the one with your secret data, from casual examination. Others rely on custom software which can be compromised and which is always a pain to some degree.

A company called Corsair advertises a nerdstick with a physical interface on the device itself for entering a PIN up to 10 numbers long. In other words, no custom software.

OK, here's a drawback: if I read their literature correctly, it has its own battery on board, so there's one thing to go wrong. And I could sure use more detail about how it actually works, security people always get nervous when information is sketchy.

I may buy one. The cost is roughly twice that of a regular nerdstick, which is well worth it if you have to worry about confidential information getting stolen. The largest size seems to be 2 GB, regular ones are up to 4 now.

Network World coverage of the Corsair "Flash Padlock" drive
Flash Padlock manufacturer's web site with a picture.

UPDATE 8/22:

I just read in their support forum that the battery is not user replaceable.

UPDATE 8/23:

Correction on regular nerdsticks, they're now available in sizes up to 16 GB.

UPDATE 3/16/2008:

The Flash Padlock can be bypassed if you open the case and do some minor tweaking. See the sidebar in this Computerword review of secure nerdsticks.