When I first saw this gadget, I figured it was some sort of Cryptex designed for hiding away secrets in the bowels of a tomb or under the Vatican. But what you’re looking at here is just a really, really cool USB drive.
While I can’t read Russian, Google translate tells me roughly that the drive was made by a guy going by the moniker “Tarator”, and was modeled using AutoCAD software. He then output the designs to mechanical drawings so each of the components could be fabricated from metal. It’s not clear what materials were used to make it, but it looks like brass to me.
The drive is encased in a metal sleeve that acts as a 5-wheel combination lock, restricting access to the top-secret data payload stored within. I’m not quite sure how all the pins and gears work together to lock it down, but it must have taken some serious engineering talent to pull this off.
[via Fancy]
