Harbingers of disease, repositories of personal and private information and the curse of the modern office; that is what memory sticks are and I hate them. They are the worst thing ever because they seem like a good idea, all of your stuff, your files, your presentations, your spread sheets and web pages and things-to-do lists all tied up in a magic toy the size of a cigarette lighter. All of your stuff that you can keep in your pocket, nice and ready for when you need it, nice and ready to be slotted straight into the ever willing universal serial bus orifice of a nearby PC or laptop or PlayStation or Xbox or tablet or even a television. You can wear them round your neck like a piece of artisan jewellery and you can put them on your key ring to fill yourself with your own importance. You can even pick them up for free at trade fairs.
But beware because this is the catch. One day you are going to lose it. One day the chord will snap and it’s going to slip off your neck. One day you the catch will break and it will fall off your key ring or one day you’ll be running for the bus or put your hand in your pocket to reach for some change and it will end up on the pavement or on the floor of the pub. If you’re lucky, very lucky, it will get run over, stood on, crushed under foot or kicked down a drain only to be flushed away but if you are not that’s when the fun will begin.
Someone will find it and they‘ll take it home and they’ll put it on the bench in their kitchen. They’ll pass by it, touch it, make a cup of coffee and come back to it. They’ll twist it round in their fingers and they’ll wonder what is on it. They’ll boot up their PC and pretend that they are just going to have a look to see who it belongs to but it won’t stop until your whole life has spewed out on to their screens. They’ll flick through your information with prurient delight, digging ever deeper until they know every sordid detail about you. You will be exposed, de-flowered, eviscerated. Just hope and pray that there is nothing really damaging on there like trade secrets, credit card passwords, child care details or worse.
Memory sticks are dangerous because they encourage you to take data from more secure places to much less secure places and allow you to carry very large quantities of potentially sensitive information without any thought but on a device that looks effective and honest. The loss of information could cost you dearly, both financially or your reputation and if it is was a briefcase full of money you would certainly think differently about it. It would certainly be a lot bigger but that is what it is. If you can’t resist the urge to use one, make sure that you are more than happy to lose whatever is on it and if that is the case you might as well just post it on to the web anyway. I really hate them.
I would like to find the person that invented the memory stick and ram it up their USB port.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 
Nooooo memory sticks are brilliant mini storage devices that as a technician I would struggle to do without.
I can use for a multitude of tasks. I have a couple of memory sticks that i have bootable copies of Linux (Ubunto or Knoppix) on that I have used on many occasions to recover important data from someones computer/laptop which have died and wont boot into Windows. Files that would have been completly lost or at best, would have cost the individual a lot of money to get back. But which can be recovered by my trusty memory stick running linux.
I carry various bits of software around on one of my flash pens, software that can clean up a virus infected PC. Software that I can use to open files that Microsoft Office wont open. Software that I can use to connect to routers/switches. Software that can detect missing drivers, play videos that Media Player cant play, zip/unzip files, the list is endless. There is a website dedicated to all the fantastic tools designed to run on a memory stick. http://www.portableapps.com.
I do have a memory stick that I store files on but they are copies of technical pdf’s that I want to read, training videos that I want to watch. I carry these on my memory stick so I have them to use on any PC I happen to be working on. I have some of them backed-up “in-the-cloud” but having them available to use at a moments notice, without the need for an internet connection is just fab.
Yes they can be insecure and encourage people to be forgetful about data security, but carrying files around in a briefcase and leaving files on a desk is insecure. Yes data can be lost either through the memory stick being lost or by being corrupted, but paper can be lost and destroyed, ard disk drives can fail. If something is important it should be backed up (just in case), if something is secret it should be encrypted or password protected (just in case).
Maybe the real problem is not the memory stick but people perceptions of what they are. They’re not “MAGIC”, they are a tool and like all tools should be used with care.
I’m sorry you hate memory sticks I think they are wonderful. I can see a day in the not to distant future when I carry a laptop or tablet around with me but a large capacity password protected memory stick. I will plug it into a docking station with a keyboard, mouse and monitor attached and press on. The operating system on my memory stick will spring into life. My data will be downloaded from the internet and backed up to the internet when I’ve finished. I unplug my pen and walk away. If I use Linux this is almost here already. A computer running from something smaller than my finger. Fantastic.
Nice of you to spring to their defence. Your response is longer than my blog! I take all of your points and agree that they shoudl be very useful but be careful.