Password Protection on Mass Storage MP3 Player??

[032broberle]

hey, i have an Archos 404 30GB Mass Storage Media Player.

I usually take files into my school that the admin aparently doesnt like (Res hacker to unblock his stupid admin blocks.)

and last time he deleted 11GB's of stuff off my mp3, most of that was music and videos. obviously as you can imagine i was extreemly p*ssed off. and i was just wondering if there is anyway i can put a password on my device (so that each time i plug it into a pc it asks for a code) so i can keep the admin off my mp3?

my mp3 is a simple plug in and play device (just like a mutated memory stick) so im wondering if it would run of memory stick password programs, but im not sure if that would actually lock the media off the mp3 so i cant use it as an mp3 player? ive found one or two freeware programs that i havent got round to downloading because theyre rather big.

thanks in advance.

[guinness]

Using Truecrypt would only be useful for hiding your documents, but to this for you MP3 would of course render your MP3 useless. Perhaps http://www.gaijin.at/dlusbwp.php might be of use but then again this wouldn't really help. Your best bet is to buy a cheap USB Pen Drive!! And keep your MP3 player separate.

[Local]

Truecrypt is probably your best bet for this 100%.
A nice simple way that might seem stupid is try not to piss off your admin.

I usually take files into my school that the admin aparently doesnt like (Res hacker to unblock his stupid admin blocks.)

With an attitude like that I'd probably delete all of your files too.

Btw, even if you encrypt all of your files someone would still be able to wipe the entire drive.
Only foolproof way I can think of is not letting your Mp3 player out of your sight

[032broberle]

the only reason i unlock the programs he locks is because he locks pointless programs like windows media player... just so we cant listen to music. hes continusly childish by trying to prove brilliance. he sucks.

[Local]

I'm gonna pretend you're in the right because I don't want to cause any shit and frankly I don't care.

The problem of locking all of your files from someone deleting them and still playing your music is gonna be really difficult if not impossible.

If you don't screw with someone who, to be honest, is in charge of the PC you are using no matter how much of an arsehole, chances are they won't screw with you.
If you want to play music drop xmplay on your box, there are ways around most things without resorting to cracking into a system.

[Queue]

I can't imagine your MP3 player has a read-only switch. Honestly, I wish all flash memory dealies had one because the one on my flash drive saves me from tons of headaches.

Anyhow, what I was thinking, is if you are or knew some some electronic guru, you might be able to add a read-only switch. Heh, a longshot, but I bet someone out there could do it.

Queue

[Local]

That's a really good idea Queue, I don't suppose you know how a physical switch works on a flash drive do you?

It'd be a great experiment to try

[NMC]

This caught my attention so I had a look around and came up with this....
http://www.digitalintelligence.com/products/ultrablock/
I think this does what you require but not very practical.......

[Queue]

Wow, that's a pretty neat device.

Anyhow, no, I couldn't tell you exactly how a read-only switch operates. In fact, I can imagine the switches don't necessarily have to work in identical ways per flash drive model, though I suspect it simply changes a setting for the memory handling chip allowing or disallowing data writes.

I was worried that read-only switches were being phased out, but I noticed some high-cost high-capacity flash drives still have them (like in the 64 GB range). I recall back, say, 4 years ago, when flash drives were migrating from USB 1.x to USB 2.0, when 256 MB drives had them standard.

I'm unfortunately just a software guy though; we need an electronics tech to clue us in on exactly how complex (or not) a read-only switch is.

Queue