I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
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I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#2Does this actually prevent forensics from finding any data?
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#3How does it differentiate between licked fingers and sweaty hands?
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#4I don't think this is a good way to initiate the destruction.
Washing hands, sweating, condensation from beverages, etc. could easily trigger this.
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#5Does this actually prevent forensics from finding any data?
Not at all.
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#6I don't think this is a good way to initiate the destruction. Washing hands, sweating, condensation from beverages, etc. could easily trigger this.
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Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#7I don't think this is a good way to initiate the destruction. Washing hands, sweating, condensation from beverages, etc. could easily trigger this.
But you want to trigger it, to keep the data safe. Though if the adversary has sweaty fingers they also get your data.
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#8I don't like how it's engineered: the uC is completely overkill as the high voltage could be generated by a single transistor switcher that charges a capacitor, not unlike those "Joule thief" circuits used to light higher voltage leds with small batteries. The mosfet would then just switch that voltage, which could well be tens of volts or more. However, the working principle assumes the user's skin would be normally high, which is not the case if he/she is sweating since sweat would lower the skin resistance even more so because of sweat higher sodium content.
Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#9Re: I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive Part 2
#10Does this actually prevent forensics from finding any data?
Depends on your adversary. To the normal user who plugs it in it will appear dead, and the average data-restore lab might desolder the flash chip, figure out that it's dead and give up.
But I'd expect this to just burn out the flash chip's control logic, the stored data itself should stay intact. Someone determined enough could decap the chip and surgically wire in replacements for any burned-out parts.
I think it's a good balance if you have a believable excuse why you're carrying a dead USB stick, and aren't on the list of public enemies. It's a lot simpler than trying to melt the flash with thermite or something like that. But I wonder if there would be a reasonable way to run an erase cycle first.