USB-Powered Linux Server Fits in Your Pocket

McSpew writes "A small company from Utah (no, not that one) has announced the BlackDog USB-powered Linux server. It includes a fingerprint reader, a 400MHz PowerPC, 64MB of DRAM and 256MB or 512MB of flash and it runs Debian. The host PC sees it as a CD-ROM drive."

Good but a few shortcomings

[dysk]

I'd buy one in a second if it had an ipod-style 30/40GB hard drive. With 512MB it doesn't offer me enough storage to be useful.

Possible Uses

[bagboy]

The article mentions that it was developed with the hopes that some can find a use for it. How about a portable asterisk server so when you travel your voicemail and pbx go with you?

Re:Surprising

[kalidasa]

Not sure what they're doing with it, but it seems to me that if you could get this to do two things, you'd have a useful product. Get it to appear to the main computer as two items: 1. a USB drive, with an executable that includes VNC functionality and a TCP/IP over USB engine for Windows (am I right in assuming that you need additional software to establish a TCP/IP connection over USB in windows) in the memory; 2. a network device, which connects via TCP/IP over USB. Bingo, you just plug in, run the application from the FAT32 partition on the USB drive, and you can log into your own USB-powered, network-connected computer with your own data on it.

Interesting new concept, but odd application

[Sv-Manowar]

At first, the fact that this device shows up as a CD-ROM despite having a USB connection seemed odd, but its possible this is some kind of step around the need for an administrator account to install mass storage devices on the windows platform. The suggestion by the company that this could be used as a portable VPN client seems strange, due to the need to carry the hardware around. Modern ultraportable laptops would seem to meet the needs of those travelling with remote access issues more than this device, which obviously requires a host to piggyback on.

No Ethernet?

[hotspotbloc]

As far as I can see it only has usb ports and piggybacks off of another computer. Of course an usb to ethernet converter (yes, never a good idea) would help.

There's always the Linksys NSLU-2 with ethernet for $80, just add a usb drive.

Windows on a USB device?

[datafr0g]

Because the tiny Linux client has biometric authentication and can be plugged into just about any PC, Cunningham believes it will be a useful and secure way for travelers to logon to their corporate VPNs.

I agree - bloody useful! I've been trying to find a device like this for extactly this purpose. I've come across a few like this one but I need to boot Windows, not Linux. Our VPN client and user software only runs on Windows.

Does anyone know of a similar device that can run Windows?

Re:Wait wait wait...

[Jeff Molby]

What would be a common use of this? To quickly pull data off a machine that has a corrupted OS?

Marketing Magic?

[krbvroc1]

Can anyone explain to this techie how the following is possible:

From their website: "To access and use your BlackDog, you merely plug it in to your host computer's USB port* and BlackDog takes over! Your host machine's monitor, keyboard, mouse, and Internet connection are taken over by BlackDog for the duration of your session, when you are done, you simply remove BlackDog and everything on the host is returned to its original state."

It sounds amazing until I wonder if all they are doing is putting an autoplay file on there that launches VNC or something.

Server?

[GuineaPigMan]

I can see this being semi-practical if one could use it as a web server. If you could use mysql/PHP on it, it would really be quite nice. If only it had a built in network port and some kind of power supply that would enable you to plug it into the wall, it'd make a great server to log into while you're away.

A larger amount of memory/hard drive would also make this a better possibility, but I would imagine it will be relatively easy to hack.

Re:Correction to article

[50m31sl4sh.]

BlackDog is treated as a CD-ROM by the host PC and is booted automatically when plugged in. Once booted it can access any of its host's peripherals or network resources.

Wait, if we boot host PC from this virtual CD-ROM, isn't that OS running in the host? How is it then different from booting LiveCD or LiveUSB stick? If BlackDog needs access to host CPU, how is it better than running the host as a server itself?

I'm confused. Will someone care to explain?

Re:Good but a few shortcomings

[York the Mysterious]

Their rep at Linux World said they were working with one of the mini HD vendors (I really can't remember which) and the vendor kept dragging their feet on when the drives would be available. They wanted to be able to launch the thing pronto they they released the flash based version and put off the HD version. There is a MMC card slot so you can expand the 512 with a gig card. The HD one should be out sometime soon though.

Combine with USB Harddisk and other peripherals.

[paul.schulz]

If the device is able to automaticaly detect and mount disks (until it get designed with a harddrive) and work with other USB peripherals
(sound card) then it would be very attractive
as a 'quick office'.

This may even kick-start a 'PC market' where
the PC itself is quite a low powered unit,
and processing power and IO is added via
these types of removable peripherals.

I can see a suite of Low-end PC's which do the barest minimum, but which can be temporarily
'upgraded' to the users needs.

This may even extend to 'handheld displays'
(eg. Nokia Internet Table if it had a USB
host port) also providing the user interface.

Will a PC of the future just be a 'smart USB hub'?

As I understand it

[Fritzy]

It pulls up a window on the machine you're on, and shows your X session (browser, word processor) and you use the keyboard, mouse, internet connetion, and monitor of the host machine. You work on your document for awhile, unplug.... go to a different machine, and your word processor is right where you left it. You keep working on your document, all powered by the USB port. There's no evidence on the host machine of what you were running or what you did.

Fingerprint readers - Misguided and Evil

[billstewart]

Fingerprint readers and other biometric sensors are almost always a misguided idea, often an evil one, and generally not implemented well. You could get much more useful capabilities by including a small keypad on it, which could be used for passwords if you need them (which you sometimes do, depending on your application), and maybe a little 1-or-2-line LCD display for status.

Saw this at Linux World SF

[syk0k0w]

I just saw this at LinuxWorld San Francisco. To quote the staff at the BlackDog booth: "the BlackDog unit first presents itself as a CDRom image to the windows host to load the Cygwin X-Server as well as a tunneling network application to make use of the Windows network. It then establishes a network connection which looks like a USB network connection back to the Debian 2.6.10 kernel running on the BlackDog unit. The BlackDog can then present a UI to the X-Server running on the Windows host it is plugged into. It started with a biometric authentication running on the device. It then had other applications present themselves like Quake 2, Descent 2, Firefox, etc. This is when I became really impressed. I want one! I want to use it to take my mobile stuff with me and be able to plug into any computer anywhere even if its compromised and access the data on my other servers on the internet. Very Cool!!

Re:Saw this at Linux World SF

[dr_leviathan]

I too spoke with a representative at LW about this.

The thumb-print sensor allows you to authenticate yourself without typing in your password, so it is possible (as long as what you're doing doesn't require you to type in any passwords anywhere) to safely operate the device on a host with a keystroke logger. All of the network traffic between the BlackDog and its daemon running on the host is encrypted with SSH.

One of the niches they are hoping to full with the device is a "dongle" with licenced software installed. The licencee of the proprietary-ware could then access it on any computer as long as he/she carries the dongle with them. It also would prevent password/keycode sharing between colleagues.

One of my co-workes pointed out that this is similar to the "SoulPad" concept:

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000383053938/ [engadget.com]

except without the host boot/shutdown steps.

Beowulf cluster

[benhocking]

Seriously, it would be nice if there was a way you could hook these up to a USB hub and have each one running a different program. I'm imaging this to be a cheap and easy way to solve "embarassingly parallel" computational problems. Of course, it would be really sweet if these things could then also share their memory so you could use them to solve not-so-embarassingly parallel computational problems.

I realize these things are low end processors, but depending on the problem your solving they might be a good solution - if they could be hooked up in parallel.

Re:What?

[Diag]

My Linksys NSLU2 [nslu2-linux.org] has a 133Mhz CPU, 8MB of Flash and 32MB of SDRAM.

It currently runs thttpd as a web server (it can run apache), a SAMBA server, an ftp server, and ccxstream to stream media to my X-Box. Admittedly the web server might struggle if more than a couple of users access it at once, but it suits my needs.

And I don't need to plug it into the USB port of a "real" PC to make it go.

I'm always thinking of warez :/

[TooncesTheCat]

Imagine if this thing had 1 gig or more of memory. Plug it up and take it to your local university or gaming cafe and have a portable warez dump, even better you could probably get it to run in stealth mode. Imagine having one on the back of a EDU computer, you could have multiple warez dumps and be able to retrieve the files instead of downloading them :d

Would be better just using lan

[hotdrop]

Its a neat idea I wish it was a Lan powered divice though and cheaper so i could buy one and stash it inside one of the walls or cielings at college.

SCO connection: Realm CTO is Halloween X author

[isn't my name]

Everyone TOTALLY got it backwards. You are supposed to go to www.sco.com, NOT realm systems!!!

Interestingly enough, there is a SCO connection to this story.

You may remember the famous Halloween 10 memo from Mike Anderer to two SCO execs [opensource.org] where Anderer indicates that SCO's big $50M dollar investment came via backchannels thanks to Microsoft and that SCO should go to MS for more money?

Well, it seems that the very same Mike Anderer is is CTO of Realm Systems [realmsys.com] makers of this device.

Re:Possible Uses

[robfoo]

I'd like to know how many blind people actually use ATMs, without problem.

Not sure what the ATMs are like in your part of the world, but most of the ones I've used aren't predictable enough for me to imagine using it without sight.
For instance, the conversation usually goes like this:
ATM: what would you like to do?
Me: get cash
ATM: what account?
Me: cheque
ATM: how much?
Me: heaps
ATM: would you like a receipt?
Me: yes

which is easy enough to do without reading the screen, but sometimes as soon as you put the card in it'll say "Sorry, I can't print receipts at the moment. Press OK to continue" or something.

Is there some kind of standard for the blind use of ATMs? Is there a sequence of button presses that says "hey, I'm blind" so the machine follows a set path, without relying on visual cues?

It's one of those things that's always fascinated me. Like how come my work has a wheelchair-accessible toilet, in an office that's only accessible via stairs?