a good idea ^^

[.^o]

'Dead Drops' is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. USB flash drives are embedded into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. Everyone is invited to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your favorite files and data. Each dead drop is installed empty except a readme.txt file explaining the project. 'Dead Drops' is open to participation. If you want to install a dead drop in your city/neighborhood follow the 'how to' instructions and submit the location and pictures.

http://deaddrops.com/

[KrazyKatz]

Brilliant! There is even one in my country. I'm going to make an effort to go check it out.

[Christofori]

Didn't your mother ever teach you not to just allow any old thing to jack into your port?   I suppose the generally well-intentioned folk won't plant any nasty worms on those things; but the location information isn't limited to just those with good intentions... I'd advise caution.  Or use a device which there would be no consequences were it to be wiped out suddenly I suppose..  (Does this position mean I'm not a very trusting person of others?)

A neat idea though.. just don't believe anyone's gonna catch me using one of them.

[LPChip]

I actually think (since its not something that well known) people will be more eager that they accessed one to keep it alive instead of destroying it.

[Harbinger]

Excellent! The master plan to become the Borg is slowly falling into place....

(It's good to be right.)

[Christofori]

I actually think (since its not something that well known) people will be more eager that they accessed one to keep it alive instead of destroying it.

I hope you're right -- though I meant in suggesting above, that a worm may be installed to destroy certain target machines connected to the drop, not the drop itself.  One could just as easilly connect with a program to auto-wipe the drop itself if one wanted.

[LPChip]

I actually think (since its not something that well known) people will be more eager that they accessed one to keep it alive instead of destroying it.

I hope you're right -- though I meant in suggesting above, that a worm may be installed to destroy certain target machines connected to the drop, not the drop itself.  One could just as easilly connect with a program to auto-wipe the drop itself if one wanted.

Even so. If you learn about this, I think you're more eager to find out what's on it than you want to destroy it or affect other people with it.

The audiance reached by this device is very small, so infecting it with a virus is most likely not worth all the effort.

Hackers and Crackers that want to compromise security want to do so by showing and exploiting a weakness. In this case, the weakness is so obvious that they'd be wasting time.

[KrazyKatz]

You can just as easily download fake programs using the net that can destroy your P.C. But it's a rare if ever occurrence. I don't see why this should be any more of a threat.

[Saga Musix]

I'm rather sure that most of the people who know about this project also know that Autostart is bad and that you shouldn't launch untrusted applications of which you don't know where they come from.

[Christofori]

I'm rather sure that most of the people who know about this project also know that Autostart is bad and that you shouldn't launch untrusted applications of which you don't know where they come from.

.. until the blissful who might happen upon it in forums like this very one, come across it.  My note was more meant for any/all of them, not more than a mere reminder for those others of us.   Even those I speak of (trying to avoid using the 'i-word' here.. though it's remainder contains a 'g' as well as 'norant'.. heh) are growing more in love with portable gadgets capable of interfacing with USB via cables/dongles...

Also don't forget that everything's becomming more and more interlinked as time goes on... more random stragglers looking for unrelated content get dumped onto sites each day.  All that needs happen is the 'mainstream' finds out about these things, and then there goes the cool factor... and relative safety... and whatnot....  Just sayin'.