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Sandisk launches 'WORM'

Posted by Kevin Horrocks on 16 July 2008 - 15:25 · 15 comments & 4322 views

In our digital age, fears of data being compromised is high in positions such as law enforcement and politics. Sandisk has released a solution for these woes, entitled "WORM". (Write Once Read Many=WORM).

These SD cards, currently available in only 128mb form, cannot be erased or modified once files have been put on it. Sandisk will be releasing higher capacity versions later this year.

Uses for this include police witness and suspect interviews, cash registers, electronic voting and really annoying yourself when you accidentally buy one down the shops and realise you can't use it again.

"As digital media volume has grown and surpassed traditional analogue media such as film and audio cassettes in the consumer market, law enforcement agencies and other professionals are facing rising costs and lack of supply," said Christopher Moore, director of product marketing for OEM memory cards at SanDisk.

View: TechRadar

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#1 Posted by LipSmacker on 16 Jul 2008 - 16:17: So how exactly does this work? It seems like pretty much every type of protection technology gets hacked, bypassed, etc. What makes this any different?

#2 Posted by nmesisca on 16 Jul 2008 - 16:21: its not a software solution, its a hardware one.
Like trying to write twice on a CD that is not RW .. no amount of hackers will do.

(1 reply) #3 Posted by _BeanZ_ on 16 Jul 2008 - 16:22: What the article completely fails to point out is that WORM media has been around for years; what it should say is that Sandisk are the first company to produce WORM SD cards (maybe also the first for any format of flash memory)

(1 reply) #4 Posted by supernova_00 on 16 Jul 2008 - 16:33: so if I take a lot of crappy photos with my finger in it, I can't delete them? That sucks!

(1 reply) #5 Posted by phiberoptik on 16 Jul 2008 - 17:05: I think "WORM" is a bad name for this, the word "WORM" has been associated with too much malicious stuff. People will shy away from this.

Also like someone else said above, why are we re-inventing something that already exists?

CD-R with close disc session anyone?

Plus, I'm sure someone will reverse engineer the "lock" on it.

(2 replies) #6 Posted by Mr Fish on 16 Jul 2008 - 17:14: So, this is basically an EPROM chip, but with some kind of hardware-lock so it can only be written once? There's a market for this?

#7 Posted by Tikitiki on 16 Jul 2008 - 17:19: Umm a hammer anyone? If they really wanted to destroy the thing that badly they could just take a hammer and shatter it into a million pieces.

#8 Posted by strekship on 16 Jul 2008 - 18:11: The point is not to destroy it, it is to keep data from being altered once it has been recorded on to the memory.

#9 Posted by ajua on 16 Jul 2008 - 18:17: This approach to security is well suited for some particular use, but not for users wanting a Read-only media. That is why CD and DVD are for in the first place.

However, with the speed and size of SD cards, this could be helpful for storing information that one don't need to delete/edit.

#10 Posted by coolkat007 on 16 Jul 2008 - 18:47: I was using my windows XP disc yesterday but it was all scratched. May be the software vendors will find it useful to ship the S/W. most of the computers are now shipping with card readers and yea.. bootable too so I think it will be a good idea to scrap CDs and DVDs and start using this kind of media. IMO

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