Yubico Forum :: View topic - Can you add flash memory to the key?

Sorry to hear that you're not happy with the service offering we have. A few customers have expressed similar thoughts as they were expecting a canned authentication service as a part of the Yubikey they bought.

The way we've done it is to provide the key hardware, the tools and a service suitable for testing, pilots and small scale implementations. The projects that has grown large are using their own authentication service.

We're aware of the need for a more extensive hosted service and we're working on the business model for such a venture. Time will tell where it all ends up.

Regarding Flash memory - this is a common question. Our standard answer is that we can't compete with the billions of dedicated Flash drives out there on a highly crowded market. I just noticed that you can get a 4 GB drive on Amazon.com for $6. If we would add some memory, it would be more expensive than that and the price of the Yubikey would always be benchmarked against the currently most inexpensive Flash memory available at a given moment. And users will always complain that it is too small...

We know about this feature request and we've not closed the door completely. You'll maybe see a Yubikey featuring small flash memory compartment, good enough for a certificate or two. Not as a back-up to your photo library...

Regards,

JakobE
Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

Author:	Robert Howard [ Fri Oct 16, 2009 9:51 pm ]
Post subject:	Can you add flash memory to the key?
I bought Yubikey for > 1 year and rarely use it. Still today I can't find really useful places to accept it except playing with the open-sourced SDK, and some half-cooked apps & services. Today I found a forum topic talking about exactly the same problem - no popular places really use take the thing. But if you add flash memory to the key, that will be useful to 100% of the people. OTP should be just an add-on feature.

Author:	Jakob [ Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:11 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Can you add flash memory to the key?
Sorry to hear that you're not happy with the service offering we have. A few customers have expressed similar thoughts as they were expecting a canned authentication service as a part of the Yubikey they bought. The way we've done it is to provide the key hardware, the tools and a service suitable for testing, pilots and small scale implementations. The projects that has grown large are using their own authentication service. We're aware of the need for a more extensive hosted service and we're working on the business model for such a venture. Time will tell where it all ends up. Regarding Flash memory - this is a common question. Our standard answer is that we can't compete with the billions of dedicated Flash drives out there on a highly crowded market. I just noticed that you can get a 4 GB drive on Amazon.com for $6. If we would add some memory, it would be more expensive than that and the price of the Yubikey would always be benchmarked against the currently most inexpensive Flash memory available at a given moment. And users will always complain that it is too small... We know about this feature request and we've not closed the door completely. You'll maybe see a Yubikey featuring small flash memory compartment, good enough for a certificate or two. Not as a back-up to your photo library... Regards, JakobE Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

Author:	csplinter [ Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:33 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Can you add flash memory to the key?
JakobE wrote: Sorry to hear that you're not happy with the service offering we have. A few customers have expressed similar thoughts as they were expecting a canned authentication service as a part of the Yubikey they bought. The way we've done it is to provide the key hardware, the tools and a service suitable for testing, pilots and small scale implementations. The projects that has grown large are using their own authentication service. We're aware of the need for a more extensive hosted service and we're working on the business model for such a venture. Time will tell where it all ends up. Regarding Flash memory - this is a common question. Our standard answer is that we can't compete with the billions of dedicated Flash drives out there on a highly crowded market. I just noticed that you can get a 4 GB drive on Amazon.com for $6. If we would add some memory, it would be more expensive than that and the price of the Yubikey would always be benchmarked against the currently most inexpensive Flash memory available at a given moment. And users will always complain that it is too small... We know about this feature request and we've not closed the door completely. You'll maybe see a Yubikey featuring small flash memory compartment, good enough for a certificate or two. Not as a back-up to your photo library... Regards, JakobE Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico I would also like to buy a Yubikey with flash memory. I agree with you that any flash storage included shouldn't be treated as a place to keep your media collection. 1gb or even 512mb would be perfectly fine. I'd love to be able to include certs, a portable web browser with tor, and some simple utilities related to security and the Yubikey. I don't think that a Yubikey with flash memory would necessarily have to compete with bargain flash drives to be successful.

Author:	Kuka [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 7:52 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Can you add flash memory to the key?
Can't agree more! See my post in: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=434 From a 10-year Sandisk veteran point of view, this has a bright future!

Author:	Jakob [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 1:25 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Can you add flash memory to the key?
I have a 128kB prototype on the desk here. Regards, JakobE Hardware- and firmware guy @ Yubico

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