External Hard drive question

[Mustangt93]

Hey guys. I know this may sound a little science fiction at this point but I have question concerning protection of my exernal hard drive that I use to store my songs that I will be running on hoster. I just recently got all my songs uploaded to hard drive and I'm ready to start my karaoke shows and use hoster. However, I am leary and I'm hoping you can help. I have two people who work for me and they will be using my computer from to run the karaoke shows with my external hard drive. I think I trust one of them but the other I'm not so sure about. I'm afraid they might take it home and try and download my library that I have invested tens of thousands of songs on...not to mention the time it took putting it all on hard drive. I know there is a way to passcode the hard drive itself to keep someone from accessing it..but obviously that won't work since they have to use the harddrive for the computer. So, is there a way to be able to protect my hard drive in such a way that it can only be used on MY computer and if they try to go home and download it onto their computer it won't download without some kind of passcode. Perhaps that technology is beyond our grasp at this point but I figure if anyone would know it would be you guys since you use something similar to be able to detect if the hoster goes on more than one computer and if more than 2 or 4 you have to buy another set with a new passcode to go on different computers. Since you can do it I figure there must be a way. Any help you could give me would be appreciated. Thanks!

Lance

[Roy Dennis]

This has been asked before on this forum and I don't think a solution was found.

There are hard drives that you have to use a swipe card to access but then you would have to hand the swipe card to the operater to start the show anyway, same with password protected hard drives, unless you set it up fist then leave the show, only trouble then is if the operator had a shutdown then he would be unable to restart.

Go to these posts: http://forum.mtu.com/showthread.php?...ect+hard+drive

[Mustangt93]

Wow..sorry about that. I thought I ck'd good for this question before I asked it. My apologies. I suppose that might be the next step in our evoltion of the hard drive...in order to stop people from reaping the benefits of our hard work. I would think the solution to that has got to be out there. I suppose the swipe card seems like and interesting thing. But, I guess I would have to buy one that already has the capability? If mine doesn't have it would I be able to add that feature?

[Roy Dennis]

You have to buy the actual hard drive with that built in, this is a link: http://shop.freecom.com/store/freeco...=1315872008920

Another alternative is this password protect software :
http://www.newsoftwares.net/usb-secu...FQJO4Qodgw6GkA

But as I see it you would have to give your KJ the card or password so there goes it's security.

[Beavis]

MTU would have to come up with a solution for this. we have talked about it before but no real answer was given.

admin would have to answer this.

[admin]

Originally Posted by Beavis

MTU would have to come up with a solution for this. we have talked about it before but no real answer was given.

admin would have to answer this.

Hey Beav... been missing you!

We did a project for a Karaoke Distributor (UAV selling Karaoke Bay discs) that provided security of files on the CDG disc, stored on a second session (multisession disc). We theorized that with some modifications we could offer this as a protection product to our customers.

You would buy a "Song Code" and an MTU program that would protect your songs. Then the songs would only run on the computer that the Song Code is installed on. Once a song is protected, that's t; no Remove Silence, renaming, etc. NO EDITING. The encryption would be absolute and would only run on the computer the Song Code is installed on.

Our current security allows us to provide a means to install that same Song Code on one or more computers. However, again we would ONLY ALLOW the Company Owner to purchase this, and we need some absolute secure method to insure this. Otherwise, a tech-savy employee could copy your encrypted songs and get a Song Code on their computer.

It would provide absolute protection of your songs. PERIOD! Once encrypted, there would be NO DECRYPTOR to restore them to an unencrypted status (otherwise if that decryptor program got out it would allow breaking the encryption.

It would be the Company OWNER's responsibility to keep a master un-encrypted copy of each song and that's a lot of "secure archiving". I believe that FEW of the current Hosts running shows would be willing to do all this.

However... this creates a real nightmare for MTU to service your needs as a Host.

1. If your computer dies, we'd have to get secured authorization from you (so we know it is the OWNER not an employee) to allow moving the Song Code to a replacement computer.

2. If you want to install the same Song Code on a second, third, etc. computer so the same Songs could run on those computers, we can provide that. However, again we must have a secure means to know you are the OWNER, not an employee who is trying to steal your songs... and YES, they will try as it has been reported many times before to us.

3. You will need INSTANT support, which will carry a fee, and we'll need to have a fee tracking/paying method in place to provide this support.

4. You want 24/7/365 support, and we are a small company with humans who like to sleep also sometime during 24 hours.

Were talking in the range of $250+ per year and not 24/7/365 support. We don't believe many Hosts are willing to pay that, and the development time is not possible at this time given our current new developments.

[Mustangt93]

Well, the key is just to go ahead and put it on a few backup hard drives and then secure those drives to only those computers. That way...if one went down you would have two backups on other laptops while you were getting that laptop fixed. That way you wouldn't necessarily need the 24 hours access to you guys all the time. And I can assure you that I would pay $250 a year for that service to keep someone from stealing my entire collection that I've spend $40 to $50 thousand on over the last 15 years. It would be worth it. But, that's all a moot point since the technology isnt' available yet.