While going back through a lot of old bookmarks I rediscovered a rather cool idea: USB Dead Drops.
The idea is simple; you just “install” a USB thumb drive into a public space so anyone can come to it, plug in, and share data. No oversight, no NSA watching over your shoulder, no barriers of any kind.
Of course, you have no idea what has been left on this thing (could be VERY bad) and you can even leave your own stuff for the next guy or gal. One comment referred to the whole concept as a ‘Glory hole for your laptop’.
The project was started by artist Aram Bartholl in NYC, Oct. 2010. Appearantly he had a lot of time on his hands while serving a year at EYEBEAM as the artist in residence. Here’s a video showing the installation of the first ‘Dead Drop’.
Okay, so why do this? Aram sees this as an art project that can help people come together again, offline. From an interview with the DailyMail (UK):
‘States and companies collect data online, everything is connected. We are all connected by Facebook and social networking.
‘I like to convert this by making the digital meet-up an offline event again. You plug your laptop into a city, into the building and this electric device becomes part of the building.“
Interesting stuff. The initial response to the project was very strong, but seems to have died down since.
Readers are encouraged to participate in the project by installing their own dead drops and submitting them to an online database [HERE]. So far there are more than 1200 USB dead drops all over the globe, and perhaps there’s own near where you live. If not, USB sticks are cheap…just saying.
For more information you can check out deaddrops.com and Aram Bartholl’s blogpost on the project at http://datenform.de/blog/dead-drops-preview/.
Please have a good anti-virus program installed before you use one of these…I am not responsible (for damage to your system or many, many other things) and stuff.
Happy dropping!
