document updated 16 years ago, on Feb 4, 2008
Implementations
- USB tokens — much like key-fob crypto-tokens, but with a computer-readable interface, w00t
- how inexpensive/easy-to-use are they for private use? (ACTUALLY... in some forums, some people are talking about receiving them from their banks, and then figuring out how to hack/extract the key, so that they can use it for BOTH their personal use, as well as the bank's use... presumably this is a cheap way to acquire one? (Although any key that's "given away" in a mass-market fashion like that, is likely to be relatively inexpensive to start with))
- examples
- USB flash drives with integrated crypto-tokens (otherwise, you're carrying around TWO USB-key-looking thingies)
- flash drives that internally encrypt everything, and require a password to access:
- Software that does on-the-fly transparent encryption/decryption of a partition (or flat-file)
- less secure hack#1: put the private key on a separate partition on the USB key... at least that way if you plug the USB key into someone's computer that has a background-file-snarfing script running, it's less likely that the private key gets snarfed
Other notes
USB token prices