Various sources have reported that the Department of Defense has banned USB Flash Drives from being used in the Pentagon. All drives currently in use at the building are being rounded up and collected and employees are being told they may not receive the drives back.

The Pentagon has not issued an official statement but a spokesman said they are taking precautionary measures against a "global virus" that affects external storage devices. The spokesman did not offer any information as to how long the ban would last. More on this as it develops.

Designed by illustrator Dino Alberto, and packing backgrounds stories loaded on each and every drive, these Mimoco Mimobot Core Series 2 USB flash drives sure do have some character to them. Sizes range from 512MB to 4GB, and from $39.95 to $109.95, which actually is pretty reasonable. If you’re into USB flash drives that you’d likely never use in public, these just might be for you.

More USB flash drives but Transcend’s new 2-4-8GB crop (top items) incorporates fingerprint scanning and 256-bit AES encryption for Â¥17,800 (about $149). The colorful bunch on bottom line is the JetFlash V35 with various capacities and no security features for Â¥16,800 (about $141). Both available in Japan this month. For a few dollars extra, who wouldn’t opt for the security version?

Okay, so the IronKey flash drive has hardware encryption (yawn), integrated secure Firefox for "stealth surfing," is waterproof, and comes in 1GB ($79) and 4GB ($149) versions. But, the kicker is: if you enter the wrong password 10 times–BAM! It explodes in a fireball of flesh-destroying mayhem. Well, okay, not actually, but it does scramble the information physically, making recovery impossible. I hear James Bond has a handful of these already.

Another USB flash drive: Kingston’s 8GB pair include the DataTraveler II for 8GB flavor ($154 and comes with Migo’s data synchronization software), and the DataTraveler 100 retractable which also comes in 1GB ($19), 2GB ($32), 4GB ($59), and 8GB ($116) sizes.