USB Armory Mini PC

[wlanboy]

The USB armory from Inverse Path is an open source hardware design, implementing a flash drive sized computer.




Hardware is great:

• Freescale i.MX53 ARM® Cortex™-A8 800Mhz, 512MB DDR3 RAM
• USB host powered (<500 mA) device with compact form factor (65 x 19 x 6 mm)
• ARM® TrustZone®, secure boot + storage + RAM
• microSD card slot
• 5-pin breakout header with GPIOs and UART
• customizable LED, including secure mode detection
• excellent native support (Android, Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD)
• USB device emulation (CDC Ethernet, mass storage, HID, etc.)

 

[KuJoe]

If it had built in WiFi then I'd order one. Looks really neat.

 

[wlanboy]

If it had built in WiFi then I'd order one. Looks really neat.

That was my first thought too.

But this is more like a Linux box within a USB stick thing.

Connect to your Notebook and you have SSH + Xfce + PAC Manager + VPN.

All with encrypted storage because this box is supporting ARM® TrustZone®.

 

[drmike]

Pretty awesome little device there

Wondering what the price point is going to be???

I'd consider one for things my Pi does not so well.... Tunnels, VPN, SSH randomness.

 

[KuJoe]

Pretty awesome little device there

Wondering what the price point is going to be???

I'd consider one for things my Pi does not so well.... Tunnels, VPN, SSH randomness.

Their website says they are aiming for sub-100 Euros (~$126.52), if they can get it to sub-$100 I'll probably order one to play with.

 

[QuadraNet_Adam]

Their website is currently not loading for me. Is this thing already out and available for purchase?

 

[Steven F]

Their website is currently not loading for me. Is this thing already out and available for purchase?

Nope

 

[willie]

It's a very powerful computer (Raspberry pi class, with A-series Cortex processor and something like 512MB of ram), that will supposedly cost in the $100 range.  I guess it's nice for something like that to exist, but I'd like something much cheaper and smaller and lower powered, with a realtime clock on the board.  The Digispark (digistump.com) has a small AVR processor that's TOO underpowered, but something like a Cortex M0 would be terrific.

 

[drmike]

Meh $100+... that's too much for this...

Aside from the form factor and the ARM TrustZone (which is probably just a CPU feature we'll see in slews of other stuff) it's a good $60+ too much.

There are plenty of already shipped and powerful Android based sticks (multi-cores and bigger RAM) and surely they are capable of running other OSes.

 

[MartinD]

Genuinely can't work out what this is useful for.


You essentially need a pc to run it..making it pointless?

 

[wlanboy]

Genuinely can't work out what this is useful for.


You essentially need a pc to run it..making it pointless?

It is the Chromebook / Tablet addon idea.

Keep your desktop with all ssh keys, openvpn connections, browser, links (saved passwords) and files save at a usb stick.

Connect the usb stick to your portable device, ssh to it and work with your trusted environment.

 

[willie]

I can't see it as a tablet add-on since it uses way too much power for USB OTG.  It's also far too powerful a computer to be intended as just an authentication token.  It's basically a raspberry pi in a usb stick form factor. 

 

[drmike]

I am with @willie on the niche.

Power envelope makes it unlikely that I'd go plugging 3-4 of them into a machine too.

To be viable next gen with this ARM-tethered-USB you need to be looking at USB3 speeds, bundling real storage on board or having breakouts for other storage options. Plus ideally other partnerships for bundling things.  Otherwise just competing with what is already at market.

The ARM space is weird with crowd funding stuff.   Like that ahhh device to filter your internet that just was all over the media last week.  Chinese rebadged box, no significant dev by the developer prior, etc.

Remixing Asian ARM production is possible, but needs more vision than this.  .... As I look at a stack of lowly and currently unused ARM devices cluttering my work environment.. ho hum....