IronKey 4 GB Secure Hardware-Encrypted USB 2.0 Flash Drive D20402A
by Ironkey
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of IronKey 4 GB Secure Hardware-Encrypted USB 2.0 Flash Drive D20402A
Customer Review: Not worth the cash
Summary: 3 Stars
Without going into a long drawn out review, I'll just say that in hindsight I wish I had bought a cheaper drive, This drive seems to have issues needing software repairs and or drive reformatting. The kicker though is that the more I've learned about other drives, I've decided I could do all I wanted with a lot less cash. It may be right for some, just not me.Customer Review: Waste of money
Summary: 3 Stars
If your main concern is whether or not you can submerge your flash drive in water or not, then this is the USB drive for you. If your concern is security only, then you can do the same thing for under $40. Check out this article here: http://www.bauer-power.net/2007/11/seriouslywhy-pay-more.htmlCustomer Review: Great for protecting data from your little brother
Summary: 2 Stars
First of all, this is a slick product. It is very easy to use, and if you have low grade security needs I would highly recommend it.
Now, how secure is it actually? It's much toted self destruct feature basically allow you to choose very bad passwords, and still get away with it. So if you want to use your middle name, feel free, the chance of guessing that in ten tries is fairly low.
Now, other than allowing you to get away with choosing bad passwords, does this actually buy you any improvement over say truecrypt or some other software solution? No, and I would trust it even less than a software solution that had source code available.
I find it telling that Ironkey's solution for providing Linux support was to create only a *binary* executable. Basically, they do not provide any substantial public documentation on how the product actually works at a level that would allow you to verify that the basic operation is secure. Have they done stupid mistakes in the implementation of sending the password to the device? Beats me, and they aren't providing the information to check this. I would recommend reading through the faq and notice how many of the answers to "is this secure" type questions are basically, trust us. Note that if you have firmware version 1.3, it has received FIPS-140-2 Level 2 validation, so there is that assurance that a third party looked at one version of it, but I trust this far less than if anyone could check the security.
How about the self destruct feature? FIPS-140-2 Level 4 (a higher level than was achieved by Ironkey) requires that the critical security parameters (such as keys and such) are zeroed. I actually haven't figured out if the thing really self-destructs or just zeros out the keys. If it really does become inoperable, then that seems excessive and more like security theater than actual security.
Basically, this comes down to do you trust Ironkey? If I turn up my paranoia level, I can envision creating the Ironkey company solely to steal secrets from other companies. Think about it, Ironkey is running *their* code with access to *your* data (possibly even on the crypto chip that is protected inside the device), and if you use their internet tools, they even have access to information that you want to keep secret, and an encrypted connection to the internet. Ironkey probably is not doing this, but ask yourself, how important is protecting your data?
Customer Review: Great idea, spotty execution
Summary: 2 Stars
I tried two 4 Gb IronKeys in a row, the second as an RMA replacement for the first. They did not work consistently, and when they failed, they required a low-level format to recover, which wipes all of the stored data. IronKey claimed "environmental" issues with the PCs I used, all of them, across multiple XP and Vista installations on several brands of workstations and notebooks. Not likely. I think this will be a great product if they work out the problems - that I'd guess are due to the USB power consumption based on the forum sleuthing I did. For now, though, I got my money back and will wait until these issues are resolved.Customer Review: Don't Waste Your Money
Summary: 1 Stars
if your main concern is the security of your usb drive's files, then the ironkey should satisfy your needs. however, if anonymous internet browsing via the secure sessions feature is what you are mainly after (as i was), forget this product and look elsewhere. secure sessions is extremely buggy and, more often than not, it stops working after 5-10 minutes. when it stops working, the "fix" supplied by ironkey involves:
first, closing firefox, then, disabling secure sessions through the ironkey control panel, then, deleting certain hidden files on the drive, then, locking the drive, then, unlocking the drive (which requires re-entering your password), then, re-enabling secure sessions through the ironkey control panel, and, finally, re-starting firefox.
this tedious 5-10 minute process will usually get you about another 5-10 minutes of secure browsing before secure sessions stops working again. after going through this numerous times, i just gave up and stopped using secure sessions all together. it is too unstable and unpredictable.
to be fair, there were occasionally days in which secure sessions worked for many hours without a hitch, but these days were the rare exception rather than the rule. furthermore, ironkey support was totally useless in remedying this problem. they are aware of the problem, but, aside from the laborious fix described above, they were -- and still are (after 6+ months and two updates) -- dumbfounded by it.
i was extremely disappointed with this product and, in hindsight, wish i'd saved the $$$ and just bought a subscription, for far less money, to any one of the numerous other available proxy services (that work!).