The Magnet 088: Reddit User Finds Suspicious USB Drives in Luggage
A modern-day Hitchcock plot
What would you do if you unzipped your luggage after returning home from an overseas trip and discovered an unfamiliar USB flash drive inside? Would you be tempted to find out what was stored on the drive? Would you turn it over to the cops or the FBI? Or would you throw it away, or destroy it? It sounds like the sort of problem the protagonist in a modern-day Hitchcock movie would face.
Four months ago, a Reddit user named WalkerTexasLaser found not one, but two USB drives in his luggage after returning to the United States from Asia. One was a standard USB drive, while the other was an IronKey, a more sophisticated device with advanced encryption capabilities. He posted photos of the mysterious drives to r/Scams and wrote:
Found these in my checked baggage after an international flight from Asia to USA. They’re not mine. What do I do? Do I just throw them away or submit them to TSA? Or take them to the police? Very sketchy, but I know I’m not going to put them into my computer that’s for sure.
The post quickly gained traction, sparking a lively discussion with over 1,400 comments with advice, theories, and warnings about the potential risks involved.
Most commenters agreed with WalkerTexasLaser’s decision to not plug the drives into any of their personal devices, as they could contain malware, viruses, or even be "USB killers" designed to physically damage devices.
Quite a few commenters suggested turning the drives over to the FBI for investigation. Other people said that was a bad idea: reporting would likely result in WalkerTexasLaser being questioned extensively, which could be stressful and time-consuming. If the case becomes a big deal, it could significantly disrupt the OP's life. They could even treat WalkerTexasLaser as a suspect. I agree with these folks. It doesn’t seem like federal law enforcement cares much about an innocent individual’s well-being, based on my own limited experience with the FBI and from my friend Cory Doctorow’s astonishingly weird and alarming interaction with an FBI agent who opened a ridiculous investigation about him because he wrote about a Popular Science article about the physics of statue-toppling on his Pluralistic blog.