All Thumbs. Bloch was Physically searched and 2Thumb Drives were Seized

All Thumbs
A fascinating new angle on the Scott Bloch story has just been broken by Ari Shapiro on NPR (see below for the transcript). Shapiro is reporting that part of the search warrant served on Bloch on Tuesday included a physical search of Bloch himself in order to seize his computer thumb drive. In fact, the agents seized two thumb drives from him, according to Shapiro's and POGO's sources.

Shapiro further reports that before having his hard drive "scrubbed"€� by Geeks on Call a couple of years ago, Bloch first downloaded certain files onto the thumb drives. He has said he had the computers' hard drives erased in order to get rid of a virus.

If Bloch is found to have lied to investigators--whether FBI agents, OPM Inspector General investigators, or staffers of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform who interviewed Bloch earlier this year--then it's possible he could become the latest example of that old Washington adage that it's always the cover-up that gets you in the end.


NPR HAS LEARNED THAT THE SEARCH OF SPECIAL COUNSEL SCOTT BLOCH'S HOME AND OFFICE THIS WEEK INCLUDED A PHYSICAL SEARCH OF BLOCH'S BODY. INVESTIGATORS SEIZED TWO THUMB DRIVES FROM BLOCH WHEN THEY TOOK BOXES OF COMPUTERS AND DOCUMENTS FROM ON TUESDAY. NPR'S ARI SHAPIRO REPORTS.

Criminal investigators are looking into whether Bloch destroyed evidence to obstruct an inspector general investigation into whether Bloch abused his power.

Bloch is in charge of pursuing government whistleblower complaints.

A couple years ago, Bloch hired the firm "geeks on call" to scrub his computers.

more:http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2008/05/all-thumbs.html


What is a Thumb Drive?

Computer users have long complained that 3-inch floppy disks are too unstable, the ZIP drive not practical and CD-Rs not portable enough for data storage. The technology geeks solved this problem in ingenious fashion: the thumb drive. IBM came out with thumb drives in 1998, as a solution for replacing the less stable floppy disks. Their use caught on quickly, and as portable data storage has become more of an issue, thumb drives or flash drives skyrocketed in popularity. They can now be seen hanging on lanyards around the necks of computer users everywhere.

A thumb drive is portable memory storage. It is re-writeable and holds its memory without a power supply, unlike RAM. Thumb drives will fit into any USB port on a computer. They will also "hot swap," which means a user can plug the drive into a computer and will not have to restart it to access the thumb drive. The drives are small, about the size of a human thumb - hence, their name - and are very stable memory storage devices.

Some users see their lack of compatibility with Windows 98 as a drawback of thumb drives, since so many users are still running the operating system. However, most thumb drives come equipped with software that will install a Win98 driver on the computer, enabling the user to connect a thumb drive. Installing the software takes about 60 seconds. Thumb drives also pose security threats, since they are easily concealed. Users could copy proprietary information to them, or upload hacking software from them, all undetected by the system administrator.

However, system administrators can also upload anti-virus software to an infected computer from a thumb drive, for instance, without risking the system servers. Their write speeds and read speeds only really come into play when users are running large applications from them. When the user is saving text documents or photos, for instance, these speeds are not nearly as important. Most thumb drives also have millions of re-write cycles and will store data for ten years before they need replacing.

The thumb drive is available in storage sizes of up to 8 gigabytes. Most people, however, will find that sizes of 256 megabytes to 512 MB will do nicely. If the person is storing mostly text, with few images, then an even smaller thumb drive may meet the need.


more:http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-thumb-drive.htm

It is the same technology as used in camera memory cards. Scott Bloch would have been better off to use one of several variety of camera memory or flash cards because they are smaller and therefore easier to hide.

A quick search of google would have gotten him several free HD scrubbing programs. He would have been better off asking someone in the IT department for one "for use at home".

And many people I know do also. Being in possession of these flash drives is no big deal, what is if there is incriminating data on them.

Bloch told congressional investigators in March that before the computer purge, he transferred many files onto a portable drive.

Sources close to the criminal investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Bloch carried two such drives on a keychain.

Investigators seized the drives when they searched Bloch on Tuesday. People close to Bloch now say the drives mostly contain personal documents, such as Christmas lists, finances and family photographs. But in his interview with Congress, Bloch said the drives contain, "some government files and some personal files," according to a transcript provided by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

more:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90298257&ft=1&f=1001