How to protect your USB-key?

[Michael Jack]

[I shure don't hope you'll find this sucject too 'small', it was a
really unpleasant experience.]

I just lost my keychain, with house keys and USB-key. On the USB-key
was files that describe who I am, what I do and where I live: all the
things you need to break into my house and ruin my life.

That must never happen again.

My best idea is to put a ReadMe with the contact email (not more), in
case it gets lost, and then use an encrypted volume. But can I be sure
to open the volume everywhere? What format is best?

Along those lines: is PDF password protection the same in Acrobat
Reader, FoxIt, Preview etc I have removed password from PDF files (just
because they annoyed me).

[VanguardLH]

Post by Michael Jack
[I shure don't hope you'll find this sucject too 'small', it was a
really unpleasant experience.]
I just lost my keychain, with house keys and USB-key. On the USB-key
was files that describe who I am, what I do and where I live: all the
things you need to break into my house and ruin my life.
That must never happen again.
My best idea is to put a ReadMe with the contact email (not more), in
case it gets lost, and then use an encrypted volume. But can I be sure
to open the volume everywhere? What format is best?

TrueCrypt is portable. That is, you can put both the program and the
encrypted container on the same key. As long as the host where you plug
in the USB drive lets you run programs from a USB drive then you can run
TrueCrypt to then open the encrypted container. BestCrypt (their
Traveller version is free) is another choice for a portable encryption
app.

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/truecrypt-portable
http://www.jetico.com/products/free-security-tools/bestcrypt-traveller

There are lots of portable encryption tools; see:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=portable USB encryption program

If you are interested only in freeware then ask in the alt.comp.freeware
newsgroup for recommendations.

[Alan J Rosenthal]

Post by Michael Jack
My best idea is to put a ReadMe with the contact email (not more), in
case it gets lost, and then use an encrypted volume. But can I be sure
to open the volume everywhere?

I hope not! Surely the idea is that sometimes, the volume does not
get decrypted?

If you put your USB memory stick into an untrusted computer and then type
your password, maybe there is a keylogger (in software or in hardware)
which records your password.

If you're only going to use it on computers which you have a reason to trust,
likely you can get the necessary software installed on all of those computers.

[William Unruh]

Post by Alan J Rosenthal

Post by Michael Jack
My best idea is to put a ReadMe with the contact email (not more), in
case it gets lost, and then use an encrypted volume. But can I be sure
to open the volume everywhere?

I hope not! Surely the idea is that sometimes, the volume does not
get decrypted?

I think he means "If I have the password can I be sure to open the
volume everywhere". You are making him out to be a idiot.

Post by Alan J Rosenthal
If you put your USB memory stick into an untrusted computer and then type
your password, maybe there is a keylogger (in software or in hardware)
which records your password.

That was not his question. The question was "can I be sure
to open the volume everywhere?" not "Does the volume prevent me from
doing unsafe things?"

Post by Alan J Rosenthal
If you're only going to use it on computers which you have a reason to trust,
likely you can get the necessary software installed on all of those computers.