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Man Swallows USB Flash Drive Evidence
SlideRuleGuy writes "In a bold and bizarre attempt to destroy evidence seized during a federal raid, a New York City man grabbed a flash drive and swallowed the data storage device while in the custody of Secret Service agents. Records show Florin Necula ingested the Kingston flash drive shortly after his January 21 arrest outside a bank in Queens. A Kingston executive said it was unclear if stomach acid could damage one of their drives. 'As you might imagine, we have no actual experience with someone swallowing a USB.' I imagine that would be rather painful. But did he follow his mother's advice and chew thoroughly, first? Apparently not, as the drive was surgically recovered."
Next time, dude should use a microSD card.
And maybe some mayo. Blegh.
I am never, ever getting into the data recovery business.
data dump?
The story said he was skimming, not counterfeiting.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
FTFA:
When Necula was unable to pass the item after about four days, doctors--concerned that the drive was not compatible with the suspect's GI tract--concluded he "would be injured if they allowed the flash drive to remain inside of him," reported Borger. Necula eventually agreed to allow doctors at New York Downtown Hospital to remove the item, according to a source familiar with the incident.
Do Not Eat (if containing evidence in a federal investigation)
The enemies of Democracy are
I'm just glad we never got raided when I was storing data on the Vax 6000 tape drives.
I wonder if they clicked the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon first?
Sure it does. Printing money steals from everyone else with the currency. If you have some amount of value or wealth in your country in terms of goods and land, and suddenly there's twice as much money in circulation, everything would suddenly have to cost twice as much for the same amount of value to be exchanged. In essence, by introducing twice as much money into circulation, the money printer has just stolen half the wealth from all users of the currency. The same thing happens for trivial amounts of money, the effect just isn't as pronounced. The first time it's used the money has the same value as it used to. So the effect is especially nasty because it takes a while to materialize.
I actually knew someone whose job was to negotiate with dictators in African countries to trade $1M for some large quantity of newly printed money in the local currency. He'd then take that money and spend it on as much stuff as he could, take it to America and sell it at a profit. The dictator is happy to have a big pile of almost universally accepted US currency and doesn't understand (or care about) economics well enough to understand that he's just helped someone steal both goods and the intangible value of his country's currency.
Yeah, what a noob. Real geeks have numerous USB ports throughout their intestines and patch their firmware frequently to keep functionality regular.
A man brings his pet monkey to a bar. The monkey runs around eating everything in sight. First the cherries used for garnish. Then all the peanuts. Then the deviled eggs. Finally, he stops after eating a cue ball off the pool table.
The next week, the man returns with his monkey. Once again, the monkey runs to devour the cherries. But this time, instead of just eating it, he shoves the cherry up his ass first, pulls it out and then eats it. The bartender, quite disturbed by this, asks the man why the hell he shoved it up his ass first. The man replies, "Well, after the cue ball incident, he checks the size first before eating anything"...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
REGIS: For $16,000, the question is, 'What right do they have to risk the life of a presumed innocent man with dangerous surgery?' Your choices are...
A. The Patriot Act
B. The Alien and Sedition Act
C. The Jack Bauer Act
D. The part where he agreed to the surgery.
CONTESTANT: Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
Um. I'd like to use a lifeline.
REGIS: Alright! Which lifeline would you like to use?
CONTESTANT: I think I'm going to use my "Read The Fucking Article" lifeline, Regis.
REGIS: Alright! Computer, please print out a copy of the article for our contestant!
CONTESTANT: *reads* Regis, I'm going to have to go with 'D', "The part where he agreed to the surgery."
REGIS: Final answer?
CONTESTANT: Final answer.
After four days, it probably felt more like FireWire...
Isn't this man considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law?
No, not at all. He is in America, and we don't do that sort of thing anymore.