I now travel with a USB memory key for my computer and the first thing I thought about was protecting my data when I lose the darn thing!

What do people do that is easy to encrypt their files on the USB key?

My Sandisk Cruzer Titanium came with CruzerLock2 - 448 bit AES/Blowfish encryption. I must admit I rarely use it. Right now I have a few hundred MB of ripped MP3's on it - not quite critical information. Anything important I usually erase as soon as it's moved.

It looks like the basic version, just encrypting data on the drive itself, is free - http://www.sandisk.com/retail/cruzer-cruzerlock2.asp

My IT group gave me an encrypted USB drive, but it wouldn't work unless I loaded software on my computer first. Since I usually use these memory sticks to transfer data between computers, it didn't seem useful to first require the recipient computer to download software to use the memory stick.

Does this one require software on the computer, or can you simple use a password to access the USB drive.

Sandisk requires a small download of software for Windows 98 users, other than that I don't know of any.........

I have a 2GB Corsair drive and I use a free program called "TrueCrypt" which has worked really well.

I also use the Portable Apps - USB versions of Firefox (browser), Thunderbird (email), and OpenOffice (MS Office clone) so anywhere I go, I can just plug in and have a browser with all my favorites, Office for doing documents / whatever, and I even have a super-small and thin Acrobat reader.

All these programs don't require anything to be installed on the machine I'm using at some internet cafe.

I also keep copies of my phone lists, passport, credit cards, insurance, etc, on the little encrypted partition in both .PDF and .TIF formats in case I ever need to print 'em out in an emergency.

Anyone have any other suggestions on what to keep on the USB drive when on the road?

Backup copies of any documents you've created or modified.

Backup copies of any e-mail you've received or sent that you don't want to lose, including any important attachments you haven't stored separately.

Backup copies of ... you get the idea. See "Ever have a laptop die on a trip?" in this forum for some examples of why.

I second that as a great idea, if you've got space on your drive - you never know when it'll come in handy. you could also keep a file encryption program on it, so you don't need any extra drivers. I don't know of any of the top of my head, but I'm sure there's something out there that can be run straight off the drive to en/decrypt files

I second the recommendation for TrueCrypt.

IIRC, Sony has some USB Keys that have fingerprint ID built-in. Don't know how secure that really is and of course you have to consider the pros and cons of the extra price but the option is avaliable.

I found this regardingt the sony fingerprint micro vault - definitely an option, but sounds pricey, and the available capacities are rather small...

How is performance of the apps - is it noticeably any slower than when "installed" on a PC, or do you not notice the difference?

Despite low expectations, I was quite impressed. I'm using the Beta 2.0 version and it works really well on USB. It's free, and has been able to open all the Word and Excel documents I've thrown at it.

Download it and give it a spin, it isn't too big, either:

http://www.openoffice.org/

Just stumbled across this web site that has a collection of USB applications for road warriors:

http://www.usbapps.com/

Yeah, that's pretty nice. Thanks! I'm a convert.

The encryption stuff requires software downloaded from the key to the host machine. The driver messed my machine up, I now use the key as entirely unencrypted.