Is it possible to detect a USB flash drive being inserted by a client using javascript?

[jnvu16]

I'm working on a project at the moment that would somehow detect a USB Flash drive being inserted. It was easy at first when I used ASP.NET. However, that is for server-side programming, and now I need to somehow find a way to enable USB detection from the client-side, thus, I should be using javascript on this one. I just need to know;

is this possible?

If yes, could you show me how to do it?

Thanks! I would really appreciate it if you could reply as soon as possible.^_^

 

[Diancecht]

General answer: no.
Restricted to intranet applications where you can act over the security configuration: you could use some ActiveX control (for IE) or applet to do the job

Cheers,
Dian

 

[vacunita]

Agreed. Unless you can explicitly set the security settings of a browser to trust the Activex control, this cannot be done, nor should it be at all possible.

Think about the security breaches this could entail. What's to stop any malicious website from taking over your drives if it were possible.

In any case, if you can controll the security settings of IE for your targets, then you may want too stroll by the VB script forum, or even the Activex forum.


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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Web & Tech

 

[jnvu16]

Well, this was supposed to be for added user security. I'm planning to do something else now but it still involves the use of a USB flash drive. Tell me if this is possible though because it's still in theory as of now. It goes like this, I would enable the user to insert a flash drive and a textbox would be added just for that field. Once he inserts the USB flash drive, I would let my javascript read a txt file that I would somehow put in his flash drive and have it printed on that additional text box. Once again, is that possible though? And how do I do this?

 

[Diancecht]

Possible? Yes. Easy? Don't think so. Restrictions on the replies above still apply: need of applet/ActiveX development, need of control over security settings, ...

Cheers,
Dian