USB Swiss Army Knife

finno writes "The Register has a heads-up on a new Swiss Army knife by Victorinox. As the article says, 'Given that you can buy a Victorinox Swiss Army Knive with just about every gadget known to man, from horse-hoof awl to Hubble Space Telescope lens polisher, it's no real surprise that the company - in association with flash memory outfit Swissbit - is now offering cutting tools plus USB flash memory stick.' In my home state of New South Wales, it is illegal to be carrying a knife without a reasonable excuse such as 'the lawful pursuit of the person's occupation'. I got me a reasonable excuse now!"

Comments

Nice, but...

[Zone-MR]

Nice, except flash memory is just a start.

What I would really need is a combination pendrive, wi-fi, and bluetooth adaptor, and MP3/OGG player.

Currently I carry a seperate USB flash drive, and MA401 pen-style wi-fi transceiver. The lack of built in memory on the MA401 means I need to plug in the pendrive every time I need to load the drivers.

rights in europe?

[AmigaAvenger]

In my home state of New South Wales, it is illegal to be carrying a knife without a reasonable excuse such as 'the lawful pursuit of the person's occupation'.

Amazing how much we hear about the US trouncing civil liberties from people on that side of the pond, when they refuse to look around and realize they have NO rights left!!

Re:rights in europe?

[twbecker]

The fact that the parent's obviously not up on his geography doesn't make his point less valid. The things you cite aren't examples of rights we don't have in America. Sure, we may need ID to buy a sixer if we look as if we could possibly be too young to legally do so (I guess in your country you just sell it to them anyway?). The poster claims that in NSW, you cannot carry a knife unless you have a work-related reason to do so. THAT is an example of a right not granted.

Security Threat of USB Flash Drives

[G4from128k]

I'd bet that devices like these give security officers, IP hoarders, and trade secret people the willies. The idea that someone (employee, vendor, or confident hacker) could walk into any office, stick their keychain USB drive into a PC and transfer files to/from an internal network is not too pleasant to contemplate. Seems like a great way to introduce trojans or snarf sensitive files. I wonder if some companies disable USB Mass Storage on their PCs to prevent this type of unauthorized access?

What kind of idiot legislature...

[Fencepost]

Passes that kind of a law banning any kind of blade in any public place? It's the kind of law that can almost only be there to provide an excuse to throw more charges at someone - "He jaywalked, and he had scissors! Because this is his second offense, we'll be seeking the maximum of 12 months in prison."

"knife" includes:
(a) a knife blade, or
(b) a razor blade, or
(c) any other blade,

Re:What kind of idiot legislature...

[Mikkeles]

'Passes that kind of a law banning any kind of blade in any public place? It's the kind of law that can almost only be there to provide an excuse to throw more charges at someone...'

That's the point. If enough laws and regulations are enacted, then everyone becomes (or can become) a criminal. Even if not enforced all that much, they allow for greater control of the peasantry.

Incorrect configuration

[happyEverGeek]

It looks great, but for a PC technician, I hope they make one with a philips blade rather than scissors.

Weight?

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

I don't know if it would be an issue or not, but how heavy is this thing? Generally it's not a good idea to plug things into your PC ports that are anywhere close to having a significant weight. I'd hate to bend or break my USB ports from plugging this thing in...

Photo faked?

[pluckyduck]

I don't know. Could this be an early April Fool's hoax?

If the picture is accurate, it looks like the USB connector won't fit folded up. Looks like a bad cut & paste to me.

Re:Leatherman

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah! Leatherman's are just toys too. Never trust a tech who doesn't lug around a full tool kit.

Get Real Tools

[Fished]

I've become increasingly convinced that most "multi purpose" tools simply don't work very well. When I work on computers, I don't use a swiss army knife: instead, I carry a "screw stick" (one of those screwdrivers with four difference phillips and flat heads), a pair of needle-nose pliers, a regular pocket knife (a small gerber model that has one, sharp 2" blad) and a knoppix CD to diagnostics and the like. With those tools, I can fix anything. I might add a USB stick for quick backups and such if the price on big ones comes down some more.

I used to carry a swiss army knife, but found it difficult to get leverage and even more difficult to get to small, recessed screws and the like.

The philosophers are right.

[Denyer]

Information is a weapon...

The point about legal carrying of sharp edges raises another interesting point. I mean, have you ever tried stabbing anything with most penknives? You'd have more joy sticking a biro through someone's chest. (Yes, I realise there are some very high-quality penknives out there too.) Yet there's no attempt by many law-enforcement agencies to differentiate between a useful basic tool and a dedicated weapon. Rather similar to the data/MP3/filesharing situation.

Re:The philosophers are right.

[CrankyFool]

It's not law enforcement's job to differentiate between my 2" pen knife and my Benchmade -- it's the politicians' job. If the law says knife blade, the cops look for knife blades. If the law said "bad ass blades over six inches," that's what the cops would go for.

Though realistically, you're also inaccurate because the laws do treat different knives differently. It's legal for me to walk around with a 3.5" knife, but not if it's 4.5. It's legal if it's single-edged, but not if it's double-edged. And don't even get me started about my balisongs.

Re:My Micra Leatherman Carries the Day

[paganizer]

If you pack a bunch of adult humans in a really small cage, and give them all swiss army USB devices...

Same principle on the guns/city thing; while I don't think it's correct - morally or legally - to infringe someones right to bear arms, if you pack them in like sardines they are going to start cutting / blowing holes in each other.

Of course, thats why I live someplace where I can open the door a few feet away from me and fire off a clip from my SKS and nobody is going to think twice about it, unless it's midnight.

We have, in general very intelligent, polite criminals in rural tennessee; the dumb ones got shot / eaten / gruesomely dispatched a long time ago and didn't reproduce.

Halfway there...

[John Harrison]

Here is the pen drive/MP3 player. I am quite happy with mine (512 MB version). It was cheaper than the Creative Muvo and had a greater capacity.

As for the pocket knife, that would be great but you can't carry it on an airplane anymore. I bet that sales of Victorinox have gone down since 9/11. I don't even know where mine is anymore, I used to carry it with me everyday.

Re:Leatherman

[DNS-and-BIND]

Never trust a tech who says that trendy multitools like the Leatherman are indespensible. Real techs carry real tools. They also don't trust other techs who have their URLs pointing to register.com spamsites.

Security Threat of Floppy Drives

[anethema]

I'd bet that devices like these give security officers, IP hoarders, and trade secret people the willies. The idea that someone (employee, vendor, or confident hacker) could walk into any office, stick their floppy disk into a PC and transfer files to/from an internal network is not too pleasant to contemplate. Seems like a great way to introduce trojans or snarf sensitive files. I wonder if some companies disable Floppy Drives on their PCs to prevent this type of unauthorized access?(bold=changes)

The point is, portable storage isnt new. And disabling it, is relativly simple.