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.

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,

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.