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The link didn’t work for me.

OK, it’s an old story. If you went to do a presentation to the military, and had your nifty animated presentation in color animated Powerpoint on a flash drive, you could not connect it to the military’s computer, no way. Not flash, SD, CF, MiniSd, or whatever. CD, DVD was OK. Using your own computer connected to the projector was OK if you could get your computer on base and into the scif.

This went on for quite a while. GPIA, but if you knew, you burned to disc if your material was small enough.

Flash drives are OK now in limited cases because they fixed it. The rules vary by location. Personally I try to use my own computer rather than risk sticking my flash in someone’s port. That port has all the viruses of everyone who’s jacked into that port- wait, where have I heard that before?

The reason was a breach, probably described in the article I can’t read. It could spread by flash drive, too, and the commercial world has not responded fully yet.

Many major corporations are in the process of cracking down on flash drives. Drives so big now that they can hold a complete operating system, and who knows what programs. You can now easily swallow 16 GB.

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB124027491029837401.html

Apparent related story April 2009? - reporting multiple security breaches (as a result of the initial 2008 breach?)

This article pins it on the Chicoms

Attacks like these — or U.S. awareness of them — appear to have escalated in the past six months, said one former official briefed on the matter. “There’s never been anything like it,” this person said, adding that other military and civilian agencies as well as private companies are affected. “It’s everything that keeps this country going.”