Patent ID: 7743422

Claim:
A portable device for connecting to a host information processing platform, the portable device comprising: a digital information storage medium storing an operating system image, and one or more of data, secure data, applications and system state of a user of the portable device; and a platform validation program for: running a plurality of tests on the host computer to determine whether the host is safe from malicious software, and causing the host information processing platform to present to the user of the portable device a user-identifiable message that changes every time the portable device connects to the host information processing platform and notifies the user whether the information processing platform is safe; wherein the user-identifiable message indicates a last time that the portable device was used, a prior host platform in which the portable device was used, the characteristics of a current host platform, including at least one characteristic selected from a group consisting of: system manufacturer name, model number, serial number, motherboard manufacturer name, processor speed, an amount of memory installed; and I/O devices attached to the portable device.