October 12, 2025 • 25 mins
A tiny stick changed how we move information—and how attackers move too. We pull back the curtain on the USB flash drive’s quiet takeover: why floppies and CD-Rs failed us, how flash memory and USB converged, and which teams across Singapore, Israel, and China raced to ship the first pocket drive that actually worked. From early 8 MB models that cost a small fortune to today’s terabyte dual‑connector rockets, the arc is a crash course in convenience beating complexity.
We go beyond the specs to the human story. The new sneaker net brought agility to classrooms, studios, and fieldwork long before cloud storage matured, and it still rules when bandwidth is scarce or privacy matters. But the same traits that made thumb drives beloved—small, portable, plug‑and‑play—made them dangerous. We unpack pivotal moments: Agent.BTZ breaching U.S. military networks, Stuxnet crossing air gaps to wreck centrifuges, a city’s entire resident database riding unencrypted in a bag, a hotel compromised by parking‑lot bait, a campus locked by ransomware, and a firm undercut after careless copying. Each tale shows how curiosity, haste, and habit can turn a helpful tool into a vector for loss.
We share the playbook that works: default to encryption (hardware or OS‑native), label and inventory every drive, whitelist trusted devices and block the rest, and train people to treat unknown USBs like untrusted code. We also map where flash still beats the cloud—air‑gapped labs, disaster zones, forensic chains, and anywhere “no third‑party server” is a requirement. If portability is power, prudence is the price. Listen to learn the origin myths, the price curves, the cultural shifts, and the simple habits that keep pocket power safe.
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Art By Sarah/Desmond
Music by Joakim Karud
Little chacha Productions
Juan Rodriguez can be reached at
TikTok @ProfessorJrod
ProfessorJRod@gmail.com
@Prof_JRod
Instagram ProfessorJRod
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:28):
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor J.
Rodney.
In this episode, the store ofthe USB flash drive, power in
your pocket.
Let's tap it.
(01:11):
And today we're diving into thesmallest, simplest, and most
powerful inventions in moderncomputing.
It doesn't hum, it doesn't spin,it doesn't even make a sound.
Yet, for more than 20 years,it's carried our homework, our
photos, our presentations, oursecrets, and sometimes even our
hopes.
You know it by many names (01:29):
thumb drive, jump drive, memory stick,
pen drive, but officially it'sthe USB flash drive, a tiny
rectangle that forever changedhow humans move information.
We'll explore how it wasinvented, who created it, what
it costs, why it spread so fast,and how it forced us to confront
(01:51):
brand new questions about datasecurity and digital
responsibility.
So grab your coffee and plug inyour curiosity and let's tap in
into technology.
The world before the thumbdrive.
Close your eyes.
It's 1998.
Your computer tower is beige,your monitor is cube that weighs
(02:11):
more than your dog.
And your life, your essays,spreadsheets, tax forms fit on
squares of plastics calledfloppy disk.
Each floppy holds 1.44megabytes.
That's one word document.
Or maybe two small images ifyou're lucky.
A three-minute MP3, forget it.
You need five discs just for onesong.
(02:33):
If you had bigger files, youmight use a zip drive, 100
megabits and a flat bluecartridge, but those drives were
pricey.
The discs were fragile andcompatibility was hit or miss.
And if you wanted permanence,there were CDRs, shiny,
reflective, and burned once.
And burned right once.
Burn a mistake, too bad.
(02:53):
Start over.
Digital cameras were arriving.
PowerPoint was booming.
File size were exploding.
People were emailing themselvesattachments just to move data
between home and work.
It was awkward, slow, andunreliable.
When the world what the worldneeded was something small,
sturdy, rewritable, and simple.
(03:14):
No spinning parts, no softwareinstalls, no stack of discs.
Just plug-in, copy, unplug,done.
Technology is never just aboutcapacity.
It's about convenience.
We don't crave bigger, we craveeasier.
The ingredients of a revolution.
(03:35):
Two breakthroughs made the flashdrive possible.
Flash memory.
In 1980, at Toshiba, engineerFujo Masuka invented flash
memory, named because entireblocks of data can be erased in
a flash.
Unlike RAM, it kept data withthe power off.
Unlike disk, it had no movingparts.
(03:56):
Early chips were expensive,dollars per kilobyte, but the
idea was revolutionary.
By the mid-90s, flash appearedin camera cards and industrial
controllers.
It was small, fast, and durable,perfect for portable storage.
USB, the universal server, aserial bus.
(04:17):
Meanwhile, over at Intel,engineer AJ Both led a
consortium including Microsoft,IBM, Compaq, DEC, and NEC to
solve another headache.
The jungle of ports.
Their dream, one connector foreverything.
Mouse, keyboard, printer, modem,hot swappable, powered, plug and
(04:38):
play.
In 1996, USB launched 1996 USB1.0 launched at 12 megabytes per
second.
By 1998, PCs with USB ports wereshipping, waiting for a killer
device.
Put these two together, flashmemory plus USB ports, and you
(04:58):
get a self-contained solid statedrive powered and read by any
computer.
The question wasn't could it bebuilt, but who would build it
first?
Innovation rarely happens in oneplace.
Around 1993, three groups onthree continents sprinted
towards the finish line.
SG Trek 2000 International inSingapore, they filed a patent
(05:23):
in 1999.
Produced uh the product wascalled the Thumb Drive, they
debuted in CE Bit 2000 tradeshow.
Capacity 8 to 16 megabytes.
Price was about$50,$60 USD.
M Systems from Israel, founderDove Moran, patent April 1999,
(05:45):
partnered with IBM.
Product Disc on a key.
It launched in December 2000 inthe US, had a capacity of 8
megabytes, and the price was$49.99.
That's typical US.
Nantac Technology from China,Paint in 1999, later filed
lawsuits asserting rights.
Each firm claimed priority.
(06:06):
Historians still debate it.
But together they proved animportant truth.
When the problem is universal,invention is inedible.
At CBIT 2000, spectators watch atrek engineer plug in a tiny
silver stick, drag a file,unplug it.
No drivers, no worrying, right?
(06:26):
No delays.
Gaps and applause followed.
The devil marked the symbolicbirth of the USB drive.
Sometimes the future announcesitself quietly.
A click, a copy bar, andsilence.
First contact.
The IBM disc on a key hitshelves in 2000.
8 megabytes, 50 bucks.
(06:48):
12 megabytes per second over USB1.1.
Plug and play on Windows 2000.
No floppy size driver discrequired.
Early reviewers marveled.
It's like carrying a hard driveon your keychain.
Yeah, it was pricey, around$6per megabyte, but convenience
trump cost.
By 2001, the 16 meg modelarrived.
(07:10):
By 2002, 32 and 64 megabytesfollowed.
Capacity doubled every fewmonths.
Price tumbled.
I remember waiting until BlackFriday, about 2002, 2003, maybe
2004, before I bought my firstUSB.
It was so it was expensive.
(07:31):
It was expensive.
So yeah, getting the first onewas pretty cool.
The rise of the thumb drive.
By 2003-2005, flash drivesinvaded backpacks and
briefcases.
Students saved term papers andcarried presentations.
Teachers swapped lessons plans.
Office workers hauledspreadsheet between cubicles.
(07:52):
Photographers uploaded shoots inthe field.
IT admins carried rescueutilities and installer.
Every monitor had a little stickpoking from the front port
blinking like fireflies.
The floppy is dead.
(08:13):
So in early 2000, it had acapacity of 8 megabytes and it
cost about$60,$50,$6.2.25 permegabit.
In 2002, uh you had a 64 megwith the price at$40 or 63 cents
a megabyte.
2004 256 megabytes.
(08:35):
Price was$30.
It was about 12 cents permegabit.
In 2006, you have one gigabit at$30 or$3 per megabit.
And in 2010, 16 meg cost$20 lessthan one cent a megabyte.
(08:56):
Moore's law in in practice andin plastic and silicone.
The new sneaker net.
Broadband was young, emaillimits were tiny, so people
walked data from PC to PC, thesneaker net reborn.
In offices, marketing teamstraded PowerPoints.
In classrooms, student printedessays via the library PC.
(09:18):
In developing nations, USBferried software where downloads
were impossible.
In Cuba, Epaquete Semanal, theweekly package, spread movies,
news, and apps on flash driveshand to hand.
Offline innovation powered bypocket storage.
When network fails, human becamethe network.
(09:39):
Culture and customization.
Soon drives became fashion.
Wristband sticks, cartoonmascots, corporate giveaways,
waiting photo albums on engravedmetal drives.
A tool has become a token.
Part tech, part identity.
The double-edged sword.
Convenience breathes complexity.
(10:02):
And the flash drives carryhidden dangers.
Data loss.
Small size equals easy tomisplace.
Yes.
You know how many hard drive howmany USB sticks I've found on
computers when I walk into aclassroom?
I used to find at least one ortwo a week.
And then you look at it and yousee that the student has their
(10:24):
whole like life in there.
All their papers, all theirstuff there.
I would always try to contactthe student and let them know
that I have their USB and theycan come to the classroom and
get it.
Or when they come next time,they can get it.
Because I know you know it wasimportant that you know their
stuff was there.
(10:44):
But always would find in thebeginning of my teaching career
one or two a week, at least oneor two a week.
And it was sad.
You know, sometimes you youdidn't know who it was, so you
just left it there.
So airports, taxis, conferencerooms littered with forgotten
sticks.
Some held trace secrets, otherpatent records.
(11:06):
In 2018, in Japan, a contractorlost an unencrypted USB
containing data on 460,000residents.
The drive was later filed, butthe trust was gone.
Malware.
The USB port became an infectionvector.
Agent.
(11:33):
Stucknet in 2010 smuggledmalicious code into Iran's air
gap nuclear facilities, thefirst digital weapon delivered
by thumb drive.
Bad USB in 2014 revealed thatfirmware itself could be
reprogrammed, turning any stickinto a silent keyboard or
network adapter, undetectable byantivirus.
(11:56):
A door that opens both waysalways lets the threat walk in.
Edwin Snowden reportedly usedencrypted flash drives to
extract net uh NSA documents in2013.
For whistleblowers, dissidents,spies, portability meant power.
Corporate response.
(12:17):
Policy shifted, mandatoryencryption, endpoint controls
disabling unknown devices,audits and loss reporting.
Training.
If you can pocket it, protectit.
Secure drives and merge.
Enter the iron key.
Hardware encrypt sealedself-destructing after 10 bad
passwords.
(12:37):
Pricey 4 gigs for$150.
Soon followed by the KingstonData Traveler Vault.
(13:10):
It's a keyboard models today.
Flips 140-2 level 3 drives,safeguards, government and
medical data.
Security caught up, but neverfor free.
Maturity and legacy.
By 2010, cloud storage rose,Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive.
Yet the flash drive endured.
(13:33):
Private, no third-party serversare needed.
Fast gigabits per second on USB3.2.
And then the last, nosubscription, no login.
You know, you buy, you pay oneprice, you don't have to pay for
it again.
Right?
I pay$9.99 for Google Drive,Google Cloud for more space a
(13:55):
month,$9.99 a month.
I can pay a whole bunch of USBsticks for the same amount.
Today's sticks boast about oneterabyte.
You can buy one less than 100.
Do USB A and USB-C connectors,speed up to 400 megabytes per
second, and you have youroptional biometric locks.
(14:18):
In labs, they deploy firmware.
In classrooms, they ferrylessons to remote regions.
In forensic kits, they carryevidence.
In disaster zones, they movemaps where satellites can't.
Clouds may rule the sky, butpockets still rule the ground.
Culturally, the flash drivesymbolizes control, tangible
(14:40):
data in an intangible age.
It appears in thrillers, heistfilms, spy dramas, the modern
briefcase of secrets.
The moral of the stick, everytechnology tells a human story.
The USB flash drive taught usportability in powers,
simplicity scales.
Power requires prudence.
(15:00):
From classroom to classifiednetworks, it reminds us that
convenience and caution musttravel together.
The smaller the device, thegreater the responsibility.
Alright, let's take a look atsome of the stories or the bad
things that happened with theUSB drive.
Alright, one story takes placein 2008, deep inside US military
(15:24):
in the Middle East.
A soldier, never and they neverreleased the name, finds a small
USB drive lying on the ground.
Maybe it looked like a giveaway,maybe it was curiosity.
He plugs it into a classifiednetwork computer, and in
seconds, malware silently jumpsacross the system.malware had a
name, agent.btz.
(15:44):
It was a worm designed to scan,copy, data, and connect to
remote servers once online.
What no one realized in themoment was that the infection
could spread far beyond onebase.
Agent.btz crawled throughCENTCOM networks, reaching even
classified systems.
It took months to detect andeven longer to clean.
(16:05):
By the end, the U.S.
Department of Defense had bannedall USB drives across military
computers for over a year.
15 months of restrictions,entire workflows had to change.
It was the largest cyberbreachof U.S.
military networks at the time,all because of one unverified
USB drive.
Sometimes the most dangerousweapon isn't a missile, it's
(16:26):
curiosity.
From that moment on, thePentagon didn't see flash drives
as a handy tool.
They saw them as potentialvectors of war.
And this is what they used to doin conferences back in the day.
(16:47):
They would leave on the floor,they would throw the USB on the
floor, hoping somebody wouldpick it up and plug it into the
machine.
Once they plugged it into themachine, that was it.
Very similar to what this onewas.
Alright, next, the woman in thereactor.
Right now, let's move on toIran, a secretive nuclear
enrichment facility sealed offfrom the internet, air gapped,
(17:10):
isolated, secure.
At least that's what theengineers believed.
The engineers believed.
In 2010, computers at Natasanbegan to malfunction.
Motors spun unpredictably,valves opened at the wrong time.
Operators were confused.
Their software looked fine, butthe hardware was behaving like
it had a mine of its own.
(17:32):
Behind the scenes, a digitalghost was at work.
Stucknet.
Stucknet was one of the firstpieces of cyber weaponry ever
discovered.
A worm built to sabotageindustrial machinery.
It was complex, far too complexto be ordinary malware.
And because of this, and becauseNASDAQ had no internet
(17:52):
connections, Stunnet had onlyone path, the USB drives.
Someone, unknowingly or not,carried the worm into the
facility on a flash drive.
From there, it jumped acrosslocal networks, quietly
rewinding PLC code, forcingcentrifuges to spin until they
shattered.
By the time it was discovered,roughly 1,000 centrifuges were
(18:14):
destroyed, setting back Iran'snuclear program for years.
No missile was fired, no soldiercrossed a border.
The battlefield was silicon.
Studnek provided a terrifyingtruth.
A simple thun drive coulddeliver nation-state warfare.
The age of the weaponized USBhas begun.
(18:36):
Next, we'll go to the data dumpdisaster.
This is Japan.
This takes place in Japan in2018.
In the city of Amaaski, acontractor for local government
was tasked with transferringdata from the city's database to
secure location.
The data includes names, birthdates, and personal records of
(18:57):
460,000 residents, essentiallyan entire city's identity.
To make the move easier, thecontractor used, you guessed it,
a USB drive.
Encrypted?
Nope.
Track?
Nope.
He finished his work, slippedthe drive into his bag, and
stopped for drinks on the wayhome.
By morning, the bag was gone,and so was the USB.
(19:19):
For days the city officialsscrambled, residents panicked,
every headline screamed the samephrase, all personal data loss.
The good news, the drive waslater found in the street
gutter, unharmed.
The bad news, the public trustwas shattered.
Sometimes the cause of a reachisn't money, it's confidence,
and reputation loss also.
(19:40):
That single oversight led tosweeping reforms, new encryption
mandates, tighter policies, anda reminder that a USB in the
wrong pocket is a disasterwaiting to happen.
The hotel handoff.
Now we head to Australia 2017.
A luxury hotel in Melbournebegins receiving strange
(20:00):
complaints.
Guests can't access rooms,reservations vanish, billing
data seems off.
Investigators trace the sourcenot to a hacker across the
world, but to a USB drive leftin the parking lot.
Curious employees and guestspicked them up and plugged them
into their personal laptops andoffice PCs.
The drives contained maliciouspayloads that stowed credentials
(20:21):
and opened remote accesschannels.
Within hours, attackers hadfootholds across multiple
networks.
What started as a freebie becamea full known breach.
Curiosity is humans.
Attackers know that.
They'll take advantage of it.
Cybersecurity call it baiting,dropping infected drives when
someone will plug them in,hoping somebody will plug them
(20:43):
in.
And it works over and overbecause we see these devices as
familiar, harmless, not as thedigital grenades they can be.
Again, candy drop.
They used to do that inconferences.
The curious student.
Not all disasters makeheadlines.
Some happen quietly in theclassroom.
(21:04):
At a Midwestern college in 2015,a student found a flash drive in
a computer lab.
No label, no name, justcuriosity.
He plugged it into the lab.
Within seconds, a scriptlaunched, copying key files,
installing hidden processes,processes.
Within hours, 300 campusmachines were infected with
ransomware.
Final papers, research data, andeven grading system, all
(21:27):
encrypted.
The university paid a smallransom to recover the fees.
The lesson costs far more.
Never trust an unknown USB.
In cybersecurity, kindness canbe costly.
Curiosity can be catastrophic.
That's why many organizationsnow run USB drop tests, planning
fake devices to see who picksthem up.
(21:48):
It's not a trick, it's training.
Because one person's instancecan become everyone's problem.
The corporate leak.
Let's turn to the corporateworld.
In 2012, a European energy firm,an employee frustrated by the
new firewalls, copiedconfidential project data to a
personal USB to work from home.
(22:09):
He promised to delete it later.
Weeks passed, he forgot.
Then his laptop was stolen fromhis car.
Inside the bag, the same flashdrive.
Blueprints, pricing data,contracts, gone.
Competitors suddenly undercutbids, rumor spreads.
No malware, no hackers, justhuman habit.
(22:31):
Technology didn't fail,discipline did.
Afterwards, the company bannedpersonal USB and deployed
encrypted corporate models andretrained its staff, proof that
policy must evolve withconvenience.
Lessons learned.
From war zone to classroom, cityhalls to corporate towers, these
(22:52):
stories share one truth.
The USB drive is powerful, andpower without policy is purl.
So what do we learn?
Treat every unknown drive as asuspect.
If you didn't create it, don'tconnect.
Encrypt sensitive data.
Modern drives offer AES 256hardware encryption.
(23:13):
Use it.
Label and inventory drives.
Accountability begins withidentification.
Use endpoint controls.
IT teams can whitelist trusteddevices, block the rest.
Educate.
Technology changes fast.
Habits change slow.
The USB drive gives us free gaveus freedom, freedom to carry our
(23:36):
data anywhere, but freedomwithout caution can turn into
chaos.
One soldier's curiosity infectedthe military.
One spy two sabotaged reactors.
One contractor's carelessnessexposed the city.
One student's impulse shut downa campus.
And one employee shortcut costthe company millions.
Each story began the same way (23:55):
a click, a blink, a trust.
And each ended as a reminderthat in cybersecurity, size
doesn't matter, awareness does.
So the next time you find a thundrive on the ground, pause.
Ask not what's on it, ask whatcould it cost me.
Because the smallest devicecauses the biggest problems.
(24:18):
I'm Professor J-Rod, and thishas been Technology Tap.
Stay smart, stay safe, and asalways, keep tapping to
technology.
And welcome to Technology Tap.
I'm Professor J.
Rodney.
In this episode, the store ofthe USB flash drive, power in
your pocket.
Let's tap it.
(01:11):
And today we're diving into thesmallest, simplest, and most
powerful inventions in moderncomputing.
It doesn't hum, it doesn't spin,it doesn't even make a sound.
Yet, for more than 20 years,it's carried our homework, our
photos, our presentations, oursecrets, and sometimes even our
hopes.
You know it by many names (01:29):
thumb drive, jump drive, memory stick,
pen drive, but officially it'sthe USB flash drive, a tiny
rectangle that forever changedhow humans move information.
We'll explore how it wasinvented, who created it, what
it costs, why it spread so fast,and how it forced us to confront
(01:51):
brand new questions about datasecurity and digital
responsibility.
So grab your coffee and plug inyour curiosity and let's tap in
into technology.
The world before the thumbdrive.
Close your eyes.
It's 1998.
Your computer tower is beige,your monitor is cube that weighs
(02:11):
more than your dog.
And your life, your essays,spreadsheets, tax forms fit on
squares of plastics calledfloppy disk.
Each floppy holds 1.44megabytes.
That's one word document.
Or maybe two small images ifyou're lucky.
A three-minute MP3, forget it.
You need five discs just for onesong.
(02:33):
If you had bigger files, youmight use a zip drive, 100
megabits and a flat bluecartridge, but those drives were
pricey.
The discs were fragile andcompatibility was hit or miss.
And if you wanted permanence,there were CDRs, shiny,
reflective, and burned once.
And burned right once.
Burn a mistake, too bad.
(02:53):
Start over.
Digital cameras were arriving.
PowerPoint was booming.
File size were exploding.
People were emailing themselvesattachments just to move data
between home and work.
It was awkward, slow, andunreliable.
When the world what the worldneeded was something small,
sturdy, rewritable, and simple.
(03:14):
No spinning parts, no softwareinstalls, no stack of discs.
Just plug-in, copy, unplug,done.
Technology is never just aboutcapacity.
It's about convenience.
We don't crave bigger, we craveeasier.
The ingredients of a revolution.
(03:35):
Two breakthroughs made the flashdrive possible.
Flash memory.
In 1980, at Toshiba, engineerFujo Masuka invented flash
memory, named because entireblocks of data can be erased in
a flash.
Unlike RAM, it kept data withthe power off.
Unlike disk, it had no movingparts.
(03:56):
Early chips were expensive,dollars per kilobyte, but the
idea was revolutionary.
By the mid-90s, flash appearedin camera cards and industrial
controllers.
It was small, fast, and durable,perfect for portable storage.
USB, the universal server, aserial bus.
(04:17):
Meanwhile, over at Intel,engineer AJ Both led a
consortium including Microsoft,IBM, Compaq, DEC, and NEC to
solve another headache.
The jungle of ports.
Their dream, one connector foreverything.
Mouse, keyboard, printer, modem,hot swappable, powered, plug and
(04:38):
play.
In 1996, USB launched 1996 USB1.0 launched at 12 megabytes per
second.
By 1998, PCs with USB ports wereshipping, waiting for a killer
device.
Put these two together, flashmemory plus USB ports, and you
(04:58):
get a self-contained solid statedrive powered and read by any
computer.
The question wasn't could it bebuilt, but who would build it
first?
Innovation rarely happens in oneplace.
Around 1993, three groups onthree continents sprinted
towards the finish line.
SG Trek 2000 International inSingapore, they filed a patent
(05:23):
in 1999.
Produced uh the product wascalled the Thumb Drive, they
debuted in CE Bit 2000 tradeshow.
Capacity 8 to 16 megabytes.
Price was about$50,$60 USD.
M Systems from Israel, founderDove Moran, patent April 1999,
(05:45):
partnered with IBM.
Product Disc on a key.
It launched in December 2000 inthe US, had a capacity of 8
megabytes, and the price was$49.99.
That's typical US.
Nantac Technology from China,Paint in 1999, later filed
lawsuits asserting rights.
Each firm claimed priority.
(06:06):
Historians still debate it.
But together they proved animportant truth.
When the problem is universal,invention is inedible.
At CBIT 2000, spectators watch atrek engineer plug in a tiny
silver stick, drag a file,unplug it.
No drivers, no worrying, right?
(06:26):
No delays.
Gaps and applause followed.
The devil marked the symbolicbirth of the USB drive.
Sometimes the future announcesitself quietly.
A click, a copy bar, andsilence.
First contact.
The IBM disc on a key hitshelves in 2000.
8 megabytes, 50 bucks.
(06:48):
12 megabytes per second over USB1.1.
Plug and play on Windows 2000.
No floppy size driver discrequired.
Early reviewers marveled.
It's like carrying a hard driveon your keychain.
Yeah, it was pricey, around$6per megabyte, but convenience
trump cost.
By 2001, the 16 meg modelarrived.
(07:10):
By 2002, 32 and 64 megabytesfollowed.
Capacity doubled every fewmonths.
Price tumbled.
I remember waiting until BlackFriday, about 2002, 2003, maybe
2004, before I bought my firstUSB.
It was so it was expensive.
(07:31):
It was expensive.
So yeah, getting the first onewas pretty cool.
The rise of the thumb drive.
By 2003-2005, flash drivesinvaded backpacks and
briefcases.
Students saved term papers andcarried presentations.
Teachers swapped lessons plans.
Office workers hauledspreadsheet between cubicles.
(07:52):
Photographers uploaded shoots inthe field.
IT admins carried rescueutilities and installer.
Every monitor had a little stickpoking from the front port
blinking like fireflies.
The floppy is dead.
(08:13):
So in early 2000, it had acapacity of 8 megabytes and it
cost about$60,$50,$6.2.25 permegabit.
In 2002, uh you had a 64 megwith the price at$40 or 63 cents
a megabyte.
2004 256 megabytes.
(08:35):
Price was$30.
It was about 12 cents permegabit.
In 2006, you have one gigabit at$30 or$3 per megabit.
And in 2010, 16 meg cost$20 lessthan one cent a megabyte.
(08:56):
Moore's law in in practice andin plastic and silicone.
The new sneaker net.
Broadband was young, emaillimits were tiny, so people
walked data from PC to PC, thesneaker net reborn.
In offices, marketing teamstraded PowerPoints.
In classrooms, student printedessays via the library PC.
(09:18):
In developing nations, USBferried software where downloads
were impossible.
In Cuba, Epaquete Semanal, theweekly package, spread movies,
news, and apps on flash driveshand to hand.
Offline innovation powered bypocket storage.
When network fails, human becamethe network.
(09:39):
Culture and customization.
Soon drives became fashion.
Wristband sticks, cartoonmascots, corporate giveaways,
waiting photo albums on engravedmetal drives.
A tool has become a token.
Part tech, part identity.
The double-edged sword.
Convenience breathes complexity.
(10:02):
And the flash drives carryhidden dangers.
Data loss.
Small size equals easy tomisplace.
Yes.
You know how many hard drive howmany USB sticks I've found on
computers when I walk into aclassroom?
I used to find at least one ortwo a week.
And then you look at it and yousee that the student has their
(10:24):
whole like life in there.
All their papers, all theirstuff there.
I would always try to contactthe student and let them know
that I have their USB and theycan come to the classroom and
get it.
Or when they come next time,they can get it.
Because I know you know it wasimportant that you know their
stuff was there.
(10:44):
But always would find in thebeginning of my teaching career
one or two a week, at least oneor two a week.
And it was sad.
You know, sometimes you youdidn't know who it was, so you
just left it there.
So airports, taxis, conferencerooms littered with forgotten
sticks.
Some held trace secrets, otherpatent records.
(11:06):
In 2018, in Japan, a contractorlost an unencrypted USB
containing data on 460,000residents.
The drive was later filed, butthe trust was gone.
Malware.
The USB port became an infectionvector.
Agent.
(11:33):
Stucknet in 2010 smuggledmalicious code into Iran's air
gap nuclear facilities, thefirst digital weapon delivered
by thumb drive.
Bad USB in 2014 revealed thatfirmware itself could be
reprogrammed, turning any stickinto a silent keyboard or
network adapter, undetectable byantivirus.
(11:56):
A door that opens both waysalways lets the threat walk in.
Edwin Snowden reportedly usedencrypted flash drives to
extract net uh NSA documents in2013.
For whistleblowers, dissidents,spies, portability meant power.
Corporate response.
(12:17):
Policy shifted, mandatoryencryption, endpoint controls
disabling unknown devices,audits and loss reporting.
Training.
If you can pocket it, protectit.
Secure drives and merge.
Enter the iron key.
Hardware encrypt sealedself-destructing after 10 bad
passwords.
(12:37):
Pricey 4 gigs for$150.
Soon followed by the KingstonData Traveler Vault.
(13:10):
It's a keyboard models today.
Flips 140-2 level 3 drives,safeguards, government and
medical data.
Security caught up, but neverfor free.
Maturity and legacy.
By 2010, cloud storage rose,Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive.
Yet the flash drive endured.
(13:33):
Private, no third-party serversare needed.
Fast gigabits per second on USB3.2.
And then the last, nosubscription, no login.
You know, you buy, you pay oneprice, you don't have to pay for
it again.
Right?
I pay$9.99 for Google Drive,Google Cloud for more space a
(13:55):
month,$9.99 a month.
I can pay a whole bunch of USBsticks for the same amount.
Today's sticks boast about oneterabyte.
You can buy one less than 100.
Do USB A and USB-C connectors,speed up to 400 megabytes per
second, and you have youroptional biometric locks.
(14:18):
In labs, they deploy firmware.
In classrooms, they ferrylessons to remote regions.
In forensic kits, they carryevidence.
In disaster zones, they movemaps where satellites can't.
Clouds may rule the sky, butpockets still rule the ground.
Culturally, the flash drivesymbolizes control, tangible
(14:40):
data in an intangible age.
It appears in thrillers, heistfilms, spy dramas, the modern
briefcase of secrets.
The moral of the stick, everytechnology tells a human story.
The USB flash drive taught usportability in powers,
simplicity scales.
Power requires prudence.
(15:00):
From classroom to classifiednetworks, it reminds us that
convenience and caution musttravel together.
The smaller the device, thegreater the responsibility.
Alright, let's take a look atsome of the stories or the bad
things that happened with theUSB drive.
Alright, one story takes placein 2008, deep inside US military
(15:24):
in the Middle East.
A soldier, never and they neverreleased the name, finds a small
USB drive lying on the ground.
Maybe it looked like a giveaway,maybe it was curiosity.
He plugs it into a classifiednetwork computer, and in
seconds, malware silently jumpsacross the system.malware had a
name, agent.btz.
(15:44):
It was a worm designed to scan,copy, data, and connect to
remote servers once online.
What no one realized in themoment was that the infection
could spread far beyond onebase.
Agent.btz crawled throughCENTCOM networks, reaching even
classified systems.
It took months to detect andeven longer to clean.
(16:05):
By the end, the U.S.
Department of Defense had bannedall USB drives across military
computers for over a year.
15 months of restrictions,entire workflows had to change.
It was the largest cyberbreachof U.S.
military networks at the time,all because of one unverified
USB drive.
Sometimes the most dangerousweapon isn't a missile, it's
(16:26):
curiosity.
From that moment on, thePentagon didn't see flash drives
as a handy tool.
They saw them as potentialvectors of war.
And this is what they used to doin conferences back in the day.
(16:47):
They would leave on the floor,they would throw the USB on the
floor, hoping somebody wouldpick it up and plug it into the
machine.
Once they plugged it into themachine, that was it.
Very similar to what this onewas.
Alright, next, the woman in thereactor.
Right now, let's move on toIran, a secretive nuclear
enrichment facility sealed offfrom the internet, air gapped,
(17:10):
isolated, secure.
At least that's what theengineers believed.
The engineers believed.
In 2010, computers at Natasanbegan to malfunction.
Motors spun unpredictably,valves opened at the wrong time.
Operators were confused.
Their software looked fine, butthe hardware was behaving like
it had a mine of its own.
(17:32):
Behind the scenes, a digitalghost was at work.
Stucknet.
Stucknet was one of the firstpieces of cyber weaponry ever
discovered.
A worm built to sabotageindustrial machinery.
It was complex, far too complexto be ordinary malware.
And because of this, and becauseNASDAQ had no internet
(17:52):
connections, Stunnet had onlyone path, the USB drives.
Someone, unknowingly or not,carried the worm into the
facility on a flash drive.
From there, it jumped acrosslocal networks, quietly
rewinding PLC code, forcingcentrifuges to spin until they
shattered.
By the time it was discovered,roughly 1,000 centrifuges were
(18:14):
destroyed, setting back Iran'snuclear program for years.
No missile was fired, no soldiercrossed a border.
The battlefield was silicon.
Studnek provided a terrifyingtruth.
A simple thun drive coulddeliver nation-state warfare.
The age of the weaponized USBhas begun.
(18:36):
Next, we'll go to the data dumpdisaster.
This is Japan.
This takes place in Japan in2018.
In the city of Amaaski, acontractor for local government
was tasked with transferringdata from the city's database to
secure location.
The data includes names, birthdates, and personal records of
(18:57):
460,000 residents, essentiallyan entire city's identity.
To make the move easier, thecontractor used, you guessed it,
a USB drive.
Encrypted?
Nope.
Track?
Nope.
He finished his work, slippedthe drive into his bag, and
stopped for drinks on the wayhome.
By morning, the bag was gone,and so was the USB.
(19:19):
For days the city officialsscrambled, residents panicked,
every headline screamed the samephrase, all personal data loss.
The good news, the drive waslater found in the street
gutter, unharmed.
The bad news, the public trustwas shattered.
Sometimes the cause of a reachisn't money, it's confidence,
and reputation loss also.
(19:40):
That single oversight led tosweeping reforms, new encryption
mandates, tighter policies, anda reminder that a USB in the
wrong pocket is a disasterwaiting to happen.
The hotel handoff.
Now we head to Australia 2017.
A luxury hotel in Melbournebegins receiving strange
(20:00):
complaints.
Guests can't access rooms,reservations vanish, billing
data seems off.
Investigators trace the sourcenot to a hacker across the
world, but to a USB drive leftin the parking lot.
Curious employees and guestspicked them up and plugged them
into their personal laptops andoffice PCs.
The drives contained maliciouspayloads that stowed credentials
(20:21):
and opened remote accesschannels.
Within hours, attackers hadfootholds across multiple
networks.
What started as a freebie becamea full known breach.
Curiosity is humans.
Attackers know that.
They'll take advantage of it.
Cybersecurity call it baiting,dropping infected drives when
someone will plug them in,hoping somebody will plug them
(20:43):
in.
And it works over and overbecause we see these devices as
familiar, harmless, not as thedigital grenades they can be.
Again, candy drop.
They used to do that inconferences.
The curious student.
Not all disasters makeheadlines.
Some happen quietly in theclassroom.
(21:04):
At a Midwestern college in 2015,a student found a flash drive in
a computer lab.
No label, no name, justcuriosity.
He plugged it into the lab.
Within seconds, a scriptlaunched, copying key files,
installing hidden processes,processes.
Within hours, 300 campusmachines were infected with
ransomware.
Final papers, research data, andeven grading system, all
(21:27):
encrypted.
The university paid a smallransom to recover the fees.
The lesson costs far more.
Never trust an unknown USB.
In cybersecurity, kindness canbe costly.
Curiosity can be catastrophic.
That's why many organizationsnow run USB drop tests, planning
fake devices to see who picksthem up.
(21:48):
It's not a trick, it's training.
Because one person's instancecan become everyone's problem.
The corporate leak.
Let's turn to the corporateworld.
In 2012, a European energy firm,an employee frustrated by the
new firewalls, copiedconfidential project data to a
personal USB to work from home.
(22:09):
He promised to delete it later.
Weeks passed, he forgot.
Then his laptop was stolen fromhis car.
Inside the bag, the same flashdrive.
Blueprints, pricing data,contracts, gone.
Competitors suddenly undercutbids, rumor spreads.
No malware, no hackers, justhuman habit.
(22:31):
Technology didn't fail,discipline did.
Afterwards, the company bannedpersonal USB and deployed
encrypted corporate models andretrained its staff, proof that
policy must evolve withconvenience.
Lessons learned.
From war zone to classroom, cityhalls to corporate towers, these
(22:52):
stories share one truth.
The USB drive is powerful, andpower without policy is purl.
So what do we learn?
Treat every unknown drive as asuspect.
If you didn't create it, don'tconnect.
Encrypt sensitive data.
Modern drives offer AES 256hardware encryption.
(23:13):
Use it.
Label and inventory drives.
Accountability begins withidentification.
Use endpoint controls.
IT teams can whitelist trusteddevices, block the rest.
Educate.
Technology changes fast.
Habits change slow.
The USB drive gives us free gaveus freedom, freedom to carry our
(23:36):
data anywhere, but freedomwithout caution can turn into
chaos.
One soldier's curiosity infectedthe military.
One spy two sabotaged reactors.
One contractor's carelessnessexposed the city.
One student's impulse shut downa campus.
And one employee shortcut costthe company millions.
Each story began the same way (23:55):
a click, a blink, a trust.
And each ended as a reminderthat in cybersecurity, size
doesn't matter, awareness does.
So the next time you find a thundrive on the ground, pause.
Ask not what's on it, ask whatcould it cost me.
Because the smallest devicecauses the biggest problems.
(24:18):
I'm Professor J-Rod, and thishas been Technology Tap.
Stay smart, stay safe, and asalways, keep tapping to
technology.
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