Gift Idea: Wikileaks Jewlery

Having trouble figuring out what to get this holiday season for the web/media/privacy/security nerd in your life? Might I suggest the Wikileaks "Insurance" file on a swanky micro USB drive like the Pico-C? My friend SFslim suggested this on twitter the other day and I promptly jumped on the idea and bought one for myself. I love it. These little drives are super sturdy and barely looks like a piece of technology. At around $30 for the 16GB version, they offer many additional practical uses. Smaller versions are available too, but you need at least 2GB for the Wikileaks "insurance" file. I got a silver one and stuck it on a $5 stainless steel ball chain, but you could probably class it up a bit more with an "actual" jewelry-class necklace. Cypherpunks will get a kick out of this, and their friends and family will have new fodder with which to mock them.

• [Anonymous]

  Had one of these Pico drives. The back plate is held on with a heat-sensitive sticky glue instead of something stronger. When the glue fails, the Super-Talent warranty support person contacts an “engineer” who will report that it is your fault, and will not send a replacement. Cheap, poorly designed junk, but hey at least it’s pretty.

• [penguinchris]

  Field Notes have been adopted by the fashion world to some extent – you can get them through retailers like J.Crew, for example. Doesn’t make them any less cool, but I wouldn’t call them geeky in the same way this type of flash drive is (I have a similar, but not as well-made, tiny flash drive from a couple years ago – the prices have really come down!)

  I have a bunch of Moleskine graph paper notebooks that are the same size as the Field Notes ones; they’re not as hip because you can get them in bookstores like Barnes & Noble, but a little less conspicuous. In this day and age, the “FIELD NOTES” label is a “look at me!” kind of thing – which is why they’ve become fashionable, of course.

  To redeem my sense of hip geekiness, I also have the kind of notebooks that people who do serious field work use – hard-bound and waterproof. Because, well, I do serious geology field work sometimes! Of course, I’m not *quite* hip enough to go for the fashionable hip pouch: see here – if I did the type of geology that regularly required carrying an acid bottle I probably would use one of those, though.

• [theyallhateme]

  Wow, lots of 1 star reviews on Amazon. Pass.

• [Hayduke]

  Very cool USB drive. And I get to find out about a new, fab notebook in the process. Oh, and I don’t care if Moleskines are not as hip as they used to be. At least now I don’t have to order them from London like I first did before they became popular again.

• [Anonymous]

  Linking to Amazon for a storage device of a WikiLeaks file? Oh the irony!

  • [forteller]

    I came here to say that.

• [mdh]

  And for the slightly less geeky – those Field Notes books rule.

• [Chuck]

  I have one of those Pico drives, but I don’t wear it as jewelry. Like a savage, I keep it on my key ring. It takes up very little room, whereas other flash drives I’ve tried that with make a noticeable lump in my pocket.

  It is a little bit of a tight fit — as others have mentioned above — but I haven’t broken any USB drives. But it seems sturdy enough to cause damage if inserted incorrectly.

• [RedShirt77]

  Those field notes books are very nice. I have 3 or 4 of them around.

  The jewelry wold hide away very nicely behind a dog tag.

• [Anonymous]

  1) Just so you know, this drive can screw up the USB ports on some Mac laptops. And it loosens the drives on other brands because of its too-tight fit…

  2) RE: Moleskines. Yep, my first one was an import too! I love being able to get them easily now, cool, uncool, massmerch, whatever. What I don’t like are the new colours and gimmicky things they’ve done to them. The minimalism WAS your product, people!

  • [Sean Bonner]

    The drive was tight on my MacBook Air, but not too tight to fit or too tight to work.

• [bftvsxpn]

  The Verbatim Tuff N Tiny is a much better choice than the one in the article. Better brand, better built, slightly cheaper.

  I got an 8gb version and it works perfectly.

  http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Flash-Drive-97168-Black/dp/B003DTLWHU/

• [mellowknees]

  It’s the most beautiful USB drive I’ve ever seen. I don’t care what anyone puts on it – I want one! :)

  Also, I’ll take a stack of those Field Notes books, too.

  @mdh – gotta disagree and go with Field Notes books being pretty geeky, just in a different way. ;) A good way, though!