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Safer Stick: Biometric Flash Disk
By ,
1. Introduction

Once again, you find yourself haplessly combing your pockets, briefcase or anywhere else you think you may have left your USB flash drive. Indeed, losing a device that only weighs a few ounces and is just a few inches long is easy. Worse yet, your flash drive may find itself in the wrong hands of someone who intends to make ill use of your data. While Plexuscom's Biometric Flash Disk device is just as easily lost or stolen as the next flash drive, access is controlled by a fingerprint scanner to make sure the device is not in the wrong hands.

2. Scope Of Supply

Plexuscom's package includes its Biometric Flash Disk (ours had a storage capacity of 128 MB), an installation CD, a bag and USB cable.

The USB cable weighing 34 grams is 15 grams heavier than the Biometric Flash Disk itself.

Technology: Interface Specs And Total Storage Capacity

The Biometric Flash Drive is a USB flash drive that comes with the interface specification USB 1.1 and 128 MB of storage capacity. It uses NAND-memory (Not AND), which is superior in quality compared to the NOR-technology. This way, a memory size up to 4 GB is possible.

3. In Practice: Installation

Windows immediately identifies the Biometric Flash Disk as a mass memory medium after you hook it up to a free USB port. The installation under Windows ME/2000/XP is carried out automatically within seconds. You can open the removable drive through the Explorer. Within the Explorer you click "run.exe". No worries about the file name, although it doesn't raise much faith; it belongs to the Biometric Flash Disk.

First, you type in the serial number. Immediately after that you are asked to choose the finger you want to be scanned and to press it onto the scanning area. The scanning procedure takes a while, so that different scan versions can be stored. "Fingerprint OK" ends the procedure.

It would also seem wise to select the "Enable Rescue Password" option, which lets you type in an additional password. If, for instance, a device read fault occurs, or if your scanned finger is injured or otherwise incapacitated, you will still be able to get to your stored data through the additional password. Be sure to think of a complex password - do not use standard passwords that can be determined either through a lucky guess, or a brute force attack. In our test, accessing the Biometric Flash Disk was never a problem. Even a finger that was pressed obliquely onto the scan area was properly scanned.





Upon inserting the flash drive again, the program asks you to scan your finger before it grants access to the data. And every time we hooked it up to a different system, we were granted access in no time. Plexuscom's Biometric Flash Disk was absolutely reliable. The cable that comes with it is about one meter in length, making it possible to scan your finger without having to contort yourself.

4. Actual Storage Capacity

We tested the 128 MB version of the Biometric Flash Disk. The software needed to grant access to your data by using your fingerprint reduces the storage capacity by 8 MB, so that the actual storage space amounts to 120 MB.

Additional security of the data thanks to the write protection
5. Software Features

Another useful function for added security is the screen locking tool. When a PC is left unattended, even for a short period of time, this function prevents other users from accessing your data. This Bio Flash Utility tool can be activated through a button in the task bar and locks the Biometric Flash Disk. In order to deactivate this function, the fingerprint of the user is mandatory.

The function of the Recovery Tool should be self-explanatory as well: If you want to configure the Biometric Flash Disk for a new user, or if you want to clear its memory, you need to type in the serial number which will enable a new scan of a fingerprint.

Without the cap, the flash drive only weighs 15 grams - with the cap on, 19 grams.

6. Test Configuration
Hardware
Processor Intel Pentium 4, 2.0 GHz 256 kB L2 Cache (Willamette)
Motherboard Intel 845EBT
Intel 845E Chipset
BIOS BT84520A.86A.0024.P10
Memory 256 MB DDR/PC2100, CL2.0 Micron/Crucial
Controller i845E UltraDMA/100-Controller (ICH4)
On-Board USB 2.0 (ICH4)
On-Board FireWire
Graphics Card ATI Radeon SDRAM, 32 MB
Network 3COM 905TX PCI 100 MBit
OS Windows XP Pro 5.10.2600 SP1
Benchmarks & Measurements
Performance Measurements ZD WinBench 99 - Disk Inspection Test
Graphics Driver 5.1.2001.0 (Windows XP Standard)
IDE Driver Intel Application Accelerator 2.3
DirectX Version 9.0a
Screen Resolution 1024x768, 16 Bit, 85 Hz refresh

Benchmark Results


The Biometric Flash Disk's data transfer capacity is hampered by USB 1.1, which only offers a 1 MB/s transfer rate. A USB 2.0 interface would thus be better.

Conclusion

The Biometric Flash Disk could read and process fingerprints almost flawlessly. However, in order for it to become a perfect travel companion Plexuscom should equip it with an USB 2.0 port to ensure higher transfer rates up to 480 MBit/s. This way the use of the maximum storage capacity would really make sense. Right now, it takes approximately ten minutes until the available versions with 512 MB of storage capacity are full - this is definitely too much time.

Working and transporting important documents demand a high level of security. It's nice to see that at least one vendor has taken note of this market. Plexuscom's Biometric Flash Disk is also definitely a suitable product, no matter if you think of yourself as the new James Bond at home, or if the secure transportation of important documents is part of your life at work.