The latest Swiss Army knife from Victorinox features a secure flash drive that is unlocked using a built-in finger print reader. The 8gb model will cost £100 (about $150).

I never go anywhere without one of my many Victorinox knives. Part of their appeal, it pains me to say, is that they are considered to be politically correct and so do not alarm onlookers when you pull one out.

I won’t be purchasing this model. For ordinary day-to-day work I would be worried about being locked out of my data if the fingerprint reader died. If I was, for example, doing journalism in a hostile country then there are much better deniable encryption¹ systems such as the free and opensource TrueCrypt.

UPDATE: The knife was at SHOT Show but I missed it! Ed blogged about it here. It has also got a laser pointer.