Here’s a funny idea that I’ve seen doing the rounds on the Internet recently: digital dead drops.
The concept of a traditional ‘dead drop’ is a place where a person (normally a spy or agent) can secretly leave something for another person to pick up. Think of a loose brick in a wall kind of idea.
But these new, public dead drops consist of a USB cemented into a wall where you can leave and pick up data files stored on the device. These can contain anything you want and could, in a way, be seen as anti-cloud storage.
The digital dead drops concept was started in the US by Aram Bartholl, an artist from Berlin.
He said: "Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessible to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project."
This web site, deaddrops.com, was created where drops could be registered. Since the original announcement thousands of dead drops have been added around the world.
But it seems to me that there are quite a few cons that outweigh the pros on this project. I bet they could be destroyed fairly easily, plus surely they can be infected with malware that would just ruin everyone’s day.
As an art concept though, sure, it’s interesting I guess. I heard ‘wireless’ dead drops are now being worked on, which I see more of a use for.
