Add a layer of physical security to your USB drive data with this beautifully designed and machined thumb drive inside a cryptex-style combination lock cylinder, from Russian Steampunk enthusiast Tarator (machine translation).

Practically speaking, of course, anyone who managed to steal the drive could probably defeat the lock without too much effort, and its striking beauty might actually create more of an incentive to steal it than would otherwise exist. As I recall, Dan Brown’s original cryptex (Wikipedia) included a self-destruct mechanism for the (paper) data in the from of a vial of acid that broke if the lock was opened incorrectly. Maybe that’s the n + 1 iteration of this idea?

More:

• How-To: Cryptex
• Adam and Jamie’s giant coding cryptex