Drive encrytion

[Smudge1977]

We as a company are thinking of rolling out USB pen drives to a number of our field staff. I want the data on these to be sure so as if they drop them etc. nobody can access the data contained on them.
Also however they will want to use them to transfer data bettween them and a client while on site.
Any thought please folks.
My best idea is to format them NTFS and not allow the users to create anything in the root.
Have two directories one called safe and one called open and set the ACL acordingally - however this means that if the clients machine does not have NT, XP, or 2000 they will not be able to seee the drive at all.

Any other ideas?

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi,

The NTFS format cannot be used on removable storage, because the SIDs that are used to match up with usernames and access rights are stored on local machines (or in a networked environment, the domain controllers).

If you created a removable storage item and put it in a different machine, which will have a different SID, you will get access rights denied errors even if usernames match.
This is the same reason that floppy disks and CD-RW disks cannot be created with the NTFS format.
My Disgo is FAT formatted and can be used without drivers on Win2K/XP/Linux kernel 2.4 or later or MacOS 8.6 or later. Win98 can use it, but it needs an extra driver installed on the PC (which is supplied). Not sure about Windows ME though.

It does have a program though called KeySafe which lets you set up a secure password protected area, but you need the keysafe software to be installed on the computer to use it. It will be gibberish to machines that don't have it installed.

Transferring data to/from it is no problem - you just use Windows explorer to copy files to and from it or other file management tasks, and when finished, click the stop icon in the system tray and unplug the device, then put the cover back on.

John