Man Swallows USB Drive to Destroy Evidence

[bison88]

Hopefully it wasn't one of those "Tough" drives and maybe the stomach acids could destroy the evidence he was trying to protect. I am assuming that was his only bet lol.

 

[jfem]

Reminds me of the incredible hulk movie.

 

[fjjb]

Maybe if the body didnt pull it out its because now the brain its using the usb storage

 

[Supertrek32]

I'm sorry, but these people are just silly. There's no way stomach acid could do any real damage in that amount of time.

If I was going to be storing illegal information on a flash drive, I'd attach a battery and a push button to make a "kill-switch" and short the thing out.

Suspicious? Yeah, but if destroying the evidence is worth eating it, it's probably better than the alternative.

 

[Ehsan w]

[citation][nom]phoenix777[/nom]lol,http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmnUx_wNqRE[/citation]

see how all the cops are white......

Just kidding....

 

[BluntObjection]

[citation][nom]cheepstuff[/nom]I thought it was illegal to perform an operation without his consent. so how could they have scheduled an operation before he agreed to it? i guess it doesn't matter anyway because if that drive refused to come out, he would be begging for the anyway operation soon enough.[/citation]

"TSG cites a source that says Necula eventually agreed to allow doctors at New York Downtown Hospital to remove the item and he is being held without bail at Queens jail."

He eventually agreed.

 

[LATTEH]

Yes yes but can it hold crysis on its memory?

 

[codefuapprentice]

Would you like vinegar with your chips?

 

[tommysch]

How about trying Truecrypt?

 

[zak_mckraken]

Dumb criminals do dumb stuff.

Kingston GutDrive™. Can resist the harshest conditions.

 

[Ryric]

I wonder if a search warrant could cover that?

 

[seraphimcaduto]

actually, the Hydrochloric acid in your stomach is NOT dilute so unless the cover was acid resistant, that flash drive is history. The bad thing for the defendant is that there may have been heavy metals like mercury in there and charged mercury going through your system is bad.

 

[webgrunt]

Shadow703793:

That's true, but those leads are practically microscopic. How are you going to find someone who can solder them onto a new PCB?

 

[gmcboot]

[citation][nom]usbme[/nom]been easier just to have the drive encrypted and tactically forget your password.....[/citation]

If you think the US government cannot decrypt a flash drive.. ha ha ha. It not as easy as the CSI shows make it seem, but I suspect there are individuals who work for the US government who could have the data off that drive in 10 minutes. I know everyone thinks the government is full of idiots, and for the most part it is, but there are some extreme smart and devious people that work for the government. Sometime working for the government is for the American people and sometime it is against.

The USB drive is find, he'll be going to jail for a nice long time.

 

[palladin9479]

Depending on the type of encryption used it could very well prove to be impossible to recover. This isn't some movie, the US Government doesn't have some magic program that will crack any encryption in seconds, or even days. Current AES 256 bit (or hell Blow Fish 256) encryption with 2048 bit key is more then enough to prevent god from getting your data. Honestly the weakest part of encryption is people using super easy passwords to generate the encryption keys. Things like kids names, dates, schools, ect. Using those you can reproduce the encryption key, which lets you decrypt the data... defeating the purpose of high level encryption.

 

[Nimmist]

Now there’s some advertising for you: “Our latest USB flash drive not only survives washing machines and running it over with cars, but you can swallow it, have it surgically removed, and it still works!”

 

[jellico]

[citation][nom]palladin9479[/nom]Depending on the type of encryption used it could very well prove to be impossible to recover. This isn't some movie, the US Government doesn't have some magic program that will crack any encryption in seconds, or even days. Current AES 256 bit (or hell Blow Fish 256) encryption with 2048 bit key is more then enough to prevent god from getting your data. Honestly the weakest part of encryption is people using super easy passwords to generate the encryption keys. Things like kids names, dates, schools, ect. Using those you can reproduce the encryption key, which lets you decrypt the data... defeating the purpose of high level encryption.[/citation]

Palladin is exactly correct. Encryption really is a military-grade technology, which is why the export of algorithms was treated as exporting arms and why Phil Zimmerman got into so much trouble when he wrote PGP.

As for the government breaking the encryption... they can't. But what they have done is create sophisticated programs that they can feed in every scrap of information about you and everyone you know, everything they can find that you've written down on paper, on your computer, or on blogs and message boards. The program will then combine all of that information along with standard dictionaries to try and guess your password. The program can try thousands of permutations a second and will start with the most probable combinations first. So if you want to be secure, your password should be a long combinations of mixed case letters, and numbers that only means something to you, but is not something that you have ever talked about, written down, or even said out loud.

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]seraphimcaduto[/nom]actually, the Hydrochloric acid in your stomach is NOT dilute so unless the cover was acid resistant, that flash drive is history. The bad thing for the defendant is that there may have been heavy metals like mercury in there and charged mercury going through your system is bad.[/citation]
That's QUITE incorrect. You should read it up; stomach acid is rather dilute; after all, your stomach manages to contain it, after all. And similarly, again, read my comment about battery acid being contained in what are clearly plastic casings.

Remember, if things rapidly disolved in one's stomach like that, even if it was just the more-vulnerable materials like iron, there'd be a lot more cases of iron poisoning from people doing things like swallowing nails. (Rather, it's the case that people worry about said nail puncturing the stomach wall)

 

[wayneepalmer]

1gb San Disc Cruiser

Washer, dryer, airport scanners, set a magnet on it. dropped onto an electric motor, drenched with Venom energy drink, stepped on repeatedly...

These things are tough.

 

[fracture]

Don't worry, he'll download it.