‘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 accessible 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.
How to make your own
- Read the Dead Drops manifesto!
- Get a USB flash drive of any size.
- Dismantle the plastic cover. (It has shown the stick stays more stable if you leave it on, feel free to experiment!)
- Wrap it in plummers tape to seal it off.
- Download the readme.txt and manifesto here (eng, french, esp, port, russ, dutch, ger, ita, chin, czech) , edit authorship/credits/date)and load it on the drive. [more translations are welocme!]
- Use fast setting concrete to cement the stick in a crack or hole.
- Make sure to make the wall look nice afterwards, eventually you ll need some color for touch up.
- Make sure to place it in a way that it can be accessed directly with a laptop. (Not everybody has an extension cable)
- USB ports locations on laptops are different from model to model. The ‘front side’ (2 holes of the plug) points up! Is the left side port and right side port on a laptop accessible?
- Optional you could use epoxy putty to glue the flash drive to other objects.
