This "SanDisk Cruzer" USB flash drive has this nasty U3 thingy included. Every time it connects with a host, this U3 partition reappears and gets in the way, trying to do super smart stuff.

So, how to get rid if this ~~malware~~ feature? Overwriting the whole device did not help. There's a removal tool...for Windows. There's a removal tool for Macs too, but only up to MacOS 10.6 :-\

For Linux, there's u3_tool. This hasn't been updated in a while but let's hope we won't need tools like this in the future. Here's a short description to get u3_tool going:

 svn co https://u3-tool.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/u3-tool/trunk u3-tool-svn
 cd trunk u3-tool-svn
 aclocal
 autoconf
 automake --add-missing
 ./configure --prefix=/opt/u3-tool
 make && sudo make install

After the build completed, let's use it:

$ /opt/u3-tool/sbin/u3-tool -i -v /dev/sdb
Total device size:   1.88 GB (2017525760 bytes)
CD size:             16.00 MB (16777216 bytes)
Data partition size: 1.86 GB (2000748544 bytes)

$ /opt/u3-tool/sbin/u3-tool -p 0 -v /dev/sdb

WARNING: Loading a new cd image causes the whole device to be wiped. This INCLUDES
 the data partition.
I repeat: ANY EXISTING DATA WILL BE LOST!

Are you sure you want to continue? [yn] y

$ echo $?
0

And it worked :-) Good riddance, U3!