(Roughly) Daily

An art project that began three years ago by prompting people to embed USB thumb drives in structures has caught on like wildfire.

Dead Drops, as the project is called, now has more than 1,200 locations worldwide where anyone with a computer and a USB port can anonymously plug in and upload or download files — sharing who they are or what they care about or love.

The premise: cement a thumb drive into a wall with just the port protruding, and leave its location with photos in the Dead Drops central database.

According to its creator, German artist Aram Bartholl, the project is a way to “un-cloud” file sharing — that is, remove it from the Internet in a time when governments are spying on the online public.

“Dead Drops is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space,” Dead Drops’ manifesto states…

Read the whole story at Computerworld.

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As we skulk toward Bethlehem, we might recall that it was on this date in 1983 that the last phone call was made in the U.S. on a hand-cranked (magneto) telephone system.  In 1981, the local telephone company in Bryant Pond — serving 440 customers (sharing 220 lines), and operating from a two-position magneto switchboard in the living room of owners Barbara and Elden Hathaway– was purchased by the Oxford County Telephone & Telegraph Company, a nearby larger independent company.  A movement called “Don’t Yank The Crank” was organized by David Perham and Brad Hooper in an effort to keep their beloved crank phones.  The effort stalled the transition for two years, but ultimately failed:  the last “crank” calls took place on October 11, 1983, when a modern dial exchange was put into service.  A memorial statue has become a local landmark…

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