Hi all,
I'm looking for a "firewall" to protect my usb drive, from the computer/internet/network/... I don't care about the computer I'm working on. Also I would like it, once I start it up, (autostart.asi / Pstart / manualy ) to protect my usb drive in the background, It does not matter to me if it leaves on the computer regestries (or files...) as long as I can go and plug into anouther coputer and still be protected (once of course the program is started). I have stinger, which scans the drive, but does not protect it.
Any ideas? Anythink like this exist?
A
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Hi Askrra,
This isn't a firewall, but the following website lists a product called "torpark" to help protect you when you are browsing the net from your USB? I've never used it and only recently found it so maybe someone else can tell me what this torpark is and if it's really useful.
http://www.freehaven.net/~arrakis/torpark.html
Quote from the above website:
"Download TorPark for your language, and put it on a USB Flash keychain. Plug it into any internet terminal whether at home, school, or public. Run Torpark.exe and it will launch a Tor circuit connection, which creates an encrypted tunnel from your computer indirectly to a Tor exit computer, giving the appearance of having the Tor exit computer's IP."
is the program Tor, which secures you while browsing, packaged with Firefox Deer Park (a beta release of Firefox 1.5). It encrypts all your traffic and masks your IP and such. All this does slow browsing considerably though.
-Justin
Yes it is a combination of Tor and Firefox Deer Park. The site did say it slowed down browsing quite a bit.
I would rather have a solution like Askrra had asked for that is like a firewall that protects your USB/external drive. I've seen the dekart Private Disk has a firewall in it: (http://www.dekart.com/en/nc/store/encryption/dekart_private_disk/?sword_...)
but I would prefer a freeware, open source solution if possible.
I've posted a request for a portable firewall in the forums previously and was told that Ghostwall and AS3 would do the job...but I think these are more firewalls for the host computer. I'm not really concerned about protecting the host computer...just my external drive (I always recommend to friends and family to use a firewall, but I can't force them too. But I will do whatever I can to protect my external drive).
I'll keep watching this post to see if someone else comes up with a solution.
John did say that he was going to release a portable version of ClamAV, an AntiVirus utility.
https://portableapps.com/node/629#comment-2105
http://www.clamwin.com/
-Justin
I've had a look at the ClamAV it dosen't seem to be like a firewall more of a Anti-Virus, and it seems to be like S.T.I.N.G.E.R as a scaner and not a firewall.
A
This is probably what you are looking for.
Winpooch (www.winpooch.com) is similar to Winpatrol, but open-source, and can also be used as a network/application firewall and integrates with ClamWin, allowing real-time anti-virus scanning.
That is right, though no one ever said that it was. This thread included antivirus as well.
ClamAV, an AntiVirus utility.
-Justin
can torpark work with trillan?
Yes, but tor is very slow for me
________________________________________
345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html
Tor will always be slow due to the number of Onions it goes through, you'll be lucky to get more than 20kbits/s
Yours
Steve Lamerton
It wouldn't be slow more individuals set up Tor servers and dedicated at least 20-40kpbs of their bandwidth to the project. It's really not that hard to do and you can run it off a piece of crap computer.
I've setup one, took a little over an hour (including OS install).
I suggest antivir for anti-virus
and AS3 Personal Firewall for firewall, I have use it portable and it work well
345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html
WinInzio Pen Suite Has at least one portable Firewall in the lite version, and two in the gold. It's free, and it has over One hundred apps!
One other thing: Seems you can only get it at Download .com; the home website has no download. 
!!Downside: About 25% of the apps are in Italian And the PStart/Start Menu Clone is a mishmash of it. But seems sufficiant for the current need.
http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?qt=PenSuite&tg=dl-20&search.x=2...
Thank for the info
________________________________________
345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html
I tried the new release of AntiVir and it doesn't appear to be portable as version 6 was, even though it allows you to install to the thumbdrive. Anyone else notice this?
Maybe John's work on ClamWin is what will fill the bill.
Your not the first one I heard saying this. I have 6.xx and keep it uptodate and it work fine. I dont know what the update of 7.xx, But I dont need it since 6.xx is working fine. Often program updates add features that I dont need, like email scanning for anti-virus for example.
______________________________________
345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html
This person has no idea what he's talking about. He's basically thinking:
COMPUTER -> (Firewall) -> USB PORT -> USB DRIVE
Firewall is a buzzword; it has a real meaning, but people just inject it anywhere they want to say "protect." If you could have sex with a computer, people would start asking for boxes of firewalls at the condom store.
Packing a portable clamwin to scan the drive would be nice. Protecting it would be impossible; you could, however, flip the read-write pin to read only on certain USB drives, and then scan the machine.
I don't know of an open-source network firewall for XP, though this would be nice too, especially to carry your FW rules around.
As a program to stop programs and other accessing the USB drive without permission.
As a "firewall" does of programs accessing the web, or system....
A
I think you dont understand what a firewall is about. You seem to be talking about the application control feature of some firewalls. A firewall is about ports, not application, this is a extra features on some huge firewalls suite.
What do you want exactly ? protect some files on your usb key ? It's not clear.
_______________________________________
345 portable applications:
http://standalone.atspace.org/index.html
i think my understand was also incorrect about firewalls. however, my thought was that I would like to have something protecting my keydrive.
FOr instance:
If I plug into a friends computer that may have been infected with something and it tries to corrupt files on my keydrive. I would like to have the protection of an app not allowing to infect my drive.
Does this make sense?
Firewall might not be the best term then, but that is excactly what I'm looking for, to protect my USB drive (without making it write-only) from an infected Computer.
A
Remember, your USB device is just a dumb removal disk drive to the local PC. As such, whatever PC you connect it to has complete control over it. If it is infected with a virus, it will be altering the files on the device as soon as you plug it in, before you can even run any software. This applies to any USB device with portable apps on it including U3 and Ceedo.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you John for the info. That certainly helps me re-think about what I am plugging into and making sure that I not naive - thinking I am 100% free from any of the bad stuff.
The easy way to get around this issue:
Get a drive with a write-protect button, and flip that, then scan the machine you've plugged into (with read-only mode on) and once you feel that the system is safe enough to open up Firefox, etc, you can enable write-mode (Might have to unplug the device, flip it to read/write then plug it back in)
The only (known) safe way to do that.
The other option, if you have a box on a high-speed connection, is carry around a copy of Putty and Remote Desktop Connection OR VNC (based on wether server is running XP Home or Pro) (for non-XP machines; apps exist for Mac and Linux clients) and remotely log into a desktop/server/workstation you have set up elsewhere (I tunnel said connection over SSH via Putty - http://theillustratednetwork.mvps.org/Ssh/RemoteDesktopSSH.html for a tutorial)
I do the above, Putty creates the secure SSH tunnel, then I pipe RDC over a local port (which putty redirects to the server sitting at my house) and I remotely work on that...avoiding the site I'm at getting my traffic, as it's all done on the box at my house, plus I bypass any restrictions on web-browsing (filters at college, etc - PITA when doing a security class, for example)
There are many MANY more options:
1) Make the USB drive bootable and load your own WinPE or *nix portable environment. It's the best option there is, and that's what I do. I get to carry around my OS along with all its apps and settings, besides, its 100% safe. Plus, you could even pre-install your portable OS with firewall/av and other security apps so that your environment will be secure right from boot-up.
2) The problem with the above comes from the fact that you may not always be able to boot from USB on the computer you visit. Some PCs may have disabled the boot from USB option and locked the BIOS. But you can still "boot" from your OS by using virtual machines. I'm talking here about QEMU, an open source virtual machine software. Damn Small Linux, for example, uses QEMU to boot itself from within windows if USB-boot isn't available on the system. You can use the same method for a WinPE based OS.
3) Another option is (assuming you're on a NT based OS), to change or log-on to a limited user account (LUA). When you're on a LUA, programs aren't allowed to inject or modify other programs/data and there are a lot of restrictions. You can try it yourself- create a LUA on XP and try running a file infector virus on your USB drive. It won't work. Of course, that will also prevent the useful software like virus cleaners from working. Again, the workaround for that is to run your trusted apps with admin rights. The easiest way to do it is to use the RunAs command. Alternative to RunAs can be Sysinternal's PsExec, which allows supplying the admin password from the command line. Note that you will need to know the password of an admin account in both cases.
Came across this thread late - but I was actually exposed to file alteration on my USB-stick by a worm.
My idea to get around this problem was to check the inetgrity of the executables, before they are actually run (I don't care much about loss of data, as I backup my stick daily).
Ideally, such an integrity check would be integrated in launchers like Pstart, but this doen't exist yet to my knowledge.
My work-around is posted here (just not to have to retype everything): http://www.portablefreeware.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=204
Cheers
Chris
Always on the move - love all portable apps!
Cant the whole fire wall thing be done by simply locking the device? Most USB stick have a locking switch similar to floppy disks, this way the drive is then only read only.
As U3 does not produce their drives in decent sizes I dumped it in favour of John's PortableApps which I now run off my USD HDD.
Not knowing what you stick your drive into, it might be a good idea to dust off the U3 flash drive and stick that in first and run McAffee antivirus.
If it infects the U3 drive it's not a train smash and if it does not you're reasonable safe.
Before you unplug the U3 drive and plug in you portable apps drive, it might be a good idea to install a firewall on the host machine which you can disable after you unplug.
Does this sound like a reasonable approach?
Regards
Paul
Anything on your portable device, U3 or not, will get infected when you first run it... possibly on insertion depending on the virus. It doesn't matter whether you have an antivirus program on the drive or not. That's why, no matter what type of portable software you're running, you should practice safe portable app-ing:
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/safe_portable_app-ing/
You can get some added protection by using an antivirus program running from your portable device. That's why Portable Clamin is available here:
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/antivirus/portable_clamwin
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
One of your suggestions is to always scan the portable device after it's been in an unknown PC and before you run any apps off it. Many of us have set up our USB drives to autorun PStart or other programs which makes a scan first hard to do.
I believe that encrypting, even not a quickest way to work, is presently the only solution; when I will have some time available I should have a try with something like "tiny firewall" if it work on a usb hard drive.
Presently I'm using Yadabyte for encryption of my files (it's free and the download site was already mentioned somewhere in the forum, I cannot remember which site) but it's working easy and fast.
Presently for security I suggest Yadabyte (yadabyte.org) and for safety the only (slow) "firewall" is torpark that can be speed up some by using fasterfox plugins.
there actually is a software called PRIVATE DISK by DEKART. it basically creates virtual disks and then encrypts them. this software includes a real FIREWALL that filters all traffic between the virtually mounted disks and your PC. it is real effective!
so yes, a firewall for usb stick does exist in a way.
all you have to do is install the software on your PC and copy the software on your stick and then create a virtual encrypted disk on the same usb stick. on that disk you can install all your portable apps which will be totally protected.
c ya.
Is'nt that like what TrueCrypt does? I hear "Admin rights needed".
From http://www.dekart.com/howto/howto_disk_encryption/encrypt_flash_drive_cd_dvd/ When I connect my encrypted USB drive to a different computer, this error occurs, what is wrong? An error occurred while loading pdapi.dll Error code: 0000045A A dynamic link library DLL initiation routine failed One driver that allows the program to transparently mount the encrypted image to a new drive letter cannot be loaded. This driver is very important, as it enables any application to use on-the-fly 256-bit AES encryption. To solve the problem, follow these steps: 1. Go to My Computer\Properties\Hardware\Device Manager 2. Press View\Show hidden devices 3. Find Non-plug and play drivers in the list 4. Look for PDRJNDL, PRVDISK and PDFILTER 5. In each case, go to the Driver tab, and set the Type to System Click OK, that's it. These actions will modify several values in the system registry. The same effect can be achieved by downloading and executing this reg-file~Lurk~
~Lurk~
yeah, TrueCrypt is a really great open source app but i don't think it has a FIREWALL option built into it like Private Disk has.
the only thing is that you have to configure access manually, which takes up some time. but you only have to do it once and it is really worth it if you need that type of security.
once you have configured this thing NOTHING will get in!
jj
I was talking about mounting virtual drives/volumes, not TC being a firewall!
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
i hear ya man...but see, this topic is about finding a portable firewall for a usb drive.
anyway, here are 2: isafer and firewallpapi.
suerte
You miss my point. No big deal, I'm dropping it.
Here are the links for the programs mentioned.
http://winsockfirewall.sourceforge.net/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/firewallpapi/
~Lurk~
~Lurk~
GhostWall 1.150 Portable:
[Link deleted by Moderator RM: Self-promotion is not allowed, with the exception of Open Source programs. Yours is not open source]
N'joy
sorry
here it is ...
[Link removed by Moderator RM: Read comment below]
The source for Ghostwall isn't included.
----
Ryan McCue
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