Always best to scan a USB flash drive before using it.
Did you know Windows Defender could be configured to scan a USB stick automatically the moment it is plugged in? Below are the steps to configure Microsoft Windows to automatically scan a USB drive↓.
Windows Defender is not configured for automatic scanning when the operating system is installed. Not sure why, as malware spreading via USB flash memory is one of the more prolific tech issues of the day. Our only guess is Microsoft giving us free will to make our own decisions, after all, scanning takes time and why not let the user choose when this is done.
This tutorial will take about three minutes to setup. I would suggest read the rest of this article and when done, go back and perform the few steps required to make the Windows Defender scan for USB flash drives.
We are going to make a Group Policy to scan USB flash drives using Windows Defender.
Let us run the Group Policy editor.
Press the Windows Key + R
Type gpedit.msc and press Enter or OK.
Look for the Administrative Templates under the top Computer Configuration directory, expand this directory (folder)
Scroll down to Windows Components, expand it
In that directory scroll down more and look for Windows Defender Antivirus, expand it
Finally, look for the Scan folder and click that folder.
On the right side of the dialogue box you will see additional settings, search for the Scan removable drives and double click that setting
This setting is disabled by default. Please click the radial enable button to enable this setting for your Windows computer.
Click Apply in the bottom right and then click OK.
That is it. Your Windows computer will now automatically scan USB flash drives using Windows Defender.
Alternatively, you can insert a USB stick and right click the drive letter and select Scan with Windows Defender but the problem here, is the USB could have already done it’s virus work before you had a chance to scan for malicious code.
The average user inserts a USB stick into their computer from a trusted source. However, there are companies and situations who receive USB flash drives or USB hard drives and they are not certain if the device is infected.
Globotron is a company based in New Zealand who designed the product. The product is called Armadillo and is an open-source USB firewall.
Some research has shown, as many as 29 different types of USB attacks can happen from plugging in mass storage devices (like USB flash drives and USB hard drives) or also HID devices (human input devices like keyboards and mouse).
The USB stack which is the low level code used in the host computer, is very complex and over time researchers and hackers have discovered ways to compromise a computer system through these vulnerabilities.
The Armadillo is an open-source device which is a firewall between a USB device and computer. The firewall isolates the firmware of the USB device so as not to infect your PC if the device has been infected with malicious firmware. You just need to plug in Armadillo between your computer and the USB device using the provided micro-USB cable. Armadillo is an upgrade over USG, the original or first-generation USB hardware firewall device.
The Armadillo has bot detection. This means if the USB firewall device detects malicious codes are being entered via keyboard or mouse (HID devices) the device will block transmission and a red LED indicator light will turn on.
The Armadillo has the ability to temporarily make your USB read only. This is valuable if the computer is infected and you need pull information (recovery software) from the USB stick and want to insure virus’ do not infect the flash drive. The USB is read-only, but it is read/write when not connected to the Armadillo.
Note: If you need a USB stick that is always write protected at the controller level, yet need to temporarily turn off the write protection for data changes, the Lock License drive from Nexcopy is your solution.
This last point about the Armadillo is a bit strange, but we like it. The body is sealed with glitter epoxy so it is easy to identify if the box itself was tampered with. Very creative!
The last two decades have ushered in an enormous number of electronics. Prices get lower, users upgrade, society reapes the benefits of these advancements. This explosive growth in electronics has led to an escalating burst for EOL (end-of-life) electronics and e-waste. When electronic devices are left in traditional landfills toxic materials can be released into the soil and environment.
With new cheap devices, society has reaped tremendous benefits. This explosive growth in the electronics industry, however, has led to a rapidly escalating issue of end-of-life (EOL) electronics or e-waste. In landfills or primitive recycling operations, toxic materials can be released from old electronic devices into the environment.
E-waste is growing, and with that surge comes the need for effective electronics recycling programs. As of 2018, e-waste is now the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, with an estimated waste stream of 48.5 million tonnes in 2018, valued at 62.5 billion US Dollars.
The amount of e-wast from USB flash drives is unknown from the above statistics, yet it’s not entirely necessary to make flash drives part of the e-waste equation. There are options for recycling USB flash drives.
Option One:
Run antivirus software from a USB flash drive.
If your computer is infected with malware, running an antivirus within Windows may not be enough to remove it. If your computer has a rootkit, the malware may be able to hide itself from the antivirus software. The only proven way to ride your system of a nasty virus would be starting your computer from outside the Windows environment and start the cleaning process from there.
This is where bootable antivirus solutions come in. They can clean malware from outside the infected Windows system, so the malware won’t be running and interfering with the clean-up process. The HowToGeek website did a nice write-up on this topic. If this is a tool you need, don’t e-waste your USB flash drive, rather make a bootable antivirus software stick.
Option Two:
Run Linux from a USB flash drive.
As of 2020 the percentage of Windows computer users is still an impressive 88%. Mac users are 10% and Linux users are the remaining 2%. Have you ever used Linux? It’s actually a fantastic operating system and at least something to play around with if you have spare USB media. Rather than e-cycling your USB stick, you can download a Linux operating system and give it a run. The process is not difficult and (nearly) any non-technical person can download and install Linux on a flash drive.
Slax is a well know Linux package. The instructions for download and installation are straight forward and simple. It is highly recommended to try this version of Linux as your first exposure to the operating system.
Several benefits of running Linux from a USB include trying the operating system without investing money in new hardware, or making changes to your current Windows operating system.
Learning to run Linux from a flash drive will give you an advantage in the event of a computer failure. For example, a computer gets bogged down with a nasty virus and you need to access some files quickly. There is no time for a lengthy cleaning process (scanning a hard drive can take hours). Booting into Linux from a USB stick will give you access to the memory of the hard drive to access the files you need.
Option Three:
Recycle USB drives for a good cause.
“One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure.”
Isn’t that how the saying goes? Said another way, you can donate your USB drives to an organization who can re-purpose those drives and provide them to others in need. Pivoting from option number two, a non-profit organization called SugarLabs.org puts a Linux based operating system on a flash drive. The operating system is a special version of Linux and is designed to teach young kids how computers work. The not for profit organization sends these donated drives all over the world. SugarLabs is based in Boston Massachusetts and founded by Walter Bender a graduate of Harvard and technology researcher from MIT Media Labs.
Part of the SugarLabs process is insuring each USB drive is clean from any personal data or potentially harmful malware. RecycleUSB.com is a website and business which manages the sanitizing and cleaning of the donated USB flash drives before sending to Walter and his team at SugarLabs. The recycle USB website lists the “how to” steps on donating media, contact information for any questions someone might have and sanitizing steps used to clear data from the flash drives. The partnership between RecycleUSB and SugarLabs started back in December of 2009 when flash drives began having the storage capacity to hold a portable operating system (about 2GBs).
After reading the above options for recycling USB flash memory and you find yourself still wanting to e-waste the flash drives, be sure to check your community or city about e-waste programs. In nearly all cities and counties it is not recommended to throw away electronics into the standard garbage service. Be sure to enlist the use of recyclers who are certified through either of the voluntary certification programs that have been established to ensure responsible recycling, including R2/RIOS and e-stewards.
DIY recipes are beloved for many reasons; saving money, saving time and the rewarding task of simply doing it yourself. Today is a post that is clearly off topic from the normal USB hacks and news we typically post about. Today we are talking about making a Starbucks coffee at home. Not the standard black coffee from Starbucks, but the more delicious variety like the vanilla latte.
At the time of this post the Coronavirus is in full swing and many Starbucks shops are closed, or limited hours, or the drive-thru line is too long for the wait. Here is your in-home solution:
The first thing to understand is how sweet Starbucks really makes their drinks. It is well known the calorie intake and carbohydrate count for a vanilla latte is fairly high. This DIY recipe will help you control those intake amounts to help better control the sugar intake your body gets from these sweet-delicious-energy-giving drinks.
We should really give Starbucks serious credit on figuring out the right bit of sugar and caffeine to jump start the heart rate in a legally addictive way.
Starting with a vanilla latte, the true magic of this drink is the full, frothy milk. No requirement for a fancy frother which you see on the Starbucks counter top, but rather a simple $40 (about) milk frother from Amazon will do the trick (Miroco). The Miroco is a fantastic product and truly a life changer for making coffee flavored drinks. Probably the best “appliance” purchase we’ve made since the introduction of the DVR in 1999 (feel free to challenge us on this claim {wink}).
First step is brew your coffee. Use any brand. If you really want the exact taste of a Starbucks version, use their coffee, but honestly they put enough sugar and syrup into these drinks, the coffee brand doesn’t matter all that much.
Once the coffee is brewed, fire up the milk frother.
My neighbor has a Model 3 with a wireless charging station right in the console. I didn’t realize this was an after-market purchase, so wanted to review it here today. The brand my neighbor has is the Taptes generation 2 wireless charging station.
The Gen 2 has some improvements from the previous version. Starting with the basics, this version has a ridge line molded into the center of the charging platform. This allows a user to charge two phones vertically, independently getting their charge, at the same time. The center line ridge doesn’t go all the way to the bottom so if you need to charge your phone while in landscape mode, viewing say Google Maps, you have that capability.
The charging station does have USB-C in the event a passenger has a phone which doesn’t support the wireless charging mode. This would include both Android and Apple phones.
My neighbor has the Model 3, 2019 version, but this version does support the Tesla console for 2017, 18, 19 and 20 year models. The black is the same tone of black as the black interior of the Tesla. As I mentioned before, I didn’t realize this was an after-market product until my neighbor told me so. In my opinion, it didn’t look like an add-on.
The charging pad has anti-slip grip material so the phone doesn’t move around while driving. The wireless signal is strong enough to go through phone cases. However; if you have a magnetic disc or a pop-socket on the back, it might not charge as it’s either too far away from the wireless power signal, or the obstruction doesn’t allow your phone to take the wireless charge signal. The charging pad also has two LED to indicate the charging station is sending a signal to the device. Your device will also confirm it is receiving a charge. The wireless charging station comes with two USB splitters so you can power the charging station from the Tesla USB system and still have USB connections off to the dash for something like a dash-cam recorder or other device.
Today, like never before, individuals are working from the home office. Working in an favorable situation is decent and beneficial and I think this is why so many love the home office. As favorable as things may be; now and again the home office doesn’t have a computer gear to carry out the responsibilities required. With numerous business now practicing social distancing, one will discover certain things are still needed.
Consider the niche requirement to make USB duplicates at the home office. For instance, let us consider an IT director who needs to turn out bootable restore recover sticks, or a product engineer who is required to send programming updates to a group of remote office sales guys. These managers need a snappy, simple and econimical bit of gear to do the job.
The smaller USB flash drive duplicator by Nexcopy is an incredible solution for this definite issue. The unit measurings is 15cm long and 10cm wide. So it will fit into any computer bag, and light as a book.
The USB duplicator is a one-master to four-target copy station. The duplicator is a digital binary copier which duplicates any file system or structure provided by the master host flash drive. Using a USB cable the duplicator can power the five USB flash drives; however, is not recommended for using with USB hard drives.
With a duplicator like this, making duplicates at the home office is speedy and extremely simple. There are four menu buttons, enter, escape, up and down. The unit will work at the press of a single button, which makes this unit ideal for non technical people. The mini duplicator may be configured to perform a binary copy or a binary copy and compare. The copy and compare function gives the user piece of mind that each copy is exactly the same as the master. Having a verification option will insure every copy is the same as the master, giving the user piece of mind all the copies are 100% correct and exact.
Reviewing the features of the duplicator, we have note worthy features:
Asynchronous copy mode, all the time
Binary copier will copy any format; FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, HFS, Ext2,3,4, Proprietary
Binary CRC verification algorithm
Quick Erase and Full Erase for disk sanitization
Four language modes in LCD menu
USB speed benchmark utility
Firmware upgradeable
Is the cost of the mini sized USB duplicator worth the cost for a home office employee? The easiest way to determine this is asking ourselves how much time the duplicator will save. This mini copy station, called the Nexcopy USB104SA will copy one GB of data to each device in just over one minute. That is extremely fast. If an IT manager or software engineer had to data load a 12 GB worth of data on a PC, it would take about 12 minutes to make four copies. Windows could never copy that much data, that quickly. When using the copy and compare mode it takes a bit longer… about 1.5 minutes per GB. So still incredibly quick.
Several features are worth mentioning in a bit more detail. The Erase function is a technical term to remove all data from the USB flash drive. This is a robust feature which guarantees data is removed from the flash drive with no ability of the data being recovered. Formatting a drive doesn’t clean data from the drive, the format function only destroys the file allocation table (the directions to find data), but erase will actually overwrite random binary data over the data blocks. There are two erase settings available on this little USB104SA, and the quick erase will scrub certain portions of the drive so some data could remain, but most likely the files would be corrupted if trying to be recovered because the random write sequence skips around the drive and over writting just bits of memory. The full erase function will write binary randomly zeros and ones to all the NAND memory of the flash drive. By doing this randomization, it would be impossible for sophisticated forensics recovery software to restore any data.
The four language modes include English, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese.
The USB benchmark speed is a great a convenient tool for testing the read speeds and write speeds of a thumb drive. This is even more valuable when dealing with promotional quality media, as this low-end memory is very instable and can get frustrating to deal with. The easiest way to determine the quality of memory is looking at the write speed. With the benchmark utility one can test the read and write speed of a drive. The USB duplicator will write about 20MBs of random data to determine the average read and write speed. If the USB memory has a write speed of 4MB/second or lower, it’s not good quality. If the write speed is above 8MB/second for USB 2.0 media and above 20MB/second write speed for USB 3.0 media, it is of better quality memory.
The USB duplicator made by Nexcopy is a backward compatible product and will copy to USB 1.0, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 flash drives. The duplicator will write to the device as fast as it will allow. The best write times will result from the operator using USB 3.0 media.
Billy Idol’s Hot In The City is a tune which comes to mind whenever talking about USB gadgets that cool thyself.
With summer coming into full swing, this is a good time for a USB fan mention. Cruising the Amazon website this Aikoper product popped up. At first glance I honestly thought the fan was designed by Apple Computers. The aluminum base, slick black body and the cool grey vents, thought it was from Apple for sure. Wrong!
This USB fan has some unique features we believe everyone will like.
There is no switch for turning the fan on or off. Rather you touch the aluminum base. That is very Apple’esc. A single tap to the base and the USB fan goes into “low speed” mode. A double tap will put the USB fan into “high speed” mode. The third tap will turn the fan off. The touch sensitive base has four rubber pads to insure no vibration during operation.
The fan itself is a dual-blade design. Meaning there are four blades toward the front of the bionic shaped shell and another four blades near the rear of the black shell. The idea here is reducing the device noise while in operation.
The black shell case is convex in design to pull air down and into the system, rather than up and into the system. Although the pitch of the shell isn’t great, we may assume less dust and dirt will come into the system from a pull-down air flow design. The curved shell sits on a the aluminum base with some pitch mobility to angle the fan a bit higher or lower for optimal position while in use.
The Amazon listing has over 1,609 ratings with 61% as a five star product, 13% as four star product and the balance just picky people trying to be overly critical. To give you an idea of product feedback and experience, here are some testimonials from the Amazon listing:
Fuzzing is a method of testing with automated software which provides invalid, unexpected, and random data as inputs to a computer program. The testing program then monitors for crashes, assertions and potential memory leaks.
A research team based from Purdue University came up with USBFuzz, which pushes enormous amounts of random data through the USB bus of a system. Hui Peng and Mathias payer (from the Swiss Federal Institute of Tech) came up with the idea and program.
Please don’t lose any sleep over the bugs found.
Peng and Mathias found one bug in FreeBSD, three in MacOS (two resulting in an unplanned reboot and one freezing the system), four in Windows 8 and Windows 10 (resulting in Blue Screens of Death) and the vast majority of bugs, in Linux — 18 in total.
Of all these bugs, Windows users do not need to worry, they have been fixed. Of the 18 found in Linux, 16 of them have been corrected already. Those correct where major security flaws.
What we like about the USBFuzz is the underlying theme to improve the security of the USB platform and continued improvement. We also like USBFuzz becoming an open source bit of code that everyone may use to strengthen thier USB product. The team will release a version on GitHub later this year, 2020.
Some really smart researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and some of their colleagues at the University of Maryland developed a step-by-step recipe to produce the atomic-scale devices. Atomic scaled devices is the heart of quantum computing. Said in a very simple way; “quantum” is the Latin word for “amount” and is the smallest possible physical unit which has energy (or matter).
These really smart scientists demonstrated they could precisely control the flow of electrons through a really small physical gap or electrical barrier, known as a transistor. The hard thing is controlling the flow of energey (electrons) through stuff that is really, really small, like an atom. What the team came up with, is a reciepe to create atoms that could be controlled with electrons.
In really simple terms, this is the recipe:
The team used a known technique in which a silicon chip is covered with a layer of hydrogen atoms, which readily bind to silicon.
Used a fine tip, like really fine tip, scanning microscope and removed hydrogen atoms at selected parts of the silicon.
What was left is a hydrogen barrier with only certain parts removed from the scanning device (above).
Next, the team directed some phosphine gas at the silicone and the gas covered the hydrogen atoms but leaked through where hydrogen atoms had been removed.
As the last step, the smart guys heated the silicone which created a reaction. The reaction created a foundation of a series of highly stable, single atom devices that act like a quibit… or bit.
This is all a bit overwhelming to understand so the below video will help. The exciting thing is a repeatable process has been defined to make a single quantum unit programmable. Translated into day-to-day applications, there is great hope we will all get computers 100x more powerful than today’s in about the size of an Apple watch.
In 2015 Intel introduced the Compute Stick or Computer Stick – the product has been around ever since. The idea is simple and eligant. Intel wanted to create an HDMI dongle computer which can run Windows 10.
There is no confirmation, but our suspicion is that Intel wanted a ultra-cheap and portable solution to run Windows for embedded applications like set-top boxes (DVRs) and other IoT (Internet of Things) products. If our assumption is correct, it’s a wonderful product and is a great solution for its intended purpose.
PCWorld did a fantastic review of the compute stick back in 2016, and a link to that article is at the footer of this post. The PC World review outlined the specifications and performance levels of the Intel based product. We will let that article do the heavy lifting for the tech people out there, but today we want to talk about the applications one might have for a computer stick.
For only $120 (ish) off Amazon, this is an excellent solution to run Windows 10 for a host of specific applications.
Several quick talking points before we move to examples of usage out in the field:
This topic is brought up today because we hear some Users have issues understanding this point. The partition size inside an image file does matter. The question we will answer today is why it matters.
Let us start off with two simplified overviews. First, all storage devices use a partition to define it’s characteristics. A storage device has a file system, like FAT32 or exFAT or NTFS and that file system has a defined size or digital capacity. These characteristics, and some others, are laid out in the partition.
Second, an image file is the above partition with all its detail, the file system, defined capacity along with all the actual files and folders on that partition and put into a single file or .img file.
For a non-technical person, let me use a puzzle as an example.
The puzzle box is equivalent to the physical device.
The plastic bag inside the puzzle box, holding all the pieces, is the image file.
Print on the puzzle box indicating the number of pieces, is the partition.
The puzzle pieces inside the box are equivalent to the data.
Okay, so at this point we know the image file (.img) is the bag which holds all the puzzle pieces and the data are all the bits inside the bag. So let’s address the question of this post, “Why does the partition size matter inside an image file?”
Back to the puzzle box. As with any puzzle, the outside of the box lists the number of pieces. In this example, we can use the number of pieces printed on the outside of the box as the partition table size. If the physical box size is, let us say, 8″ x 11″ then it’s totally logical that a 1,000 piece puzzle would fit inside. In fact, it is logical to say even a 20 piece puzzle will fit inside the box. But, could a 5,000 piece puzzle fit inside this box?
From the three scenarios above, one doesn’t work, right? The scenario where the box says there are 5,000 puzzle pieces in a box that is physically to small.
Partitions are the same.
The situation which doesn’t work, is when the print on the outside of the puzzle is telling you the number of pieces inside the box are clearly more than what the physical box can handle.
Said another way, you cannot use a partition table size of 4GBs and try to have the image file fit on a USB stick that has only 1GB of storage space. Even if the image file itself is only 1GB large of actual data. Just like the puzzle, no matter what is printed on the outside of the box, if the number of pieces are larger than what can fit inside the box… it just doesn’t work.
Here is a real-world example: You can download this IMG file which is only 40MB large. The IMG itself has a 4GB partition inside it. As long as you write out the IMG file to a flash drive that is 4GBs or larger, everything will work. If you try and write out the IMG file to something smaller, like a 2GB stick, it won’t work.
What happens?
Windows is very smart. All versions of Windows (from 7 and higher) will take a look at the total available memory and compare that to the partition table size. If Windows sees the partition table is larger than the available memory of the device, she won’t let you do anything with the device… other than format it. Once the drive is formatted, Windows will automatically rewrite the partition table to fit the amount of available memory. In this example, Windows would format the drive to become a 2GB stick… not a 4GB stick.
Why does Windows do this?
They want to eliminate fraud. Windows 7 was introduced in 2009 and before that, the only OS was WindowsXP. Well, Windows XP didn’t have the capability to compare partition tables to available memory. The result was fraud. Many would sell some larger GB capacity drive… like at the time 32GB, but only 4GB of real, usable, memory was there. The user would run out of memory space long before the “printed capacity” of the drive was reached.
If you found this article; maybe there is a situation where an image file is not working when written out to a USB flash drive? If this is the case, be sure to check your partition table compared to the amount of physical memory available. The easiest way to check, would be mounting the IMG file on your computer and check Properties for the partition size. Keep in mind, the default “Mount” command in Windows doesn’t work. You need something like this.
When trying to format a flash drive in Windows (7 or 10) you will see the file system options best suited for the device. The proper file systems for a flash drive is: FAT, FAT32 or exFAT. Windows provides NTFS as an option for USB flash drives, but as mentioned before, NTFS is not the best file system for a USB drive. During the format process, only the best suited file systems will be displayed in Windows.
Why is UDF not listed as an option?
First, let me say it IS possible for Windows to format a USB flash drive as UDF (Universal Disk Format). Microsoft just doesn’t want you to do it; and with good reason.
Before you get too far: If you think formatting a flash drive as UDF will make the thumb drive appear as an optical drive in the computer – you are mistaken!
From the Wikipedia page about Universal Disk Format, UDF, the specification is governed by the Optical Storage Technology Association and because of that, many believe a UDF anything will work like a disc. It, UDF, is most widely used for DVDs and newer optical disc formats, can be used on flash drives, but does make it operate like one.
If we take out the hope of formatting a USB with a UDF file system, some may feel the Universal Disk Format means the flash drive will work in anything, such as from Windows, to Mac, to Linux, Symbian and/or to proprietary system. The truth here is exFAT will do just the same. Please keep that in mind.
So why not format a USB as UDF in Windows? Here is a list:
The lack of fully-functional filesystem check tools.
64GB limit with Windows & Linux, a bug, not a limit of UDF
SD and USB mass storage devices are exposed to quick wear-leveling failure
UDF is read-only for Windows XP
Without bogging down this post with ultra-technical information, from the above list, the most important to consider is the first, lack of filesystem check tools.
This means if the USB is pulled out while in operation and a bit is affected by the action, there are no tools to check the file system for errors. You are flying the dark as to why the USB no longer works and there are no tools available to help you figure it out. Given the flash drive was specifically designed to be portable and quick access, the above action is most certainly going to happen sooner or later, which makes UDF a high risk file system.
How to format a flash drive as UDF:
Connect the USB to your computer and note the assigned drive letter
