Case of the Missing USB Flash Drive: Japanese Military Owns Up

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:56:48 -0500

You are not the only one confronting difficulties retaining uninterrupted possession of your USB Flash drive, but large organizations – or their mortal employees – are also prone to misplacing their USB Flash drives brimming with sensitive data.

The latest entrant to the universal brotherhood of butterfingered flash drive owners is the Japanese military, which has admitted that one of its USB Flash drives, pregnant with sensitive maps of Japanese-U.S troop deployment was stolen a year ago by a 33-year-old captain of the Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF). The captain has primeval economic faculties as he also stole the paltry sum of ¥2,000 [$19] and a ¥10,000 [$94] airline coupon.

But there was a twist in the tale as the captain was eventually nabbed and the drive recovered. But a lieutenant borrowed the flash drive and in turn gave it to a clumsy sergeant who lost it. The sergeant did a pretty good job as the drive has gone missing without a trace. The Japanese military kept the one-year old incident under wraps as it didn’t want the troop deployment maps to be scoured by internet users.

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Case of the Missing USB Flash Drive: Japanese Military Owns Up