Advertisement
Engadget
Why you can trust us

Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products.

Rogue modder rips off stingy consumer, puzzles repairmen... all with a USB thumb drive

Welcome to today's episode of "You Get What You Pay For," starring some poor sap in Russia who bought an external hard drive in China for a "very, very low price." It seemed like a bargain, until the schmo noticed that video files were picking up from the tail end, as if the preceding footage had vanished. When the folks at a local repair shop tore the disk apart they found a dinky 128MB thumb drive running in a loop, emptying itself when full only to start saving more data. Laugh all you want, but the repair guys (and us, frankly) are still scratching their heads as to how those scam artists pulled off this mod in the first place.


[Thanks, David S.]