In his latest Langalist, Fred Langa presents a letter from someone whose pen drive was destroyed by the x-ray scanner at the Cincinnati airport. According to Fred, the powerful magnets used in generating and focusing the x-rays — not the x-rays themselves — were likely the cause of the pen drive’s untimely demise. The incident points up that we tend to forget how delicate some of these devices are.

We all know that static electricity can destroy CPUs, memory chips and other such components. What many don’t know is that the electrical field around some monitors is strong enough to erase data from magnetic storage devices. Even AC power cords can cause problems and while I can’t cite any specific instances, I’m sure that walkie-talkie and cell phone radio signals can, too. (Let me know if you have seen any examples of this.)

The bottom line is this: If you travel by air, your laptop, pen drive and other data storage media should be carried on the plane. And don’t leave your magnetic storage media — especially your backup tapes, heaven forbid! — anywhere near electrical fields.

I’ve heard that kryptonite is also deadly to data…