I just got introduced to U3 jump drives last week and I must say I love the
concept.  I'm still learning just what they can do but I'm very curious,
has there been any talk of a U3 compatible version of POV-Ray?  Is one in
the works or does one already exist?  I did a quick search here and didn't
see any mention of U3.  If you don't know what I'm talking about here is a
good place to start:

 http://www.u3.com/

Thanks,
Carl

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> has there been any talk of a U3 compatible version of POV-Ray?  Is one in
> the works or does one already exist?

	From  http://www.u3.com/support/default.aspx#CQ4

"Mac OS, Linux, Unix and the older versions of Windows OS are not supported.
On these systems your U3 smart drive will function as a regular USB flash drive"

	So IMO U3 is a completely broken concept, even though it might be useful
for Windows users (not to mention many problems I've read about U3-enabled
USB disks).  No idea if it's worth to try porting WinPOV for U3 then.  Instead,
making WinPOV totally registry-independent might be something worth to try.

	- NC

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Carl wrote:
> I just got introduced to U3 jump drives last week and I must say I love the
> concept. 

I can't figure out what the concept is from their web site. Perhaps you 
can clarify what the point is? A flash presentation saying "USB drives 
are portable, and you can unplug them" doesn't really tell me much I 
didn't know.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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Nicolas Calimet schrieb:
> 
> "Mac OS, Linux, Unix and the older versions of Windows OS are not 
> supported.
> On these systems your U3 smart drive will function as a regular USB 
> flash drive"

Actually that's wrong - i have seen countless times someone trying to 
plug such a thing in (both Windows and other systems) without it working 
(only turning up some dummy CD-ROM drive).

Since the whole thing seems to work by auto-running some binary from the 
stick any functional security system *should* prevent it from working.

The term 'smart drive' is probably supposed to indicate that the drive 
is smarter than those using it...

-- Christoph

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I can't figure out what the concept is from their web site. Perhaps you
> can clarify what the point is?

Well I'm certainly no U3 expert but from what I've seen the concept is to
use your jump drive for more then simply carring your files around.  Say
you create an excel file on your home PC and save it on your jump drive.
If you then plug that jump drive in another PC you have the file but you
may not be able to open it unless you also have excel on that system.  U3
lets you install software directly to the jump drive so you can have your
web browser on your jump drive and all your favorites and bookmarks and
cookies etc go with you.  Same with email, and wallpaper images, etc.  In
short if you use U3 it can almost take the place of a lap top as any PC you
use can look just like your desktop at home.  And if you are using a PC in
your hotel on a business trip you don't leave any trail on that PC.  All
the history is only saved on the jump drive.  I personally use several
diffent PCs and I've tinkered in POV-Ray on all of them.  And its not
unusual for me to be looking for files I have on another PC and don't have
access to at the moment.  I think if I had POV-Ray installed on a U3 drive
I could always take it with me and in principle use any PC I wanted to.

How well this works in practice I don't know.  As I said, I've only been
playing with it for a week.

Carl

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Carl wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> I can't figure out what the concept is from their web site. Perhaps you
>> can clarify what the point is?
> 
> Well I'm certainly no U3 expert but from what I've seen the concept is to
> use your jump drive for more then simply carring your files around.  Say
> you create an excel file on your home PC and save it on your jump drive.
> If you then plug that jump drive in another PC you have the file but you
> may not be able to open it unless you also have excel on that system.  U3
> lets you install software directly to the jump drive so you can have your
> web browser on your jump drive and all your favorites and bookmarks and
> cookies etc go with you.  Same with email, and wallpaper images, etc.  In
> short if you use U3 it can almost take the place of a lap top as any PC you
> use can look just like your desktop at home.  And if you are using a PC in
> your hotel on a business trip you don't leave any trail on that PC.  All
> the history is only saved on the jump drive.  I personally use several
> diffent PCs and I've tinkered in POV-Ray on all of them.  And its not
> unusual for me to be looking for files I have on another PC and don't have
> access to at the moment.  I think if I had POV-Ray installed on a U3 drive
> I could always take it with me and in principle use any PC I wanted to.
> 
> How well this works in practice I don't know.  As I said, I've only been
> playing with it for a week.
> 
> Carl
> 
> 

What prevents you from installing software to any jump drive, assuming
the software doesn't require registry values or a dll in some almost
hidden windows system folder? It seems like U3 just hides the registry
tweaks from the user, adding them when the drive is connected and
sometimes removing them when the drive is removed. This is not a good
method of doing things.

And it does not look like this would do anything to protect your data if
you used it on an unsecured system like a hotel lobby PC. First, the U3
drive would have to install it's program, then load the registry with
with what every entries your software requires. If that PC lets you even
install the U3 driver, can you trust that someone else hasn't already
installed a keylogger or worse? The antivirus on the thumb drive is,
most likely, relying on the host OS to do the file searching and if that
host is compromised then it might never see the virus already on the
computer. And if it's virus targeted towards the U3*, once you type the
password once to get one program running, the rest of your data might be
vulnerable too.

*Havn't heard of one yet, but if this gets popular, well. . .

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Sabrina Kilian wrote:
> It seems like U3 just hides the registry
> tweaks from the user, adding them when the drive is connected and
> sometimes removing them when the drive is removed.

Or redirecting ("hooking") the system calls using the approved 
mechanisms for doing so. If they had any brains. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     Remember the good old days, when we
     used to complain about cryptography
     being export-restricted?

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