How come USB sticks don't come with write-protection notches like floppy disks used to?
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How come USB sticks don't come with write-protection notches like floppy disks used to?
:blobcatthinking:
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Dan wished for too Much! 😓replied to Riley S. Faelan last edited by
@riley ...and SD cards?
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stay hingedreplied to Dan wished for too Much! 😓 last edited by
@WastelandWandrr @riley tbf some SD cards have em, so do some rare USB drives. but afaik in all 3 cases it doesn't actually make the writing impossible (e.g. physically disconnecting a write pin); it just "asks nicely". use CD/DVD-Rs
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@unspeaker Well, the original SD spec included a mechanical tab, so compliant cards have them, and compliant card-readers check it, mechanically.
But USB does not have a means for the "reader", the USB port or hub, to check such mechanical things, so USB sticks should have electronic write protection switches.
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Riley S. Faelanreplied to Dan wished for too Much! 😓 last edited by
@WastelandWandrr True SD cards have them. It's required by the MMC spec, and the SD spec inherited the requirement. It's the TF-to-SD adapters that usually don't.
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all true. but afaiu in all cases it's ultimately software-defined? floppy and sd, you rely on the reading device's firmware to be compliant, on usb stick you'd rely on the device firmware to comply with the setting of the switch and return errors to write operations... not as trustworthy as a true physical obstruction to writing
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@unspeaker Outside forensic write protection guards, alas, yes. But it could be done right if there was an elctronic switch on an USB stick.
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@unspeaker FWIW, while the old cassette tape protect tabs didn't exactly involve software, they, too, were implemented on the device side, and not in the cassette. In a proper implementation, it would probably turn off power to the erasing and writing heads; ideally, it should also block the recording "piano key", but that's mechanical and thus, would probably be uncommonly done. (Not necessarily translating electric to mechanical, though; the tab-sensing itself could be done mechanically, and then levered to block the recording button.)
