I think that if your threat model is the NSA, then them having physical control over the drive–and probably you in a black site–is probably going to be the end of the road for you.

So if that’s correct, then a single company breaking the IronKey isn’t, by itself, that big of a deal unless and until the knowledge bcomes fairly widely available.

Seems like it’s a good starting point.

I wonder if you can encrypt the files prior to storing them on the key, which would then encrypt them a second time with a different method. Would the compromise the data in any meaningful way? Or would it mean that you had to decrypt the key and then decrypt the data a second time?

Technically you can cook a hamburger to medium and have it be safe to eat, but I really don’t see most restaurants doing sous vide for hamburgers.

I you want to talk about how they got to power, well, fascists usually got there by votes, and communists by revolution. It’s rare–but not unheard of–for a communist gov’t to be voted into power.

But the end results end up being remarkable similar; they’re both dictatorial, and both use state-sponsored violence to suppress or eliminate competing political ideology. (I want to be clear that I’m not talking about Marxism specifically; Marx was opposed to the existence of a state. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, et al. were authoritarian.) As long as you are part of the political in group, you’re golden. Once you’re out, you’re an enemy of the state.

…Dude. Do you want to, I dunno, read about the purges of loyal communists by Stalin in the 30s and 40s? Can you explain to me how that’s significantly different from the Night of Long Knives?