Hi,
I appear to have mislaid my 1GB Drive, which has a typical PortableApps and U3 installation on it and perhaps a few additional apps, like Skype, FileZilla, Komposer, Putty.
I am wondering what passwords are typically stored on the USB, in anticipation of what passwords I need to go ahead and change. So far I have changed passwords for Mozilla Plugins like del.icio.us and I have already changed my email account passwords.
What other passwords will Mozilla Store on the USB?
I would like some info about typical private data which may be stored on the drive, I have some documents, mostly my university assignments on the drive. In the future, what can I do to ensure that my USB is protected from theft and common stupidity like losing it?
I recently took a full backup of the drive, so any advice about how I can check my backup to find out exactly what private data is "Out There" on my USB will we useful and set my mind at rest.
Thanks
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Depends on what passwords you have told FF/TB to store.
Checking tha backup is probably the best thing to do.
“I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Any firefox saved passwords or gaim, filezilla etc.
To open your backup, extract it with 7zip portable or just 7zip.
If you stored your passwords within Firefox using a master password and it's a current version of Firefox, you're ok as there are no know flaws with this. Passwords within Gaim/Pidgin are stored as plain text so you should change your IM passwords. Anything you stored in KeePass is safe. PuTTY doesn't store passwords by default and warns you not to unless you're running it securely, so if you stored them, they're in the clear, too and should be changed.
There are several USB flash drives that use real encryption on them. Things like the Kingston Secure. If a vendor says things like 'password lock' or 'encrypted password' without telling you how the encryption works or that the whole drive is encrypted with AES 256 bit encryption, it's marketing speak and is insecure... so you should look elsewhere.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
OK, its all Unzipped now and totals about 560MB
Where exactly should I be looking to find out which passwords I have told firefox to save. btb - I don't think I used a master password of FF. but I am running a very recent version, FF 2.0.0.4 in fact I am using the unzipped one to write this.
So how and where do I check to see which accounts FF is storing info for?
Actually in some instances I use quite a simple password for less important accounts, lets just call it XXX for now. Is there any way to search through the entire unzipped USB to search for that string?
Security is clearly going to become "highly regarded" as USB continue grow in size.
Thank you (all) for all your assistance, it is very much appreciated.
Geek to Live: Secure your saved passwords in Firefox. It's meant as a tutorial on using the Master Password, but it also shows you how to find your saved passwords, mostly as a demo on how easy it is if you know how.
As far as protecting yourself, I'd suggest using TrueCrypt to encrypt the entire device, or making a large container file and storing everything in that. Granted you have to have admin rights on any computer you want to use it on to mount the TC volume, but you'll have peace of mind that if you lose it, no one will ever know what you even had on it.
I recently made the switch on mine. I left 50 MB free out of 2 GB. The only thing I have in the 50 MB is TrueCrypt + an autorun launcher I wrote, CCleanerPortable (to clean up on public PCs), and a few files for work that I want to get at easily but do not contain any sensitive info. If I wanna use anything else, then I mount the TC volume and have all my apps.
If it's ever lost, no one can get anything out of it, except a kick ass flash drive