A test: A Russian buyer goes to a “rogue” electronics dealer on the Russia-China border to pick up a 500GB portable hard drive. He takes it home and plugs it in. It shows up as a 500GB drive but when he tries to put files on it doesn’t work. Feh, he says, and when he returns to the market the trader is gone.

Rather than give up, the intrepid victim takes the HD to another shop. They open the case and find what?

a) A naked mole rat

b) An empty box

c) Bees

d) None of the above.

The correct answer was “D,” none of the above. What was really inside the case were two heavy bolts nuts and a small 128MB USB key. The trick was that the USB key was set up to report that it had 500GB available but as you dragged files to it it would record to capacity and then start recording data at the “beginning,” erasing the data that came before. It appears to store data but all of that data is lost as it is transferred.

Hilarity, I can assure you, ensued at the shop. It just goes to show you that if you’re offered a 500GB hard drive at an insanely low price, you should probably “bolt” from the store (CUE: RIMSHOT)

via jitbit via Blogeee