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New USB Stick has a Self-Destruct Feature

posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 14 2024, @09:01AM   
from the that's-some-hot-data dept.

fliptop writes:

Ovrdrive does not encrypt its contents by default but has a uniquely physical security mechanism and can be rigged to self-destruct - by heating itself to over 100 degrees C:

Through GitHub and Crowd Supply, Ryan Walker of Interrupt Labs (via CNX Software) is releasing a security-focused, open-source USB flash drive called Ovrdrive USB, which boasts a self-destruct mechanism that heats the flash chip to over 100 degrees Celsius.

The Ovrdrive USB is unencrypted by default, so it should still be legal in countries where encryption is otherwise illegal while providing an extra degree of (physical) security not matched by our current best flash drives.

First, the Ovrdrive USB design functions pretty simply. It's mostly a run-of-the-mill USB flash drive with a unique activation mechanism. For it to be detected by your machine, you have to rapidly insert the drive three consecutive times actually to turn it on. Failure to do so will hide the drive's partition and give the impression that it's broken. Initially, it was supposed to self-destruct, but it proved too challenging to mass produce, forcing Walker to change the drive.

[...] In its crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply, the flash drive is slated for an August 2024 release and priced at $69 with free US domestic shipping or $12 international shipping for the rest of the world. At the original time of writing, the flash drive has reached 70% of its funding, with two days remaining on the funding deadline.

Related: Report Reveals Decline In Quality Of USB Sticks And MicroSD Cards

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Original Submission

• Two decades ago...Two decades ago... (Score: 4, Funny) by mcgrew on Wednesday February 14 2024, @03:48PM (1 child)

  by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday February 14 2024, @03:48PM (#1344417) Homepage Journal

  There was a very similar thread on slashdot about exploding semiconductors, most likely for use in top secret military aircraft. This is from the Springfield Fragfest at the time, from the book Random Scribblings:

  McCoy: He's dead, Jim

  Several years ago, before PCs were not nearly as common in the home as they are now, a friend of mine asked of my computer, "but aren't you afraid it will explode?"

  He was a Star Trek fan, and in the old 1950s and 1960s science fiction and spy shows, computers all had a nasty habit of blowing up. All one had to do to these TV or movie computers to make them explode was shoot them, with either a ray gun or a police revolver. Some TV and movie computers would blow up if you pressed the wrong button; one episode of the 1960s TV show The Prisoner ("I am not a number! I am a free man!") had a computer that could answer any question. The bad guys, who had imprisoned the hero, a spy who had resigned his post, wanted to know why he resigned. Of course, before the bad guys could ask the computer "Why did number six resign his post?" the intrepid number six offered that he had a question the computer could not answer.

  He typed in to the Remington electric typewriter and fed the paper into the computer, which, of course, promptly started smoking, sparking, and ultimately blew up. The question was simply "why?"

  Similarly, in an episode of Star Trek, Spock makes a computer explode by asking it to figure the value of pi to the last decimal place. Of course, any time a Star Trek computer was fired on, whether by a Klingon or Federation phaser, and no matter what civilization designed and built the computer, it would explode in a grand display of fireworks.

  I had to explain to my friend that this was all nonsense, that early computers from the early 1950s used thousands of vacuum tubes, requiring high voltages, which could throw showers of sparks and bright purple flashes with the characteristic pop! if there was a short circuit in its 120-240 volt circuitry but would not actually explode, and that modern computers ran on three to twelve volts and wouldn't even get a spark from a short.

  I had to explain to my friend that the only explosions were in my games; that the computer itself here in the analog world was safe.

  Along with the matter transporter and faster than light travel, the exploding computer was one of those things relegated to science fiction.

  Until now.

  New Scientist reports that they have found a way to make silicon explode on demand, either by shock, as with that .38 caliber police special or by electrical signal.

  "This machine is stolen and will self-destruct in ten seconds."

  New Scientist says "For instance, the American spy plane impounded by China last year could have used it to destroy its secret electronics systems."

  They add "In a stolen mobile phone, the network would send a trigger signal to the part of the chip containing the gadolinium nitrate detonator, triggering the explosion... and detonate it at will."

  So not only is Star Trek's computer to blow up, its communicators will too! I can see in five years when these bozos have the anti theft circuits in phones. Drop your phone now and it might break. Drop it in five years and it might take your leg off!

  Of course, the new viruses in ten years will not just reformat your hard drive; the kids will be writing viruses to make people's computers explode in their homes!

  Don'cha just love science... Personally, I'm hoping someone with a little common sense will have a talk with these educated morons and explain that just maybe, exploding computers ain't such a good idea after all. Just maybe the US Government might be more concerned with bringing its spy plane crew home alive than exploding its electronics; they could have blown the plane up with conventional explosives, or even driven the thing into the ground, but they didn't.

  When my cell phone explodes the manufacturer better hope it takes my head off, because if it doesn't I'm suing the shit out of the morons!

  Beam me up, Scotty.
  1/18/2002

  --
  Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader

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• Re:Two decades ago...(Score: 3, Interesting) by cereal_burpist on Thursday February 15 2024, @10:40AM

  by cereal_burpist (35552) on Thursday February 15 2024, @10:40AM (#1344586)

  Hackers Can Turn Your Home Computer into a BOMB! [acm.org]
  
  https://www.theregister.com/2000/07/04/hackers_can_make_your_pc/ [theregister.com]

  Register historic factoid: Reader Dale Hubbard claims that back in 1980 you could make a Sharp MZ80K smoke, "and sometimes even flame. This was accomplished by writing a program in assembler that would activate/deactivate the cassette relay switch in a very swift toggle motion. The resultant friction could certainly warm up the relay." Thank you, Dale. A well misspent youth.

  Parent