An AP article this past weekend revealed that the US Department of Defense has banned all USB flash and thumb drives from the Pentagon. And this was just as USB drives are getting deplorably kitchy.

Apparently the military is worried that flash drives might contain a virus. That type of panic plays well in the media as they’re always looking to alarm people over something. (I recall the great virus panics of the early 1990s.) With the economy in the toilet world-wide, the media doesn’t need to look far to play upon the public’s nerves.

My guess is that the Pentagon is worried more about data leaks than any specific viral threat. Then again, given that most USB drives are made in China, who’s to say that some evil Chinese hacker isn’t seeding the things with some type of root viral program that specifically looks for military computers? That sounds nefarious, but it’s not too far fetched. I’m sure we’d do the same thing if the situation were reversed.

Then again, it’s a terrible time to be banning USB flash drives, also known as thumb drives. The drives are quite useful and, as I’ve written before, help improve Windows Vista’s deplorable performance times. But more interestingly, there is a plethora of wonderful and well-designed USB flash drives out there.

There’s the USB drive shaped like a 3½ floppy diskette. And who can forget the infamous “Beer” drive:

How about the “sawed off” USB drive:

And the various food-shaped USB drives that look like anything from sushi rolls to, well, teeny hamburger buns:

Of course, these days you’ll sadly not see any of these whimsical drives in the Pentagon.