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While it requires power, something like the PirateBox seems like a safer alternative. It relies on wifi, which means you don't have to be in one physical spot to use it, and you don't run the risk of pluggin your computer into something you can't see. You never know, it could be a 240 volt power line attached to that USB plug.

http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox_DIY

Brian Roedecker: " It's a little more 'James Bondian' but we are living in a more Blofeldian world."

PirateBox

I've got a T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream), which was the first Android phone to hit the market. It is in near mint condition. I'd love to turn it into a Pirate box or some kind of file server, but the only OS option I can find for this phone is Android (either CyanogenMod or the stock OS). Most of the RAM would be eaten up by the GUI that I wouldn't need.

Rather than spending several hours over several days hacking that phone to re-purpose it I can just spend ~$35 and get something with more usable RAM, a faster processor, two USB ports, and an ethernet port.

Thanks for not doing the research before you shot your mouth off, as actually I'm talking about the PRESENT.

PirateBox: http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox

Thunderbolt Drive Adaptor: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5499/seagate-goflex-thunderbolt-adapter-now-available

The cloud is only effective as long as YOU PAY YOUR BILL. Oh, and your government (which is a jointly owned subsidiary of the media conglomerates and the military hardware companies) thinks your files are kosher.

The internet is basically dead, but it's really big, so it will take a long time for the parts to decay.

It'll certainly make an excellent PirateBox. All that's missing on the hardware side of the equation is high-capacity, low-powered, long-term storage. Why aren't there any 1TB SD cards?

And am very happy. I know three are newer Asus machines that work even better than mine today due to improved dual graphics card support. I usually have my machine running more than 6 hours on battery in Linux! It is rated as 10 hours max in Windows, however I find Ubuntu 64bit overall uses less resources except for when totally idle, and Ubuntu is much more responsive than Windows 7 on this machine!

I typically follow this guy for these machines: http://wiki.daviddarts.com/Ubuntu_Maverick_on_the_Asus_UL30VT

To paraphrase Frank Herbert, in DUNE: "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." A single point of failure is demanded by the political powers that be, so that they can control it. Just like the first royalty were highwaymen, they controlled the people by having the power/will to kill them.

Now, the PEOPLE want an internet that is always up, self-heals, and up-to-date. If one isn't provided for them, they will concoct their own. Witness PirateBox! This is a start, more will come. The technology is coming down in price, and is maturing, getting easier to implement. Smart high school kids can implement VPNs to privately share files, and now can create their own anonymous p2p wifi site with no fear of getting tagged by "the man".

Any bets that at the next hackercon, there will be multiple PirateBoxen floating around? There may be one hidden in the student union of your school right now, or library, or coffee shop...