The Digital Life

A recent New York Times article touted the title "A Flash Drive That Holds Your Computer". The article says it works by not only storing files like MSWord Documents but also the system files that allow them to run. Exciting, no? Indeed exciting but also quite troubling. When I went to Jr. High floppy discs and CD's were almost banned because of the threat of uploading a virus to the schools computer. Of course the teachers were mistaken, we had Crapintosh's (once, for fun I checked how many instances of the "I Love You" virus were on a single Mac and lost count at 20. At this point you may be thinking to yourself, "Wow! What kind of firewall did you have?" The answer is, we didn't... At first this seems like a good thing... Then you get to thinking... If one of the world's most destructive viruses DOES NOT WORK on a Macintosh... Something's wrong with the Macintosh... But I digress...) The point I'm trying to make is: If computers can still get infected... Even though they have firewalls and anti-virus tools... Is it really a good idea to make something that can transfer a infected hard drive to a different computer?

The "flash drive" the New York Times was talking about was the "Ceedo Personal" running the "Lexar PowerToGo" software. The flash drive costs $53 to $90 for the 1GB and 2GB models respectively (an impressive 4GB model is set to be released in August). That kind of storage capacity is very frightening to this author. Think about the amount of viruses a disgruntled employee (statistically the most likely to sabotage a businesses computer) could store on a flash drive like that. Worse this could allow someone to unintentionally infect somebody's computer! The article also had worse news:

• "Lexar claims it's "Lightning" [flash drives]... Are two to six times as fast as regular flash drives..."
• "[Lexar's rival] U3 argues that [their flash drive]... offers more security... such as a password for the flash drive..." (U3 makes a special flash drive that allows you to install programs on the flash drive.
• "... [Ceedo's software] requires neither special programs nor special flash drives... It even runs on iPods and other portable drives..."
• "... Ceedo-equipped flash drives trick software installers into [installing]... onto a duplicate of your windows folder..."
• "... there's even a portable, duplicate registry on board..."
• "When you plug your drive into any PC - at, say, a Kinko's, a Airport Waiting Lounge, or at a friends house..."

Scary stuff...