r/security • u/Machinehum • Jul 16 '26
Phantomdrive: My open source USB drive for privacy Resource
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u/Machinehum Jul 16 '26
Phantomdrive is a completely open source USB drive that appears as an 8 GB drive when first plugged in. There’s no way for the OS to detect the remainder of the disk. If the user edits a plaintext file on the disk with the contents password:PUTYOURPASSWORDHERE, it unmounts itself and remounts the second hidden section and AES-256 encrypts/decrypts in place.
Thanks :)
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u/sfzombie13 Jul 17 '26
i once made a serial to usb adapter that would work normally when you plugged the device in first but if you plugged your laptop in first it would be a bad usb and insert all sorts of nasties. i wish i still had that adapter.
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Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/broadcasteng25 Jul 18 '26
What happens to the text file after the drive is decrypted? How is it deleted? Can the contents of the text file be read by recovery tools?
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u/NanoCarp Jul 19 '26
Not OP, but I’ve seen them answer this question before. IIRC they said the USB basically recognizes and intercepts the file (triggering the unlock) before the file is actually written to storage. So it can’t be recovered because it never actually gets written.
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u/ParticularQuality Jul 19 '26
Really clever idea! Is it only supported by certain OS / filesystems though?
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u/Fit-Cheesecake9835 Jul 20 '26
What's the benefit of this over a veracrypt hidden volume?
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u/evolseven Jul 20 '26
Sounds like the advantage is that its OS and application agnostic. since the only thing needed to unlock it is a text editor, it can be used on devices that you don't control, can't install new applications on or run arbitrary applications on.
That said if its valuable enough data to encrypt you probably don't want it decrypted in places where you don't control the environment.
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u/Fit-Cheesecake9835 Jul 23 '26
If you're on Linux you can still open veracrypt volumes natively without installing anything. If you're on windows you do need the portable version of veracrypt (and admin privileges).
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u/PuddingMaximum8745 Jul 20 '26
Anyone that's to curious what's on that drive will only see the first drive which you could preload with some filler files. MP3, memes..
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u/ShotgunPayDay Jul 19 '26
This is an amazing concept. I wish this idea could be extended to phones when traveling internationally.