passwords on flashdrive

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lethalpimp2998

n00b
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Aug 24, 2008
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I just recently bought an 8gb flash drive from newegg and my friend mentioned a way of getting a password on the drive.

Could any of you explain this in noob terms?

And also, if theres any other cool things i could do with a flashdrive, please tell :) Thankyou.
 
As in? Do you wish to manage your passwords for various services? You'll want KeePass. If you want to password protect the contents of the drive, your best bet is just a simple password protected .rar courtesy of WinRAR Unplugged. Even something as simple as this would take your federal agency of choice years to crack, never mind some script kiddie.
 
lol thanks a lot guys. Apparently dumb ole UPS sent my package to the wrong place so now they gotta reroute it, but i think ima try that keepass stuff. Thanks for all the replies :)
 
There seems to be a bit of confusion here. KeePass is an application that will allow you to store passwords on the flash drive but will now allow you to add an "access password" to the flash drive. If you're looking for an "access password" feature, then devman's suggestion of TrueCrypt is the one you want.
 
I thought when you buy a flash drive, it comes with utilities like password protect, and delete/restore.

Ya pretty much any decent flash drive, specially a nice 8GB, would definitely come with the utilities on the drive.
 
can anyone confirm what motley is saying???

So true crypt...yea i wanted a access password, not a storage of pw's. i was checking out keepass and i just thought that the "portable" version was for that. Sorry For being so vague.
 
I use Truecrypt for sensitive data on my laptop. Basically it takes a part of, or in your case the whole drive, and creates a hidden partition and stores that within a "file". The "file" looks like a normal document to any other user (Except that the file size is large, 8gb for you) but you use the Truecrypt software to mount the file, which mounts the partition and allows access to the drive with your password. I'm not 100% sure how it works when you encrypt the entire drive as I don't know where the file would be stored but their website has a very thorough tutorial so I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to do.
 
SpaceHonkey said:
If you hadn't already purchased a flash drive...

https://www.ironkey.com/
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Nothing quite like CIA level encryption (and self destruction --I'm no kidding, it kills itself if you get the password wrong a set amount of times) for a guy who just wants to protect a couple family pictures ;)

Anyways, 2nd vote for true crypt, its good enough for Steve Gibson, its good enough for my dad and his lawyer-client-confidential files, it's probably good enough for you. It is possible to pull the encrypted mass from the drive, but honestly, quantem computing can't beat rijndael. In a couple hundred years cracking that encryption might be possible, but for your lifetime you're set.
 
TrueCrypt a bit tedious IMO... Anyway as soon as you access it, it'd prompt for password instead of having to go through the whole mounting process?
 
well once again, my flash drive still hasnt gotten here. I upgraded to 3day shipping instead of that "new egg saver 3-7 day" crap. And of course bastards at ups mess it up lol.
Its ok tho, but once i get it ima try putting truecrypt on it and update. Should come tomorrow...better. hah.

Wow. This thread got a lot of posts. sweet. Score one for the noob
 
MrWizard6600 said:
convenience is the enemy of security.
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A common misconception. Good security is both strong and convenient.

If you have a highly secure setup that is inconvenient, your end users will find a way, any way, to make it convenient. Often sacrificing the "security" part.
 
Everyone here realizes Truecrypt cannot be ran on machines that you do not have administrative access to, right? Meaning for a thumb drive Truecrypt is worthless.
 
GlobalFear said:
Everyone here realizes Truecrypt cannot be ran on machines that you do not have administrative access to, right? Meaning for a thumb drive Truecrypt is worthless.
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Probably shouldn't be using sensitive documents or pass phrases on a machine you don't control anyway. I certainly wouldn't open my ciphered thumb drive on a random public terminal.
 
i just got my flash drive today and just curious but do i have toformat the drive or do anything to it b4 i start using it? So is the guy above me right also?
 
lethalpimp2998 said:
i just got my flash drive today and just curious but do i have toformat the drive or do anything to it b4 i start using it? So is the guy above me right also?
Click to expand...

I'd always reformat ANY drive before using it.


I have a Q for you that use TC- do you trust it enough to store passwords on (to routers, etc)?
 
devman said:
Probably shouldn't be using sensitive documents or pass phrases on a machine you don't control anyway. I certainly wouldn't open my ciphered thumb drive on a random public terminal.
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For some reason I think hes more concerned with keeping others from going through his stuff in the event it is stolen vs protecting top secret documents. Don't get me wrong, TrueCrypt is awesome. But, this is the wrong application for it. Tying the device to only machines which you have administrative access and a copy of TrueCrypt installed on all but eliminates the usefulness of a thumbdrive.

TrueCrypt is more than secure enough for anything you wish to put on it provided you have enough intelligence to properly implement it. No, the password shouldn't be your wife's birthday or the title of your favorite movie. Like many security scenarios, the weakest link is the end user.
 
I'll probably give TC a try myself again...
One question though- what if I've got a file and need to hop on someone else's computer to fix an issue in the router or what have you (out of the office).... Any way around the fact I have to install TrueCrypt to get access to the drive (is there some portable way I could handle it)??
 
TechieSooner said:
I'll probably give TC a try myself again...
One question though- what if I've got a file and need to hop on someone else's computer to fix an issue in the router or what have you (out of the office).... Any way around the fact I have to install TrueCrypt to get access to the drive (is there some portable way I could handle it)??
Click to expand...

TrueCrypt has a traveler mode.
 
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