"M. Adam Davis" writes:
>but I doubt that it's just a simple flash memory device.  Chances are it
>contains a uController with some sort of challenge/encryption scheme.

        Anything is possible, but wouldn't it make more sense to put
all the encryption strategy in the device using the memory stick and
build a different key in to each widget so that if one was to just pop
out the Memory Stick and put it in to something else, it would be full
of data that didn't decode because the key was different?  That way,
one could sell Memory Sticks by the train load and the sticks would
work in any device designed to take them, but the data, once recorded,
would only be readable in that specific device or any device that used
the same key.

        Another thing to look out for kind of along these same lines
is that there might not really be 32 or 64 megabytes of data addresses
but that there is some sort of compression/expansion engine built in
to the stick and that we would have to know how the algorithm worked
in order to actually store that amount of data, ourselves.  Sony's
devices would be designed with this in mind and so they could call
this a 8 or 64 megabyte module because that's how much it can store
when addressed correctly.

        I hope anybody on the list who is able to can set us straight
so we can either forget this for now or plan to design around it in
the future.

Martin McCormick