So that I (or anyone else) can walk up to a deaddrop location with this device and a thumbdrive with a respectable amount of freespace, plug it in for a couple minutes, and take off without ever having to stand there with a laptop in the open. If the user wishes to place something on the deaddrop, he just turns the device around and uses his own thumbdrive as the source.
What about an Android phone with USB OTG support?
http://youtu.be/giJXF5pIITc