Several good suggestions in this thread about securing machines and keyboards against FBI black bag jobs and the like. (By the way, the USB flashdrive (a 256 MB FlashHopper) I have on my keychain--my physical keychain!--is probably waterproof. The USB port has a little plastic cover which slides on snugly. Until I eventually misplace it, I am using it. I expect the thing is showerproof, though I don't intend to test it. Water resistance can be tested nondestructively with things like Fluorinert, of course. Also, surfers and kayakers often have O-ring sealed gizmos they wear under their wet suits, coming in different sizes. It would be trivial to find one to hold either a USB flashdrive or a Compact Flash card.) The larger issue is a business/consulting opportunity: The collection of "lore" on resisting bugs and intercepts and bad security measures is not something the average Mafioso or freedom fighter is much interested in learning himself. Just as specialists are used to sweep rooms for bugs, the same should apply to helping Vito Corleone beef up his computer system. --- "Have LAN, will Travel." Security Consultants, Inc. will provide you, your family, and your associates with a computer and communications package which is resistant to FBI or CIA wiretaps, black bag jobs, Van Eyck interception, and remote surveillance. We will evaluate your current system, your needs, and design a system for you. This will included throwaway cellphones, easy to use but robust encryption, steganography, access to offshore accounts, physical security for the computers, digital dead drops, use of untraceable remailers, personal security devices (such as USB flash drives storing sensitive material), and set up of t.v. cameras under your control for monitoring snooping, intrusion, and even dishonest associates and family. Security Consultants does not currently handle weapons issues, but all your other bases are belong to us. --- I mean this somewhat whimsically, but the fact is that this kind of security consulting will become more and more important as even mobsters move into the information age. (When I was developing some of the ideas prior to the formation of Cypherpunks, one of the interesting news items was about how a guy on the run from the Feds was using an early bulletin board system--I think it was GEnie, but it may have been Prodigy--to communicate with his wife in chat rooms.) In a free society, those who provide services like roofing or plumbing or security needs are of course not implicated in the possible crimes or other activities of their customers. A guy who builds a security fence for Don Corleone is not guilty of aiding and abetting. But we have not had a free society for many decades, and it is more than possible that RICO and Espionage statutes would be interpreted by government to say that assisting someone like Aldrich Ames in improving his tradecraft is ipso facto part of a conspiracy. Or the spooks could demand that Security Consultants, Inc. place "special" networks and cameras... Issues of trust and fear. (When the Mob finds out this has been done and snatches one of the children of the company and returns the child as a "turkey," with both arms, both legs, the nose, the ears, and the tongue precisely and surgically removed, others in the industry may realize the dangers of crossing the Mob.) --Tim May, Occupied America "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.