USB flash drive guts

The idea behind this morning’s post about USB flash drives struck me last night/this morning on a whim.  Through absolutely no coordination whatsoever, I noticed the appearance of a photopool series on Flickr  with every photo labeled “Dead Drops.”  From the photos in the pool it appears someone¹ is going around New York epoxying and cementing USB flash drives into public crevices. ²

A dead drop is, according to Wikipedia, “a location used to secretly pass items between two people, without requiring them to meet.”

Now, for the questions:

Who is doing this and why?  Why those locations?  What are on these drives?  Where are they?  Is someone mapping them?  Are they read-only? ³ And, how long before someone sitting on a park bench or leaning up against a phone booth scrapes themselves on one of these?

I’m not sure about the answers to those questions…  but I suspect this man may know…

Mystery computing

1. Perhaps the photographer Aram Bartholl aka agoasi? [↩]
2. In a way, I suppose this is a public service – sealing cracks in walls and buildings. [↩]
3. I don’t see a switch on the one in that photo above [↩]

Sugar On A Stick Custom Case by kristianpaul

I rather like flash drives.  Whenever I go to a conference or convention, I eschew those silly useless knickknacks like tri-color highlighters, flashy LED cufflinks¹ , and nylon bags for holding more useless knickknacks.  Flash drives, on the other hand, I’ll let you bend my ear for a few minutes so that you’ll offer me a 256 MB flash drive. ²

One of the great things about give-away flash drives is that they usually have modest space anywhere from 256 MB to 1 GB or so.  A small flash drive is good loaning to someone – without having to worry about whether you’ll get it back.  It’s good for a small Ubuntu Boot drive, small utility drive with recovery software, or the Tor Firefox Browser bundle.

The other great thing about these freebies is that they are poorly enclosed. Some you can pop open with a paperclip, precision screwdriver, or even a fingernail.  When done, you’re left with the naked electronic USB flash drive without any of that annoying or silly branding.

At the last conference I attended I snagged several such small drives.  After cracking the cases open I realized I could build a better flash drive enclosure using my 3D printer.  This isn’t exactly a new idea, Kristian Paul designed a custom USB flash drive case about nine months ago.  I can’t tell from the pictures, but it looks like he’s using his custom case to enclose a complete flash drive, rather than just the electronics.

So, if the world were your oyster and you could have a flash drive in ANY shape imaginable, what shape would it be?

1. Seriously, I saw these at the last one. [↩]
2. I fully realize these are probably only worth about $2 and that I may have a drawer full of them at home. [↩]