curious climbed onto an orange crate and shouted:

I've seen people who try to take their laptops onto a plane as carry-on get
stopped by security at the gate. The security guard asks them to boot up the
laptop, and then they insert some sort of device into the laptop (presumably
into the USB port or something). What exactly does this device do, and is
there a possibility of a virus being transmitted from the device into the
computer?

I regularly fly all around the US plus Europe, Asia and sometimes
South America, and have never encountered anything like what you
describe. Are you sure they're actually inserting something into the
unit and not "wanding" for explosives or the like?


--
"Politicians & Diapers Need To Be Changed For The Same Reason"
(seen on a bumper sticker)