[ale] DummyQ: What's needed to use "secure flash" w/Linux?

[johnmills at speakeasy.net (John Mills)]

Zeb -

Thanks for writing.

On Fri, 28 Apr 2006, zeb wrote:

> On Friday 28 April 2006 02:45, John Mills wrote:

> > Do current, off-the shelf "secure" flash-drives (e.g., USB type) work with
> > current versions of Linux? If so, how does one use them? Are the files
> > encrypted, the directories, or what? Or, alternatively, are there Linux
> > drivers that are reasonably transparent to use, that encrypt directories
> > and/or files of any disk-like device?

A little of Google's time found me BestCrypt and PPDD. Either of these
work external to the disk and would provide plenty of security. What I
really had in mind was a hand-held installation medium for [say] product
update materials, that could easily be read by a Linux target but would
not be 'casually accessible' if lost or pocketed in the field. Ideal would
be a medium that could also be read and written from M$Win hosts and an 
approach that made it easy to change keys.

> I can't speak to "secure" flash drives.  But I do have a 1 GB PNY that works 
> flawlessly with Slackware 10.2, Windows 98SE, and Windows XP.  My guess is 
> that the encryptation would need to be external to the flash drive, i.e. done 
> by the system.

Going beyond my initial situation (and more in the direction of Mike's ALE 
talk), is there an approach that would somewhat obscure the unit's 
partitioning?

I'm not thinking of industrial-strength security here -- just to 
inconvenience the curious.

Comments?

 - Mills