Not only does the ID Vault USB Security Device use Smart Card technology to frustrate identity thieves seeking to swipe your essential passwords and user IDs: it also employs the age-old power of sheer confusion. Because, like, what the heck is this thing?

Since fraudsters, buncoites, and ripoffmeisters never, ever visit this site, we can safely explain how it works to you. OK, let’s say you want to do some online banking. (No, you don’t need to actually say that out loud.)

First, cram the ID Vault dongle into an open USB port. Then open up your ID Vault Secure Favorites folder in Internet Explorer (v6-7) and click on the link to your bank. At this point, you must enter a super-special PIN that only you will know. Once you’ve done that, your user ID and password are sent to the bank’s site as if by magic, only without the whiff of brimstone. Eat your heart out, keyloggers!

It’s more secure than a speeding fingerprint reader, more powerful than an encrypted USB drive, and able to ward off scam artists with a single PIN. It only works with Windows XP, which we hear is like holy water to an identity thief. Should somebody manage to get ahold of your ID Vault dongle, it’ll sooner die than spill its little electronic guts without that PIN. (Should somebody force you to reveal your PIN - at gunpoint, say, or on the stretching rack – well, you’ve probably got bigger problems than any USB dongle can solve.)

What’s more, it even protects you from your own foolishness by checking IPs of financial institutions to make sure they’re legit before you go handing your credit card number over to some phisher. (Subscriptions to this IP database service cost $20 annually, but your first year is free with this purchase.) You know what they say about identity theft: fool me once, shame on you; fool me seven times, get me an ID Vault.

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