>> AUTOTHYSIS128 - SSD THAT CAN BE REMOTELY ZAPPED

"your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it" quote from: Mission Impossible (TV Series)

From what seems straight out of TV shows like Mission Impossible a UK company has just announced the Autothysis128 - a solid state drive (SSD) that has built in AES256 encryption with the added bonus of a remote kill switch that can be initiated in a number of ways. The company labels it with "physical data destruction.. on demand!", but it is sold for a hefty price!

The product page lists the following triggers (configurable) to zap the drive:

• SMS kill message (user defined)
• starvation of GSM signal
• anti-tamper detection
• tap-to-destroy
• low battery level
• removal of drive from PC
• PIN code attempts exceeded

At least the SMS kill message is user defined and not be triggered by any SMS. You definitely have to be careful which options you set; especially the GSM signal starvation or low battery level which could occur at any time and out of your control and environment dependent.

The company also distributes a Master Kill Switch that can destroy data on multiple computers within three seconds - removing the need to physically destroy them which can take time in "hostile" situations like if your a terrorist organization that just got busted.

Securing your information is something - but zapping it from existence?

Data tends to be valuable to the person who owns it - a device like this would only make sense if the information is synchronized to a secondary location so that it isn't lost for eternity. One can understand not leaving a trace or even possibility to recover data - but destroying the only copy only makes sense if you want to take the information with you to the grave.

While one can question how paranoid someone has to be to own this - it is interesting to see two different forms of technology be merged together to create another that makes it connected directly to a secondary network.

It would be interesting to see if the micro-controller could be reprogrammed to install spy-software or even report the location of the device to a central server - but at 1,027 GBP (1,663 USD), I wouldn't expect anyone to buy one to see what they could do with it.