You are here

Setting up Toucan to encrypt entire USB

7 posts / 0 new
Last post
brewmanc
Offline
Last seen: 16 years 5 months ago
Joined: 2008-03-18 11:04
Setting up Toucan to encrypt entire USB

How does one set up Portable Apps/Toucan so that the only thing visible upon insertion of the USB disk is Toucan; which can then open up firefox, thunderbird, files, etc.? Does this make sense? I'm trying to keep everything confidential including apps.
Thanks

Steve Lamerton
Steve Lamerton's picture
Offline
Last seen: 11 years 3 weeks ago
Developer
Joined: 2005-12-10 15:22
For

this you require a program that does full disk encryption, such as Truecrypt. Please note however Truecrypt needs admin rights.

brewmanc
Offline
Last seen: 16 years 5 months ago
Joined: 2008-03-18 11:04
Public/Private folders

Thanks for the response (and all the others on other posts). I understand about TC. I found another program, I believe BestCrypt from the makers of the Jetico firewall, which apparently doesn't need admin rights but it's expensive, about $120. What I'm trying to do is have a public folder with a text file for return information and then have everything else (apps, documents) in a secure folder. Clearly IronKey USB flash drives have figured this out. I'm surprised there aren't more solutions.

In any case, if I had a public folder with the text file and Toucan, could Toucan encrypt the private folder that would have the Portable Apps menu along with apps and documents?

Sorry if I wasn't clearer earlier.

Regards,
Brewster

Aciago
Aciago's picture
Offline
Last seen: 12 months 4 hours ago
Joined: 2007-01-24 14:23
.

IronKey uses hardware to protect the thumbdrive.

There is no such thing as an encryption app that doesn't use admin right because it needs to mount a virtual drive and windows needs admin rights to do it...

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

mmcdougall
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 9 months ago
Joined: 2007-07-20 16:42
So how does U3 work then?

Sorry to resurrect a conversation that's apparently over, but assuming that's true (and I've no reason to doubt that it is), how does U3 implement it's security?

I've been using one, mostly for storing personal info on, and I like the password-controlled access, but I don't see how the data stored on the U3 could be encrypted, since decrypting a bunch of stuff would take a certain amount of time. Once the password is accepted, everything's available immediately. So, as far as I can see U3 doesn't encrypt stuff, it just controlls access to it. Any idea how? Is it hardware-based?

Hmmm. Could software be written that emulates the security implemented by U3?

Aciago
Aciago's picture
Offline
Last seen: 12 months 4 hours ago
Joined: 2007-01-24 14:23
U3

No, AFAIK U3 does not encrypt anything, just control access to the thumb drive.

How? the answer is for all over this forum and Google... Wink

U3 drives have two partitions, one that emulates a CD drive (the one with the menu), and one that is a regular thumb drive. When you insert your U3 device the CD part starts, call for a password and then mount the thumb drive part.

How they do it? I think that if this information were publicly available Sandisk will loose their market share... Wink That's way U3 can be installed on Sandisk U3 thumb drives only, you can remove it, but you can't install it in a different thumb drive.

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report Biggrin

Jimbo
Offline
Last seen: 4 years 8 months ago
Joined: 2007-12-17 05:43
Hardware.

Essentially, with U3, the flash controller is a special one that first of all presents a "USB CD Drive" to the PC when it is plugged in. This has an auto-run app on it that prompts you for the password, and sends it over the USB port to the flash controller. If this password is correct, the Flash controller then tells the PC that it has a mass storage drive attached as well.

Unfortunately, depending on the version of the U3 hardware, some of them do NOT encrypt the flash drive, and can be fooled by other apps into making the data available. Apparently current ones are better.... Personally I use TrueCrypt on my Sandisk U3 drive.

Log in or register to post comments