Can a USB drive survive being swallowed?
A man (Florin Necula) reportedly swallowed a Kingston USB Flash Drive while in Secret Service custody. Florin was brought in for allegedly placing card readers over ATM slots to “skim” magnetic strip information off cards inserted in those machines. After four days of not passing the drive Necula gave in to doctor removal.
Reportedly, Necula has been charged with four felonies including obstruction of justice and is being held without bail.
I have put my flash drive (Lexar) through the washing machine a couple of times and it survived, but I would imagine the human stomach is a little tougher environment.
[via Cnet; via The Smoking Gun]
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The Tommy has some pretty strong acids. The metals in the flash drive should be damages beyond hope if not completely disolved. But that is just the begining once some of the metals use in the construction start to break down they will release some really bad thing into his system. Gold and silver use arsenic in the plating process there is nickel, copper and lead as well. At the minmum he would get one bad tommy issuse but he could also died in the process. The Doctors most likely saved his life but the device was a gonner. Im not a doctor but I did build Semiconducter devices.