Offtopic? USB HASP

I am not sure if this is offtopic. If it is please delete it.

I was wondering whether anyone here has experience with the HASP USB Dongle. I acquired a couple when they first came out (~1 year or more ago) to see what is the fuss, and to my shock horror *both* of them burnt themselves off when I first put them into my USB port. It just heated up like there was a short or something. The USB port works fine with other devices. I never got around to see how it works internally.

At $50 a pop it wasn't cheap to test, so I didn't try again.