LONDON: THE HACKERS CAME DOWN IN FORCE TO BREAK THE CODE AND PENETRATE THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY GADGET FROM VICTORINOX
When a shaven-headed tough guy arrives with an armour-plated briefcase hand-cuffed to his wrist to make a delivery, you know that you are not at any ordinary launch. Victorinox, the makers of the iconic Swiss Army Knife, were unveiling their latest memory stick at their European flagship store on London's New Bond Street. And they wanted to make their point in a way any would-be James Bond might recognise: the Victorinox Secure, the company claims, is the most secure memory stick on the commercial market. Only the shady world of national security agencies might use anything tougher to crack.
"In fact, when Victorinox showed at a trade fair recently, it was enough to draw the interest of both NASA and the NSA to our stand for the first time," said Victorinox's CEO Charles Elsener Jr., with all the enthusiasm of a schoolboy who has grown up with adventure yarns. "We're always looking to develop new products that fit with Victorinox's values of functionality and reliability while also meeting the needs of life today. This is the digital Swiss Army knife."
He put his money where his mouth is too. Amid the smart crowd assembled for the product's launch were suspicious characters noticeable for their preference for sneakers, hooded tops and pony-tails. These were professional hackers invited to spend two hours and all their resources to crack the Victorinox Secure. The prize? A cool GBP100,000. "I've never failed yet to get into any memory stick," said one, understandably keen not to give his name. "They're easy. And I'll get into this one too."
Or maybe not. The new device presents an impress array of layered defenses. Forget using a password. As Martin Kuster, its designer and a man more used to dealing with spies than lifestyle brands noted, the world's most widely-used password is the scarily predictable '12345'. "And if anyone tells you encryption is safe, they're lying," he added. "It can be cracked. It's just a question of time. Life is getting every more digital and people need to take responsibility for their data."
Rather, the Victorinox Secure uses a pioneering fingerprint recognition system that makes it unique to its user. It has a thermal sensor so, as Kuster ominously put it, "even if they cut your finger off, using it cold and dead won't work". And it is assembled in such a way as to make its parts inaccessible. And if anyone tries? "That's the part we like most," says Elsener with that grin again. The device has an auto-destruct system that burns its CPU and memory chip irrevocably. Never mind James Bond. This is more 'Mission Impossible'. And so the anonymous, determined and by now slightly agitated hackers find it. After two hours of watching numbers stream across their lap-top screens, of typing unintelligible code into the tools of their black trade, the Victorinox Secure remains as its name implies.
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