Phantomdrive

Phantomdrive Open-Source USB Drive Conceals Encrypted Storage to Resist Coercion

Developer Ryan Walker has released Phantomdrive, a fully open-source USB device that initially appears as an 8 GB drive while hiding the remaining capacity from the operating system. The gadget uses a CH569 microcontroller with hardware AES support and an SD card for storage, switching to a hidden encrypted partition when a specific password string is written to a text file. It employs a key derivation function with 100,000 rounds of SHA-256 combined with a unique device salt derived from the USB serial number to strengthen password security. The project supports AES-CTR mode by default for performance reasons, delivering up to 20 MB/s reads, while AES-XTS is available as a slower but more robust alternative. All firmware, hardware schematics, and mechanical designs are published under open licenses, and the device is physically secured with epoxy resin to deter tampering. Walker acknowledges earlier community criticism regarding cryptographic implementation details and has addressed functional testing against OpenSSL references.