Original Dead Drops
Spies used dead drops to interchange information. Maybe they still do. The idea is that you agree on a location of the mailbox and pass information. One of the benefits of a dead drop is that the two people in the information chain will never be in contact with each other, so you can maintain full anonymity (except if you spy on the location and see who is coming to pick up the stuff you left.)
Modern Dead Drops
What would 21st century dead drop look like? Well Aram Bartholl started a “an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space” which he calls dead drops (see http://deaddrops.com/). He finds a hole in the wall, patches it and puts in a USB drive. People can then plug in to the wall (literally) and upload or download files.
At first thought this is very cool. It is new. It is clever. But then I think, “Why would you do this?” In the end of his video, Aram gives the answer. You can drop off files “and nobody will notice because you’re offline.” So you can do file share without leaving online traces. But, just like with spy dead drops, you could just hang around and see who is using your USB dead drop.
Concerns
The DeadDrop.com FAQ mentions the obvious concern, viruses. Their response is that you could get a virus from internet too, so just apply the same safeguards. In addition to viruses, I am concerned of distributing inappropriate files to minors, like pornography. Distributing copyrighted files is a concern also. Listening to Aram in his introductory video, though, almost makes me think that that is exactly one of the purposes of USB dead drops.
Map
There are about 50 USB Dead Drops in the world. The first ones were installed by Aram while he was in NYC. You can find one using the map.
Overall I think this is a very novel idea. I think there is some cleverness to the whole initiative. It will be interesting to see about the complaints and also the cool uses people will apply to USB Dead Drops.
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