USB DEAD DROPS
(Posted 2011-09-14 16:47:07 by ArchPaladin)

A dead drop [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_drop ] [wikipedia.org], in
spycraft jargon, is a pre-arranged location where two people can
communicate anonymously.  One person drops something off in a location, and
another person picks it up.  The classic example is leaving something in a
mailbox and chalking the outside of the mailbox so that the receiver knows
that there is a message waiting.  (Apparently this classic example is
classic because it was really used.)

Someone took this idea and ran with it in a very unusual way.  They decided
to take a USB flash drive, find a brick building where there were cracks in
the mortar, and cement the flash drive into the wall so that only the USB
interface was exposed.  They then made a website [ http://deaddrops.com/ ]
[deaddrops.com] where you could find all the different locations where this
was done.  (Instructions are available so that you can make your own dead
drop.)

It is an interesting social phenomenon, similar to the sneakernet [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet ] [wikipedia.org] but where the
people move and the flash drives stay stationary.  You can put anything you
want into these drops, and leave them there for people to share.

I suppose someone could take something like this and turn it into a game,
or a treasure hunt or secret mission, or something similar.  Just be sure
to keep an updated antivirus program.

At the time of writing, there are none of these where I live, sadly.

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