Rohos Mini Drive

Recently we occasionally encountered the USB flash drive Lexar JumpDrive 2GB with embedded USB drive encryption software. The set of the USB device includes the mobile platform PowerToGo (aka Ceedo), and it in its turn has the mobile application Lexar Secure II – that represents a great interest for us. By the way there is an indicator of the free space on the frame of the USB flash drive (see the Figure above) – that is a very useful thing :).

Lexar Secure II allows to create encrypted containers on the USB flash drive (like Rohos Disk). We would like to clear out how does the program Secure II (and the platform PowerToGo in whole) works when the computer has no Administrator priveleges, and in general the quality and convenience of this program.

1. So, First Starting Up…

During the first start the application PowerToGo i.e. Ceedo starts. Ceedo is an analogue of the U3 platform for mobile applications from the USB drives. We are briefly acknowledged with U3 at our blog. To my mind Ceedo is more sophisticated platform. At Ceedo start-up the pro-active protection of my Norton antivirus rejected almost each operation - that confirms that the platform is very “obsessive” and leaves many tracks on PC.

While starting, Ceedo checks its updates and downloads them without prior asking. This cheers up as Ceedo identified my German Windows and also switched to the German language. It also automatically “mobilized” my MS Word, Excel and MS Outlook Express. The next time I will write the more detailed information about “Mobilization” of the regular applications with the help of Ceedo Aplication Virtualization.

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The next beta version of Rohos Logon Key includes a feature BlueTooth Wireless Logon that means you can log into Windows computer by using Bluetooth enabled PocketPC or mobile.

Why mobile? For the first we were asked by the users “Is it possible to login by mobile phone?” The next reason is that Wireless PC lock solutions already exists on the market - the idea is that you has a small “e-tablet” dongle on your hands and a receiver connected to USB port. It works like a car key.

The same could be by using your mobile - just come in and Windows gets logged on - just step out - and it gets locked/hibernated. So, the idea looks interesting but will see how it works on the reality:

Download Rohos Logon Key 2.5 beta

At the first tests the program works well.

How to setup mobile login:

• The BlueTooth USB adapter should be installed with the native Windows drivers.
• You should install Rohos program only to PC. It does not require to install/upload anything to your mobile.
• Now you can turn-on your bluetooth function on the mobile.

On the Options dialog box select “BlueTooth phone/pocket PC” device type and ‘Auto-Lock’ function:

Then click OK and open Configure USB Key dialog. Please dont worry, there are a lot of “USb flash drive” strings on the program

Configure USB Key dialog will  detect your mobile, and can type your pass and OK.  You can try to  login by the phone.

Tips & Tricks

1. The BlueTooth USB adapter should be installed with the native Windows XP drivers.
2. The logins data are saved in the local computer (in encrypted form) but not on the mobile.
3. The Rohos program just recognizes your mobile by its name and MAC adress.
4. We noticed some bugs in BT function if your PC goes to hibernation and out.
5. If you go away you PC can be locked out - but in the same moment BT adapter can again detect it for the moment and PC gets unlocked by the program.. So be aware.

Please comment on.

Hi All,

We’ve been working on some important feature: To add USB tokens support to Rohos Logon Key.

We plan to support PKCS11 communication standard to work with USB tokens. The PKCS11 is supported by the all industry leading USB tokens such as Aladdin eToken PRO/r2, SafeNet’s iKey, ASEKey Crypto USB Token, ACS USB Tokens and so on.

In General Rohos Logon will be able to support any kind of USB key device, thanks to the special API (plugin model) that is being introduced now. The external key.dll module  can handle any type of the devices. For example Bluetooth phone/pocket PC for Wireless logon, read about it in the next posts…

In the development room we have now eToken PRO 32kb, eToken R2 16kb and ruToken USB tokens. All tokens are already working with Rohos. If you are interesting to get a next release preview of Rohos Logon Key please hold on for a while. SOON will post download links.
Also please keep all your suggestions and feature requests coming. There’s nothing we like better than hearing your ideas and then putting them into action.

Thanks you.

The new version of Rohos Disk (1.18) includes a new utility, Rohos Disk Browser. This enables you to open and view the contents of secret partitions on a USB drive on any other computer, even if you do not have administrative rights.

Rohos Disk can password-protect a portion of a USB flash drive, by creating a virtual encrypted partition. The partition is protected by a password, and can be opened on any computer. Now, even if you are in an internet cafe and have no administrative rights,you can still have read access to your secret partition with the help of the Rohos Disk Browser utility. This means that you can open any file and read any data. Naturally when you are at your home or office computer, you will still be able to work with your encrypted partition as usual.

On a strange computer you can always open your protected partition on the USB flash drive (in read-only mode) with the help of the Rohos Disk Browser utility. This makes it possible to open or copy only one particular file or directory, without granting access to every file.

This feature is enabled in a Rohos Mini Drive program - FREE and tiny USB drive encryption tool.

Read Rohos Disk Browser description...

We’ve released a new beta version of Rohos Disk Encryption, our password protection app for USB drives and local drives.

Here’s the release notes:

• Rohos Disk Browser. Allows to open encrypted USB drive partition on any computer even without having Admin priveleges.
• Improved ‘protect USB drive’ function.
• fixed some bugs.

Our technical support department often receives messages from users requesting help. The users are unable to log into the system because the USB key is lost or corrupted, and the user has forgotten the PIN code or entered it incorrectly three times, or the system is set up to “allow logon only via USB key”.

To learn more: What if I cannot logon using the USB key?

In this article you will find our about new Rohos Credential provider. It has been designed specially for Windows Vista. It blends into the Operating System logon screen, and is also integrated behind the scenes. With this component, Rohos Logon Key makes it easy to add new method of hardware based authentication by means of USB Flash drive.

Contents:

• What is Rohos Credential Provider?
• The Option “Allow to login only by using USB key;
• Emergency Logon in case of loss of the USB Drive;
• Password Change;
• Accessing a Windows Vista remote desktop with a USB key;
• Accessing a Windows Vista computer connected to Windows Active Directory;
• Troubleshooting;

Learn more about  how Rohos Credential Provider works in Windows Vista;

Teslain Ltd. announces it’s new Credential Provider component for Windows Vista.

The Windows Vista Credential Provider extends traditional password-based authentication and allows Software developers to add their own credential mechanisms to the operating system.

Rohos Logon Key allows to use hardware-based authentication for data and privacy protection. it’s features for the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system include:

• Secure PC log-on and workstation lock with the USB flash drive key.
• Convenient fast-user switching for multiple users.
• Remote Desktop Connection login with the USB key on the client computer.
• 2-factor authentication support.
• Multiple options for the USB key removal events such as automatic computer locking, user logoff, computer shutdown or activating screensaver.
• Regular password based login can be prohibited.

The function allows increasing in the encrypted Rohos disk size. The latest Rohos disk v1.16 is already available for download.

We also added an important command - the Force error checking on the disk without Windows restart.

You can also see in the new release:
Fixed: Disk auto mount by sticking up the USB flash drive (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Rohos\EnableAutoMountByUSB).
Disk-on Notifications (located nearby the Clock) becomes automatically disabled after being shown 20 times.

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> Trial tim has expired.
> Please order full version.

This message you will get from Rohos Mini when you will try to open encrypted disk on a Guest computer after 15 day of using it.Sorry for the troubles. Rohos Mini is FREE flash drive encryption program.
This problem was fixed. You can update now. Read on how to apply fix…

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