[lagerstarfish]

Got a memory stick to move data between home and work and between work computers (shite network means that this is often the quickest way).

Has anyone got any advice/experience on protecting data stored on a USB memory stick? Ideally without spending any money.

Preferably not dependent on a particular program being needed on the host PC to access the data as I will struggle to do this at work - fine to do this at home.

While we're at it I'm interested in any cool and fun recommendations of other stuff to put on the thing - portable apps and that. Loads of spare space on it as it's got capacity for 16,000,000,000 bytes

Ta

[slackline]

What USB stick is it?

Best bet for protecting them is to get one that comes with built in security software.  I've a 4Gb Sandisk Cruzer (thats been through the washing machine!!!) that has built in software that password protects the contents.  I've not tried it out, but have a strong suspicion that this security will only be applicable when its plugged into M$-windoze computers that actually recognize the software, my GNU/Linux computers don't recognise it so I'd imagine I can mount and get at the content regardless.

This article may be of some use as it describes using software to encrypt data on the USB drive.  I've no experience of it and there are likely other alternatives available too, but worth investigating.

PortableApps is the one thing I'd recommend for it, with that size you can get lots of apps on it.

[Palomides]

I can recommend TrueCrypt. Free, open-source, and reliable.

The truecrypt application can be stuck into a folder on the key itself and run from there on a windows box, it doesn't need to be installed to work.

Then you can have a nice big encrypted volume on the stick that you can mount and use like an extra drive on windows (edit: if the stick is formtted as FAT32, you can only have a maximum size of 4GB)

If anyone pinches the stick, then they only have a big file of apparently random bytes.

I'd be wary of built-in software/hardware solutions, some of them have been shown to be a little less than secure.

Just don't write the password/passphrase on the outside of the stick and then you can be like MI6 and leave your senstive data on buses everywhere without a care!

[lagerstarfish]

What USB stick is it?

  I've a 4Gb Sandisk Cruzer

Same same, but 16Gb. Not investigated the stuff on it yet.

The truecrypt application can be stuck into a folder on the key itself and run from there on a windows box, it doesn't need to be installed to work.

Didn't realise this from my brief research. Thanks

Just don't write the password/passphrase on the outside of the stick

How else am I supposed to remember it? 

[slackline]

I can recommend TrueCrypt. Free, open-source, and reliable.

Nice find, didn't know about that (probably 'cause I've never bothered looking for anything like that, but duly bookmarked, cheers  )

[lagerstarfish]

I've used the built in u3 system to password protect the whole stick.

I've also put TrueCrypt on to encrypt any important/sensitive data I might carry - nice and easy to use.

So far I've put on Firefox, WinAmp and OpenOffice along with a shed load of music and family pics.