I lost my thumb drive the other day and today I relocated it.  I lose my thumb drive every six months or so usually because it falls off the carabiner I use to hold my keys which means I could switch to a conventional key chain but the knife has proven very useful.  So, what to do with my damaged thumb drive?

After mangling the USB end to fit into a computer, I formatted it and wrote over all sectors with 1s and 0s but I wanted more certainty.  The microwave proved much less interesting than I thought so I resorted to the simple elegance of a claw head hammer.  Blow 1 and 2 did little but blow 3 had a comfortable crunch as the two RAM chips fell off.  I put it inside a cardboard box which I doused in toluene, lit on fire.  I am comfortable that my data has been securely erased.