Author Topic: Can I connect a zip drive to C-USB socket on my mobile phone?  (Read 1596 times)

gunwharfman

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I'm often give a bit of thought as to how to make my phone more secure when hiking by NOT having certain information on it as default. Has anyone experience of being able to connect a zip drive to a mobile phone with a C-USB socket? Or is 'the cloud' the best way?

Rob Goes Walking

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You mean an Iomega Zip drive? Still using those old things? Should work with an adapter like this. Or did you mean a flash drive? Should work with the same adapter either way.

gunwharfman

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thanks that looks like it. Is a zip drive different to a flash drive? I didn't know.

Rob Goes Walking

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I've heard a couple of people refer to flash drives as zip drives but they're a different thing that existed before.

Hillhiker1

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I keep hotel confirmations / insurance details and the like on the cloud. That way, even if I lose the phone, I can still access the info on other devices if need be.

fernman

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Does your phone not have a folder that can only be opened with a PIN, in which you can put your "certain information"? The one built into my phone system is called a Wallet. If you don't have any such thing I'm sure you could find an app that'll do it.
Coupled with that, you should be using a PIN to unlock the phone each time you use it for anything. Set it to 1 minute, so that your phone won't be "live" after it is snatched or you're pickpocketed or mugged, otherwise a huge bill could be run up with premium rate numbers or calls to relatives on the other side of the world.

gunwharfman

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Thanks Rob. I bought the little gadget that allows me to plug in a flash drive to my phone, from a local shop for £5. I now have the means to avoid having some stuff stored on my phone.

I can now play with the pro's and cons of flash drive or cloud and make a decision as to what's best for me.

Rob Goes Walking

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No problem I figured you'd rather have the physical storage with you based on your previous posts.

For me I'd go with the cloud though like Google drive unless I had official secrets or donkey porn or something as it is safer, you can't lose it unless Google cancel drive or it goes wrong (unlikely) and more convenient.

You need an Internet connection for the cloud though which is a negative for out walking.

Anyway glad you're sorted.

fernman

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I've recently signed up with a lesser-known cloud service called Koofr.

Every single folder and file I have is now in the cloud and also in local Windows Explorer-style folders on each of my computers - XP is supported - plus they all appear automatically in an app on my Windows Phone, where they are on the SD card (EDIT: No they're not, just checked the card, they're in the cloud.)

2 GB is free,  10 GB is €0.5 a month, 25 GB €1 a month, 100 GB €2 a month - which even I can afford. It is extremely rare for me to pay to use anything on the net, but I have 37 GB in the 100 GB plan.
 
It's a little confusing to use at first, it would benefit from some detailed Help files, and I did end up with some duplicated stuff initially when I uploaded everything onto it, but once I attended to that and when I got the hang of it, it is faultless.

What is more, on my 8.1 pc changes and additions to files, such as edits to a document, are synced automatically by webDAV. It amazes me, I do some work and then think I need to sync it, but when I check the cloud application I find it has already been done, without me doing anything.
« Last Edit: 13:12:23, 04/04/19 by fernman »

NeilC

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I'm often give a bit of thought as to how to make my phone more secure when hiking by NOT having certain information on it as default. Has anyone experience of being able to connect a zip drive to a mobile phone with a C-USB socket? Or is 'the cloud' the best way?
Just encrypt the phone with a strong passcode

The chances of any normal criminal being able to decrypt a modern phone is practically zero. Even the FBI were struggling with a suspected terrorist's iPhone until they found some secretive Israeli firm willing build a custom firmware for them allowing them to then try 1000's of passcodes without it deleting the data. If you're really worried about phone security then go Apple as opposed to Android but as with all IT security - you need to think about the actual likely threats. Theoretically everything is insecure. In reality, it often doesn't matter at a practical level for most people. Sure you could drop your phone in a country pub and it could make its way to a government agency or group of talented hackers but 99.9% of the time, they'll hand it in or just wipe it and sell it.

The cloud is often less secure since it's exposed to any hacker who wants to have a go and they are constantly under attack. Cloud platforms get compromised with some regularity and you're having to enter in your credentials remotely leaving you open to phishing and other attacks. My password was stolen when Dropbox got hacked.
« Last Edit: 10:25:03, 05/04/19 by NeilC »

gunwharfman

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Thanks, I hadn't thought of encryption.

I've tried this and that but have now come around in a full circle and I'm now having a rethink. The issue I started with was, how do I protect my private information if my phone lost, stolen or I'm mugged? How can I ensure that certain information is NOt stored on the phone at that time, or at any time? I have already worked out that I can write a Word information document on my PC and then store it on a flash drive. When I need the information I can just plug the drive into my phone and view everything on my phone screen. Obviously, I would have to hide the flash drive somewhere on my person, hoping, that if I was robbed it would not be found.

Once a week my wife looks after an 11-year-old neighbours child for a couple of hours so her Mum can attend a staff meeting. I decided to ask her how she would solve the problem, especially if an individual used LastPass and banked online and didn't want anyone to be able to access these apps at all? She thought for a couple of minutes and said that she would delete the apps from the phone and when needed, she would just re-install them and once they had been used, she would delete them again and repeat when necessary.

I suspect that this is what I will do. I'll put some information on my flash drive and retrieve it when necessary and delete my vulnerable apps before I set off hiking and re-install them on an as and when needed basis, then delete them again. A little bit of faffing about I know, but easily done! Thanks for all of your advice and suggestions.

NeilC

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Thanks, I hadn't thought of encryption.

I've tried this and that but have now come around in a full circle and I'm now having a rethink. The issue I started with was, how do I protect my private information if my phone lost, stolen or I'm mugged? How can I ensure that certain information is NOt stored on the phone at that time, or at any time? I have already worked out that I can write a Word information document on my PC and then store it on a flash drive. When I need the information I can just plug the drive into my phone and view everything on my phone screen. Obviously, I would have to hide the flash drive somewhere on my person, hoping, that if I was robbed it would not be found.

Once a week my wife looks after an 11-year-old neighbours child for a couple of hours so her Mum can attend a staff meeting. I decided to ask her how she would solve the problem, especially if an individual used LastPass and banked online and didn't want anyone to be able to access these apps at all? She thought for a couple of minutes and said that she would delete the apps from the phone and when needed, she would just re-install them and once they had been used, she would delete them again and repeat when necessary.

I suspect that this is what I will do. I'll put some information on my flash drive and retrieve it when necessary and delete my vulnerable apps before I set off hiking and re-install them on an as and when needed basis, then delete them again. A little bit of faffing about I know, but easily done! Thanks for all of your advice and suggestions.
You could do that. But it all sounds rather a pointless hassle compared to clicking the Encrypt Phone button.
Lastpass requires a password to access it and its encrypted both online and on the device. Are you even sure that uninstalling Lastpass from a phone definitely deletes the local cached (and encrypted) copy of its data? I'm not. I know loads of apps leave data lying around after uninstalling.

Doesn't your bank require more than just a few passwords stored on Lastpass, like a one-time code or other multi-factor authentication elements? If not, then don't keep the entire set of password intact on Lastpass - either memorise one of the passwords or disguise it, writing it backwards with added characters and label it as something else or store it in a Contact on your phone - you get the idea.
The thing is, if you use Lastpass then you're relying on Lastpass implementing their encryption correctly. They have been hacked and the data was stolen and no doubt brute-force and dictionary password attacks were used on that data. However the encryption apparently held up and the only people whose data was compromised were people with weak passwords. You either trust LastPass or you don't. If you don't then don't use them as they will no doubt be hacked again in the future. If you do, then why are trusting their webservice which is open to 10's of 1000's of hackers as opposed to their implementation of encryption on your phone which is unlikely to ever even be attacked? Add encrypting the entire phone to that and you've got a pretty secure system. You're more likely to be held at knife point until you tell them everything they want to know.

Rob Goes Walking

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Maybe you can get encryption for any Android phone but my Samsung Galaxy S7 has it built in so presumably has a dedicated circuit for it meaning minimal device slowdown. It's on by default, you don't have to do anything, it asks for a pin when you're setting the phone up and encrypts. Expect later Samsung phones also encrypted (but don't know for sure).
« Last Edit: 17:49:15, 05/04/19 by Rob Goes Walking »

fernman

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I have already worked out that I can write a Word information document on my PC and then store it on a flash drive. When I need the information I can just plug the drive into my phone and view everything on my phone screen. Obviously, I would have to hide the flash drive somewhere on my person, hoping, that if I was robbed it would not be found.

May I 'bump' my earlier suggestion from 1 April, of using a secure, PIN protected folder in your phone?
 
She thought for a couple of minutes and said that she would delete the apps from the phone and when needed, she would just re-install them and once they had been used, she would delete them again and repeat when necessary.

Beware of doing that! Apps come and go, as I found to my cost when I had to re-format a faulty SD card. A couple of favourite apps I had that were working on it previously were no longer available to reinstall, boo hoo! and I had to substitute them with ones I considered second best.

gunwharfman

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I do appreciate your help and advice, as you can tell I know so little about these things.

 

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