Usb? In MY wall???

[Stelpa]

More likely than you think!

http://datenform.de/blog/dead-drops-preview/

Honestly, looks pretty fun. If only I had some mortar 

[Jasper]

I love that. 

I want to hide one in a tree.  I wonder if that'd hurt the tree.

[Stelpa]

I love that. 

I want to hide one in a tree.  I wonder if that'd hurt the tree.

I dont think he'd mind. The tree would overgrow it eventually, though :\

[Triple Zero]

Ah cool. I was gonna post that

It's such an incredibly bad idea btw, it's almost not funny

People in the comments mention autorun viruses etc (like Stuxnet does), and some arrogant counterculture linux*hole replies "Yep, winusers and share freedom is kind of incompatible. That sort of things doesn't matter to Linux users." ... After which some clever fellow remarks "I'm not so much worried about the viruses but about the ones connected to a car battery"

Seriously, you don't even need a car battery, a laptop (or whatever active USB device) pumps 5V (at 500-900 mA) into the USB device (which is why you can charge your MP3 player that way), all you need to do is cross the internal wires so it feeds right back onto the motherboard, frying it. Apparently there's not much protection at the data channel wire. Note that I have never tried this, I'd love to, but it's hard to come by computers crappy and old enough to destroy that have USB sockets.

Same reason why, if I'd have found one of those Trent Reznor Y34R Z3R0 promotional USB sticks, I would likely have tried them on an internet cafe computer first, to see what's on em.


Even though the pics are fucking awesome:

   

Also, what about rain?

[Jasper]

Of course there are risks with such things.  Some people might get burned, but in some more trusting/less malicious neighborhoods it would be fine I think.

[Requia ☣]

On rain: I've put USB sticks through the washer and they worked fine afterwords.

On viruses: Did Microsoft even patch up the autorun hole in windows (in XP if you put a hidden autorun.ini file on a USB stick XPs default behavior was to run whatever trojan the autorun file pointed too).

Assuming that was fixed it wouldn't be any more risky virus wise than grabbing files off a random public space on the net.  Less really since there would be way too much work involved in distributing viruses with this to have a profit motive compared to online methods.

[Stelpa]

Yeah, I don't really see the benefit of trolling artz. What jerks 

[Triple Zero]

On rain: I've put USB sticks through the washer and they worked fine afterwords.

It's different though, probably to do with air exposure. You can wash your metal keys left in your pants many times and they won't rust, but if you leave them a few weeks outside they will rust.

On viruses: Did Microsoft even patch up the autorun hole in windows (in XP if you put a hidden autorun.ini file on a USB stick XPs default behavior was to run whatever trojan the autorun file pointed too).

I don't know what you're referring to, because even in Windows Vista (haven't checked Win7) the "autorun" feature is still on by default. And even if you disable it, there's exploits (that viruses, and recently worms such as StuxNet exploited) that are able to bypass this. The latter might be patched by MS some day, though.

Assuming that was fixed it wouldn't be any more risky virus wise than grabbing files off a random public space on the net.  Less really since there would be way too much work involved in distributing viruses with this to have a profit motive compared to online methods.

Um, it's not like someone's going to think "hey let's infect this art project", rather that some person with a USB-spreading virus plugs their laptop into it.

On the other hand, it's just about as secure as plugging your own USB stick into a (possibly infected) computer in a random internet cafe. Except an internet cafe usually employs virus scanners and possibly even resets the harddisk with an image every day or so. Of course you can never count on an internet cafe to take those precautions, but you can sure as hell count on an USB-stick to not do any of the sort

Yeah, I don't really see the benefit of trolling artz. What jerks 

?? Who's the jerks?



Don't get me wrong, I think the idea is incredibly cool. But only as an art project, I wouldn't think of ever plugging my own netbook into one of those devices. Maybe if I saw someone else plug into it first. Or maybe if it's one that only me and a few friends know the location of. As soon as I'm certain that rain/moisture --> rust doesn't cause short-circuits.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

re: viruses: i use linux so..... it doesn't bother me :P

seriously tho.
it doesn't bother me.


nice idea, though. i like the idea of leaving data in a stationary position and making people go there to get it and trade it, instead of leaving people in stationary positions and pushing data to and from them.

[Stelpa]

Some kind of condom? A little box of some sort with a seal?

I can just picture a random condom sticking out of a wall... The homeless surely wouldn't take advantage of that :P

[Jasper]

Most thumbsticks come with caps. Just hope no goon steals it.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

maybe instead of sticking thumb drives into walls, they could set up some kind of centralized repository for everything all the drives would contain, and provide access through some kind of... transmitty/receivey thing people could connect their computers to. maybe call the whole thing, idk, a File Transfer Protocol.

[Triple Zero]

A condom would be good, it reinforces the concept of "digital glory hole", which is what it is.

[AFK]

More likely than you think!

http://datenform.de/blog/dead-drops-preview/

Honestly, looks pretty fun. If only I had some mortar 

One does not simply walk around with mortar!

[AFK]

I love that. 

I want to hide one in a tree.  I wonder if that'd hurt the tree.

I dont think he'd mind. The tree would overgrow it eventually, though :\

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that, in the ent, the tree might not be terribly thrilled.