I wanted to share a neat little project that goes against everything I work towards. While my focus is maximizing the potential of cloud based technology, Dead Drops is looking the other direction and running away as fast as possible. Aram Bartholl began Dead Drops as a project during his visit in NYC, 2010. Since then, the project has grown world wide. From Dead Drops’ website:
Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. Anyone can access a Dead Drop and everyone may install a Dead Drop in their neighborhood/city. A Dead Drop must be public accessible. A Dead Drop inside closed buildings or private places with limited or temporary access is not a Dead Drop. A real Dead Drop mounts as read and writeable mass storage drive without any custom software. Dead Drops don’t need to be synced or connected to each other. Each Dead Drop is singular in its existence. A very beautiful Dead Drop shows only the metal sheath enclosed type-A USB plug and is cemented into walls.You would hardly notice it. Dead Drops don’t need any cables or wireless technology. Your knees on the ground or a dirty jacket on the wall is what it takes share files offline. A Dead Drop is a naked piece of passively powered Universal Serial Bus technology embedded into the city, the only true public space. In an era of growing clouds and fancy new devices without access to local files we need to rethink the freedom and distribution of data. The Dead Drops movement is on its way for change!
A very interesting project, indeed. Not only does the project make all efforts to ensure the project is as accessible to all, but there’s an obvious interest to keep things free. Right now, there are just over 1,000 Dead Drops cataloged on their website world wide. There’s a good chance you’ll find one in my native home of St. Petersburg, FL soon.
The website: http://www.deaddrops.com
Cheers!
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