Dead Drops

[squirmelia]

Yesterday, I went to Kingston-upon-Thames and found some dead drops, created by digital art students as part of the un/orthodoxii exhibition. The Dead Drops website says "Un-cloud your files in cement! 'Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space."

I found the locations of four dead drops altogether - one had been stolen, one had become loose and I couldn't connect to it, but I did manage to connect to two with a laptop and they worked fine. This didn't seem too bad, considering the USB sticks had probably been there for about 2 months. I was able to look at art created by the students, as well as add my own files onto the USB stick connected to the wall.

I was surprised the USB sticks did not have more files on them that random people had added. I imagined it would become like an old BBS with a collection of random files to download, with text files about how to get high on nutmeg, purity tests, sections from the Anarchist Cookbook, the rec.music.industrial FAQ, odd porn, or more up to date, random photos taken with a phone, strange music, weird videos, and so on, but that wasn't the case. Perhaps I will try other dead drops, not just ones in Kingston-upon-Thames, and see what is on them, and if I'm still disappointed, I can always create my own and fill it up with what I want to see there.

Comments

[bennybunny.livejournal.com]

This is a really intriguing idea. I will look into it.

It seems like finding random shit in places during video games when you get the now inevitable scavenger hunts. That sort of appeals to me, but I am yet to see it entertainingly utilised in those or in real life.

A niche for me to conquer. Thanks for sharing your look at it x

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

what about a solar powered fileserver that paid for its internet service through PayPal donations?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

You'd need to disguise it as a phone box.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

and maybe inside have a working telephone

[erinaf.livejournal.com]

Definitely a blue phone box! :p There probably isn't as much stuff as people are afraid of viruses maybe

[solitarywalker.livejournal.com]

i like the idea of digital data having a physical location. Used for art it seems a little bit museum-like; you can if so inclined "take pictures".

This is such a cool idea...

[glenn richards (from livejournal.com)]

...maybe I'll have to find one and upload some of my legendary music to it, see if I can "educate" some people! ;-)