Archive for August, 2008

Kanguru Bio Drive 2 gb biometric drive

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Summary - it sucks.  The fingerprint scanner can only recognize the finger swipes maybe 1 out of 5 times.  I’ve often needed to resort to a regular password.  Also, the fingerprint software seems to have a bug in that the scan is interlaced with blank bars - the problem seems to be independent of computer or operating system version.Discussion - the kanguru fingerprint scanning usb memory stick is a device that restricts access to the usb memory contents by using the built-in finger scanner to scan your fingerprint as you swipe your finger across it.  An incorrect fingerprint will be greeted with an access denied error.   If for some reason it doesn’t recognize your fingerprint (which happens a lot), you can alternatively key in a previously set password. The software appears to work without crashing, and does not need admin access to install.  However, the interface appears to use some seriously god awful colour combinations - this is usually evident when the software has been produced by an inexperienced junior programmer or by some asian software house (sorry man - I know I’m bashing my own race… But I can’t understand why asian programmers have a really bad eye for design…  )

Using the device is quite straightforward.   Upon inserting the device into the usb , the computer mounts 2 drives, one is a virtual cd drive (which contains the fingerprint software, and the other one is the usb storage (which shows up with no files).  To access the encrypted portion, you have to click into the virtual cd drive and start the fingerprint access software.   Note, it is required to insert the usb key and run the fingerprint software in order to access this key, which means that mac os x and linux users will not be able to use thise device.  A cd of the fingerprint software is included.

Things I still need to investigate:   Verify that it has aes encryption.   My guess is that it does not.

Speed tests needed.

Because of the thicker dimensions of the device may impede or prevent other usb devices

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