ok good idea

I think this should be mandatory
if you accidently put a virus on a company computer, you could be fired or sued for the damages to data

Simple and necessary - hallmarks of a good idea.
Could this form part of a USB focused site?

some non-commercial antivirus softwares have this implemented yet. A good idea but there are just a usb drive pointing question. Since it works like a real drive, it doesn't make sense to code a program only for that.

you coudl also just run your anti virus scann on just your usb divice when you have it pluged in and if you plug it into someone elses computer befor you transfer anything scan it quick it only takes a few minutes

pin to kill the virus

no doctor..............no antivirus.................no pills

........................just a panacia of pin........................

Any system with an antivirus installed does this automatically. Inserting a USB drive on a system with an updated antivirus is already there, it will first check the drive for any virus. This sounds good if there aren't any system with antivirus installed in any of them.

an idea just in time..i like this!

"Any system with an antivirus installed does this automatically. Inserting a USB drive on a system with an updated antivirus is already there, it will first check the drive for any virus. This sounds good if there aren't any system with antivirus installed in any of them."

I completely agree with this. The problem with implementing anti-virus / security-suites on external harddrives or flash memory is this: these mediums are often subject to the restrictions of the host operating system. If Windows is configured to restrict which applications can auto-start, you're suite of tools may fall prey to the very viruses they were meant to stop! Another task that may potentially hinder effectiveness is the operating system itself. Windows seems to be inherently flawed. How are you going to manage multiple operating systems? Mac OS X is gaining marketshare by leaps and bounds. Dell (and now Epson and potentially HP) are selling machines with Ubuntu pre-loaded. Software is not easily managed to run over multiple operating systems.

I think what sewerhobo says makes great sense.

However, human nature being what it is, I still think there would be a market for something like this.

I could see it for schools, for example, where the USB would be used on a number of school computers during the day and the kid's own computer at night. They likely have same OS.

Even though it is a potentially inelegant and occasionally irritating or harmful product, I think that there is a niche it would be attractive to.

Use box.net and trow away your usb sticks.
I did.
Tommy

Many anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are already checking the USB-drive (and floppy drives), just make there are anti-virus and anti-spyware programs installed on the computer you want to use (or disable the internet for a while ;-) )

You should look at USB drive encryption instead. There are already companies that do this (my corporate thumb drive is encrypted), but none of them are really aimed at the consumer market.

So when you lose your drive, no one else can recover your data from it. You get prompted for a password when you insert the drive into a computer.

Isn't there any "Portable Antivirus"? I think there should be. That's exactly what you need here.

ei! why not return this back in the IW?