Who remembers Dead Drops, from back in the day when some of us were rocking netbooks in our messenger bags that we’d just bust out at a moment’s notice? Has it really been long enough for folks to start waxing nostalgic?
These cryptic storage drives are known as Dead Drops, taking their name from an anonymous drop-off technique used by spies. It started as a guerrilla art project created by artist Aram Bartholl back in 2010, creating an anonymous file-sharing system that anyone can interact with, in any location. Its premise is simple: all you need to do is take your laptop to one of the Dead Drops and plug it in to either retrieve whatever’s on it, or to leave something there for the next person to find. It’s kind of like a digital scavenger hunt, where you can leave treasure just as easily as you can find it.
I never encountered Dead Drops personally or really went out of my way to find one, but I was always fascinated by the concept. Same with the Pirate Box–remember those?? Different method, but the same concept: a way for people to share curated material anonymously, off of the established grid.
Having come up well after the peak of pirate radio, I harbored a fantasy of being part of one of these networks. This was about the time I got myself an OG Raspberry Pi I never did anything with. In the end though, in terms of my day-to-day life, these were always solutions in search of problems I didn’t have.
Still, who hasn’t fantasized about the thrill of being part of a shady, but not necessarily Dark Web shady underground, sharing cool shit for its own sake, under everyone’s nose?