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What To Do With 78 USB Drives Next Christmas?
ArfBrookwood writes "Every year, I write a Christmas Letter and send it to about 50 people, and every year, it's different. One year it was just the word blah blah blah over and over with keywords, one year I made papercraft wallets with full color cards and money in them, another year I created a Christmas Letter writing contest that instructed the recipients to create our Christmas Letter for us and we awarded prizes to winners, last year, I took a fake retro photo of my family, Inkscaped/GIMPed in a chemistry set and some wall art, printed it onto CD covers, and burned retro Christmas songs onto digital vinyl and sent everyone in the family what looked like a miniature Christmas album. Last week, I came into the possession of 78 2GB USB drives. I have already taken the time to wipe them clean and reflash the memory so they are blank slates." Now, Arf's looking for suggestions for how to best use all these drives; read on for more.
"My first inclination was to remove the USB drives from their careful packaging and plastic enclosures, dump them into a slurry of glue and rock dust, sandpaper the USB port to make it look ancient, and then make some videos or include some oddly formatted numbered/whatever text files to make them look like they cam from some dystopian wasteland fallout-3 type future and then package them in envelopes that looked like they were from some central futuristic government post office. The idea would be that in the future, incidents that happened this year would have had a profound affect on the future. I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule — I have to outdo whatever I did the last year."
"My first inclination was to remove the USB drives from their careful packaging and plastic enclosures, dump them into a slurry of glue and rock dust, sandpaper the USB port to make it look ancient, and then make some videos or include some oddly formatted numbered/whatever text files to make them look like they cam from some dystopian wasteland fallout-3 type future and then package them in envelopes that looked like they were from some central futuristic government post office. The idea would be that in the future, incidents that happened this year would have had a profound affect on the future. I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule — I have to outdo whatever I did the last year."
Send them to me.
If you're such a prodigy maybe you can come up with your own ideas.
Rick Roll on every one.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
They are just the right size to make excellent 200-yard rifle targets.
Or you could build an array out of them or something productive.
Shooting at them with a .308 would be more fun though.
Well, whatever you do, it's going to get out now, I'm sure at least one of these people read /.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
dd if=/dev/urandom of=(usb sticks)
Anybody want my mod points?
1 - I would put a personalized "virtual advent calendar" (ha! the hard part is answering what that means) on them.
and
2 - I would decorate them as a Christmas ornament (if not put them inside an actual glass ornament with only the plug exposed) so they have a use beyond the first year.
You paid for the rights to those songs, right? Using the relevant authority for licensing in question?
re: the USB dealies:
Trade them up until you get a house (like the craigslist guy a while back), then write a regular letter with cryptic clues (but not too cryptic) to find the place, the first person who reaches it gets the deed.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
... and a big raid-z zpool.
Thing Drive Tricks
Give-away Drives
Bury your newsletter in a series of nested .rar files, each consecutively passworded with the next word of your favorite christmas carol.
Send out something like a video where you're recording your family and make like a UFO or monster attack. Since you have no problem with copyright, steal scenes from a cloverfield or war of the worlds dvd. Melt the cases a little and put in a manila envelope along with a letter from a fake law firm "In case of death".
At the end of the video, show your dead bodies, laying in christmas sweaters on the ground with bits of fire all around and superimpose the text "Merry Christmas 2009!"
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Put a customized Linux distro on each one with people's names as login names, etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Do the USB drives have usage lights?
1.Remove them from their casing, exposing their green PCB organs.
2.Buy a stack of USB hubs, and chain them together. Plug your usb drives into the hubs.
3.Arrange the usb drives in the form of a chrismas tree.
4.Set up a program to access the flash drives at random, causing their usage lights to flash.
Et Voila, flashing usb christmas tree!
This year, add an autorun file that uploads everything on their harddrive to your FTP server and then formats their filesystem. Next year, send them USB drives containing everything that was deleted, or since you won't be on speaking terms with anyone after that you not bother and save a lot of time making cards. Win-win situation really.
Teach them all a lesson about attaching strange USB drives to their machines: fill the drives with viruses!
Christmas. Bah humbug.
Maybe put some books on them?
;-)
I checked, Dickens' A Christmas Carol is on there
I'm sure they'd appreciate a donation if you do. They do a great job.
LinuXmas?
and make a theme out of it like that guy did a few years back with his outside xmas lights... but u might need more than 78.
Put the USB drives in an industrial shredder then eat them all. Die from heavy metal poisoning and internal hemmoraging. Then have someone send pictures of the experience to all these people who you send Christmas cards to, saying "Sorry for being such a gigantic, insecure shitlord and sending you gimmicky Christmas shit every year for no damn reason. As a token of the sincerity of my apology, here are pictures of me killing myself by ingesting metal scraps. It was extremely painful. I hope you will remember me in death as the attention-whoring sycophant I am, and tell your children about the dangers of mercury poisoning. God bless."
write an autorun program that pops up a card with Christmas music.
And a Merry Christmas to you too!
Puppy? Tinyme would probably be easier.. It comes with a PDF viewer. Write your Christmas letter, print it to a pdf, and stick it in the "startup" on the installed distro? dunno, too much work maybe.. but it'd be cool.
-Troll, Flamebait, and Offtopic are NOT equivalent to disagreement.
Yeah, I guess I am kind of boring that way. Hooray for utility over aesthetics!
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Whatever you do, don't assume everyone's computer is running Windows.
And if you're not using Windows yourself, scan the files you're putting on the USB drives just so you don't infect Windows computers with viruses and trojans...
I foresee bankruptcy in late December 2010.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
put a bootable linux distro on it, add a startup script that opens a fun christmas flash game, maybe something from http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/ , i recommend winterbells.
It fits a christmas theme, but i'm not sure how ya could fit it into the post-apocalyptic fallout3 story. Maybe santa became disgruntled and delivered a tiny thermonuclear device in everyone's stocking?
I would also suggest a few personal pix of folks on there, but now is the time to help move ppl to e-books. Personally, IMHO, you have hit the nail on the head.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
On the link to the blog talking about the Christmas album, it says the cover was "Photoshopped". Here on Slashdot, to appease the FOSS freaks this slang gets changed to "GIMPed". That's real classy.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
Get a lot of USB hubs and make a huge RAID. Bonus points if you run linux on it.
Nice to see you have a link to slashdot on your blog, submitter.
:-)
It's slashdot.ORG, by the way
Has anyone ever tried to string 78 usb drives (presumably with active lights) into a christmas tree light to decorate with? Might be interesting...
I reckon you should install them with Puppy Linux, perhaps modified with a Christmas-themed desktop and a short Christmas message and introduction to GNU / Linux that is displayed at login time.
I mean, when was the last time you received a gift of a better operating system for Christmas? :-)
I'd label each one "Do Not Use This Drive." I'd put a program on it labelled, "Do Not Open This Program." Create the program so that it causes their mail client to email you from their email account. See how many emails you get. This would be a good opportunity to teach them how they can protect themselves from data theft, trojans, etc.
Nitewing '98
Everything works...in theory.
Linux distro. Virus to teach them not to trust strange* USB devices. Where's the fun ideas that the OP was asking for?
You already did the retro photo. Kind of a dup but more of an extension to do that with each of your family members in a different situation. Take the iconic Christmas pictures and 'Shop them into the appropriate places.
Slideshow of lovely Christmas scenes and you reading something like 'The Night Before Christmas'?
Make a set of relatively easy puzzles for them to solve before getting to the message?
Create a mocumentary of the history of the holiday. I recommend Terry Pratchett's 'Hogsfather' as a starting point for that one.
* How is it a strange drive when it's sent to you by someone you trust?
...then read it and realize that it's still June (well almost).
Make a raid array out of them and dangle it off your netbook.
Better than this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs.
Nothing but Metallica MP3s from start to finish.
Christmas Botnet. Not only are worms the gifts that keep on giving, but you'll always be that much closer to everyone you give them to!
Stripe a 158GB drive across all 78, then distribute them such that drive can only be read when all 78 are assembled together. Of course, the contents would be a rickroll or similar.
With that much space, you could deliver an HD version of Miracle on 37th Street NW, or a claymation version of Owen the Red-Nosed Reindeer with your family's faces on the characters.
John
If you're a programmer, I would suggest putting a bootable Linux distro on the OS, but change the entire environment so that it looks like a secret government operating system with secret data on it. Some of this data could point to a secret website that you could set up and make people feel like they're stumbling onto something they shouldn't have.
Do something actually useful. Donate'em to an inner city middle school.
Fill all of them with porn and the recipe for free beer.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And wait for the $$$ to roll in.
I jest, of course (but it would work a treat).
Fill the drives with a text file containing the first ..... digits of pi. Everyone loves pie, and what christmas meal is complete with it.
This would probably be fairly tricky to do, but I would wire the drives so that they "burn up" when they are plugged in -- so that they emit red and green smoke. Bonus points if they still work after they emit the smoke.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
I never tell anyone what the Christmas Letter will look like, and I have only one rule â" I have to outdo whatever I did the last year.
I fear I've fallen into that trap too, last year I made some edge lit christmas cards but instead of using coin batteries I included twisted white wire with a soldered USB plug so the card will never run out of power (unless you switch your PC off). Just about everyone who received one loved it.
:)
This year I'm planning on doing another edge lit card but with several layers, powered by a SMD PICAXE chip embedded into the card for animation, flashing, sequencing or whatever I decide.
The year after next I may do yet another USB powered edge lit card but include a flash drive for a christmas video or something *shrug* hopefully I'll get some good ideas from this topic
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Along those lines, let me add these tips:
1. Take an unused PC (or virtual machine) and install Ubuntu on it just the way you want to send it out.
2. You must decide if your distribution will include any home directories, or otherwise will be a 'proper distribution'. You need to know this to continue your setup. If you include a home directory, you can setup themes, firefox extensions, everything in-advance really.
3. Install and use Remastersys, which will create a large .iso file for the next step. : http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/remastersystool.html
4. In Ubuntu, select System > Adminsitration > Create a USB startup stick
5, you need to allocate how much space to to give this new USB PC. Slide it MOST of the way to the right (to create space for the user files) but not all the way (to leave some space for the OS, patches and new application installs in the future, etc.); I *think* this is technically accurate, YMMV.
6. Answer as per your setup decisions made on Step 2.
7. Send a whole bunch of free software out on USB sticks using some postal services.
8. Profit!!!!
- - - - -
Now having done this, I wonder how severe the implications are of breaking whatever laws cover the following:
Applications like Google Earth 5.0 require a user to agree to Google's non-transferable licensing terms, (although I can install Google earth 4.3 without entering into an agreement during the install, but never-mind). It SEEMS like I could setup apps like Google Earth 5 in advance for my mother and not risk too much trouble with the law, even though she lives in the US, while I'm now in Europe. But what about doing the same thing for a relatively small Christmas card list of close personal friends who I trust not to rat me out to Google? What about sending them Skype also? (But note that SIP-based Ekiga still gets my strong support over Skype wherever possible)
1) Load with pictures of cats
2) Include rootkit
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
Just put a .txt on them with the URL to this story.
My webcomic
http://www.kolumbus.fi/xtmb/goatsefloppy/
Fill the USB drives with DOSBox and some DOS Shareware games so they can remember what gaming was like in the 1980's when PC clones running MS-DOS were all the craze.
Put in some family videos in AVI files on the USB drives, make them Christmas themed or if you recorded prior Christmas days of kids opening up presents you can use those videos.
Fill it full of PNG and JPEG Christmas photos.
That CD you made, convert the songs to MP3 format and put them on the USB drive so they can load them onto their iPods, Zunes, iPhones, Blackberries, etc.
Don't listen to the people telling you to put viruses and email programs on the USB drives, that is not what Christmas is all about.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
For more ideas check here:
http://www.marthastewart.com/crafts
...filled with pirated movies and music, then place 78 anonymous calls to the RIAA and MPAA.
Since when does someone who reads slashdot know more than 2 people? Don't look at me I have 3 friends. But you have to count my girlfriend if you don't i'm back down to 2.
Collect and link up a wide array of USB hubs and plug all the drives in. Then string them together using your favorite form of RAID or JBOD.
That's an awesome suggestion.
Add to that the fact that the guy made me think about Xmas in May.
How we know is more important than what we know.
One possibility would be to create a family "treasure chest" of sorts. Well in advance of the holiday season, ask everyone in the family to contribute something (according to a theme). Then, you collect all the submissions and put them (along with your letter) on each USB drive.
As a concrete example of a theme, one year an aunt of mine asked everyone in the family to contribute their favourite recipe. Then, she typed all of them up and sent everyone a collected-effort recipe book. It was such a simple thing, but everyone in the family loved it.
You could do this with any number of themes: recipes, old photographs, favourite stories from the past, etc. Then, put your Christmas letter along with this treasure chest on the USB drives.
Create a puzzle that will require the cooperation of all the recipients to complete. The contents of each drive should be tailored to the individual. Computer-savvy people could have an encrypted document or image on their drive; computer dunces could have a simple text file that says "Call Joe at 870-555-1234 and tell him to give the password on his drive to Mark at 901-555-4567." Put hints on some drives, and images, and text files, and passwords, and instructions that, if all are followed, will result in the final unveiling of something cool.
The "something cool"? I don't know. If you have some money laying around, it could result in uncovering a bunch of $10 iTunes gift certificate codes on some web site somewhere. (But it'd have to be done in such a way that each person involved can claim exactly one certificate.)
Ideally, build some redundancy into the puzzle so that even if 10 or 20 people don't participate, the remainder can still get something cool in the end.
If you choose to do this (and I must say I think my idea is pretty awesome), keep me posted on what you do. My contact info is on my /. profile.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again...
(Some content to stick on your USB key.)
Install a GNU distro that boots to web browser configured for secure banking and saving encrypted data on USB stick only without using HDD. Overlay a window with description of how & why this is more secure than using Windiz on HDD. Install a GNU distro that boots then offers to recover personal files from Windiz HDD or install GNU distro or copy Windiz HDD to external drive or checks HDD for infestations. Install boot menu that offers the 5 choices & explains a bit of each option. Also do some Christmas music & a normal Family picture that slowly morphs to something other.....
Fill them with portable openoffice apps, how-to's on resume writing, informational docs on receiving public services, etc. and donate them all to the homeless.
If anything, I think the best idea is to have - as gifts for family members - a video or videos of the family celebrating together. I have vague recollections and pictures as a kid. They always bring back great memories (even if I was acting silly). My family mostly has developed Kodak and polaroids photos. I only wish we had a video cam in the early 80's.
For friends - keep them all to yourself. After all, what are friends for?
And if you have a wife, no family or friends and you want to use these drives all for yourself, I spare humanity to find out what you will do with them.
Moron:
http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2007/02/cdrs_look_like_.html
can't believe it hasn't been brought up yet. shame on you all.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
We would be happy to have USB drives as a donation. We use them to send out digital talking books to the blind and print disabled. Please feel free to contact me.
Gregory Kearney
Manager - Accessible Media
Association for the Blind of Western Australia
61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
Telephone: +1 (307) 224 4022 (North America)
Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
Email: gkearney@gmail.com
Sell the USB drives. Buy some crap dodgy 5c xmas cards to send to your family (send them blank). Use the left over money to buy beer...
I guess, many of slashdot readers have collection of old socks. What to do with it ?
Congrats. You have won a USB drive. Now wait until Jan 31 or later and check back.
2GB is a lot of space to fill, unless video is involved - but you don't have fill it. Some of the 50 receivers may not have USB sticks and may appreciate one.
and most importantly, how do I create empty lines with HTML enabled?
USB drives are great for spreading viruses so give them to all your friends and family. You should be proud if they use it because then your gift will spread to millions of people! Free Viagra emails and automatic bank logins for everyone!
Make sure you prepare the content on the USB sticks using un-patched Windows XP with no firewall or anti-virus. Perhaps some cracked games would be nice to include. The best cracks come the dodgiest looking crack sites.
Put a good AutoRun virus on them and build your own botnet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Make them autoboot (e.g. Linux). But when it boots up, tell them that they need to get the USB drive from another family member (or several) to get the 'secret' message.
Or it could be some kind of competition, how many other family members can you 'link' with.
Send a Christmas card with a picture of your dog in a Santa hat. I heard on radio that people love it.
You just got troll'd!
pack a trojan on the drives, send them to all people you know, and start a botnet.
Well my dad can kick your dad's ass!
Don't do this at home !
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16594
I am a wage earner!
-
Don't link your blog on Slashdot, then make it invitation only to read. Stupidest thing I ever saw.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Two words-irritating frog. Put an autorun that launches VLC portable or another portable media player set to play irritating frog on an endless loop. Think of it as a valuable lesson on security. You could even write a batch file that will drop the folder with the player and the damned frog into a hidden folder somewhere and sets them to run on startup.
Its the gift that keeps on giving! And it guarantees that the gift recipients will call to "thank you" for such a lovely gift. Ahhh....I can hear them now...."How do you get that ^%#^$#% frog to shut the fuck up!!!!". They will be so happy that you have taught them the valuable lesson on just sticking flash drives into their PC with autorun enabled. Just think, with this gift you can be educational AND entertaining! Now that's value!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Load a big selection of portable apps onto each drive, the gift of open source usable on any windows box.
http://portableapps.com/
DDOS Hanuka
raid with extreme cpu over head will suck! and that is just the with the usb bus part only adding software raid to that will slow stuff down even more.
Since you clearly have some aptitude and massive amounts of free time I would recommend you go out find a job. Or at the very least write a book. Do something constructive.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
... always shove them up your ass with a little vaseline and stop writing shit!
as JBOD and tell each recipient that to get a priceless treasure from you they all have to get together at the same location with their drives (and a lot of USB hubs), reassemble the RAID and then, they'll be able to read the instructions on how to get the priceless treasure. Of course, the message needs to say something like, "your family is priceless" or something disappointing like that...
I would raid-5 all 78 drives but use usb extenders to make them tree ornaments. The drives should each have an activity light that should blink nicely as the array builds over the holiday.
78 drives at 2 G a piece in raid-5 should give you roughly 143.41GB usable. You could then use this for your holiday movie collection to keep things festive
Weird. As I was reading through this thread, just before I came to your post, I had the (almost exact) same idea.
The nice thing about USB drives is that they *can* be reused (like you're doing now).
So, do your Christmas thing, but included with each card, send a list of the charities above who could also use the cards, and instructions on how to format and send the drives.
After all, Christmas is all above giving, and if they want to re-read your card, they can just copy the drive to their computer.
That way, you still get to send a spiffy card, and the blind kids in Australia still get to listen to a book (though, realistically, postage would be more expensive than sending a donation to buy a new drive in some cases).
To the charities above: try contacting companies who make trash-n-trinkets for conventions, etc. They probably have gobs of extras that can't be resold because of being already customized, or having outdated sizes (32MB is still plenty for a kid to write a few school papers on).
Giving the USB drives to a worthy cause (like the Association for the Blind) that can use them is the best idea. But if you couldn't find a worthy cause that needs them, consider selling them on eBay and giving the money raised to a worthy cause. Hey, you could even buy one of those OxFam / World Vision / etc gift cards and send that to your mother in lieu of an Xmas present. (Depending on your mother of course ...)
Pron.... The gift that keeps on giving!
Happy Holidays!
God I wish I had enough free time to think up Christmas presents in June. . . . Maybe it's all the . . . Nevermind
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fhuk like you wanna fhuk, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Install a good PortableApp AntiVirus and Anti-Malware program, along with a nice HTML or Flash message with some links to some other good driver update, etc scanner programs...Do yourself and your Christmas Card list a favor - help them help themselves!
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
of ur d***
Load them with porn.
Okay, not a serious suggestion... just something to share.
...never mind the inaccuracies of the mix). Sent everyone the traditional card/envelope invite, along with a USB drive to each household.
My (now) wife and I wanted to be a little different with our wedding invitations, to do something a little nerdy (got married in December too, so practically last Christmas). We ended up getting something like 40 512MB USB drives for cheap from Overstock.com, put leather cording and metal heart charms on them, and put our wedding invitations on those (done in Flash CS3 with Atari 2600-ish graphics and animation, fakey scan lines, animated blocky snow, Commodore 64-ish music, etc.
Definitely got better responses than what I'd imagine we'd get doing mail-in cards alone, and helped further identify all the geeks in our families. Made a social gathering all the more entertaining for a couple who otherwise loathes social gatherings on a pseudo-grand scale. =P
Make a beowolf cluster? But only if they run on linux. In Soviet America, USBs insert you (into the front page on /.)
Make a nice tree-looking sculpture out of the drives, usb cables and glue, then put one wave file on each drive. Each wave file should be one note of the holiday song of your choice. Then write a script to play each note in sequence so the flashdrive leds blink as each note is accessed. Put the video on youtube and proceed to think of anything other than giving someone a low-capacity flashdrive as a gift containing something you could just as easily have emailed.
Or make them all get together to hear the "secret message" (ultimate weapon?), sending one person a pile of usb hubs and cable and the script.
Average PC has 2-3 USB ports available.
I'm assuming these will be distributed to Windows or Mac types, and each has their method of automatically accessing/activating content upon insertion.
How about loading each of them with a loopable sample that plays on impact?
"Farmer in the Dell"
Rick Roll on every one.
...how do you top that next year?
Fill each one with copyrighted material..
The real question is should you put the same information on all of them or make specific selections.
Really, I completely despise folk like you who have nothing better to do with your time than craft delusional "Christmas Greetings" to send to your less artistic/creative/self-important acquaintances. Of course, in times past the cretinous, badly photocopied "Christmas Letter" or "Roundrobin" was equally abhorrent, but at least that could be seen for what it was and disposed of accordingly.
Do you really think your recipients are going to wade through 512Mb of computer dross, just because you sent it? Or that it'd get more than one play before getting reformatted and used for something more useful?
Here's a suggestion that would generate a bit more seasonal cheer.
Buy a big bundle of high quality Christmas cards supporting the charity (or charities) of your choice. Write an individual, unique heart-felt greeting in each one and post them in time for the last week before Christmas. Then the recipients can pin them up and have a colourful reminder of your regards throughout the Christmas season, rather than a few minutes of irritation.
As for the USB sticks, why not enclose them as an unencumbered gift to those who might have a use for them. Or donate then to a worthy cause.
2 gig is too big for a Christmas card, plain and simple. If it were 128 meg sticks it would've been funny and people would perhaps keep it as they received it, because there's nothing else to do with. Now people will erase them and forget about the Christmas thingie. Anyway, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agfV_CFnfg4 because why not?
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
First label them with random labels such as "Child Porn", "Gangbang Demo", "My michael Jackson music collection", "Best of Metallica", "Old Napster", "NewContryLawyer incriminating evidence" and then put some random material downloaded from the Pirate Bay and some porn of your choice of course.
Then it comes the brilliant suggestion: Load and install on them the nastiest malware you can find on the web,don't install the same malware on all disks, be creative and be sure that it's current. It should go undetected by the average computer user in a corporate environment: a idiot, word-excel monkey, 35-70 Years Old with absolutely no idea nor interest in how computer works.
Finally head to this address and leave some of the disks in the starbucks most visided by lawyers, make sure they look like forgotten. Places like toilets and the water dispenser are a must.
For additional fun label part of the disks as "PAYBACK" and leave them at starbucks at this address.
Good Fun, your family wouldn't be happy this chrismast but we will be much gratefull !
http://www.portableapps.com/
Christmas Porn.
Next time you post a story, put links that actually work without a fucking password, mmmkay?
ArfBrookwood? More like Arfwit.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How would you feel with x-mas to be lectured about security ? ...
The post was about a X-MAS PRESENT, not a X-MAS bomb ...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Give them pr0n. Everybody likes pr0n. EVERYBODY. They might pretend to be shocked or aghast, but they like it.
Now, the real social blunder to watch for is the type of pr0n you give people. You have to watch them very closely and get in their head to get this one right. You don't want to give grandma donkey pr0n when she is really into GILF on GILF action. If in doubt, get some orgy pr0n, since there is likely to be something in there that....titilates.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
They need space right? They got new datacenter too. I bet those guys somehow make use of it, in a good way.
Or, find every public school in a poor area of town and donate to them for setting up backup drives.
Low IQ students = low IQ results. Been consistent for 150 years.
Be certain to fill USB drives with viruses and tracking software.
Then when you tell them about the need to secure their systems, they'll listen this time.
Perhaps.
Wow, must be annoying to be around this guy
First, don't assume everybody on your Christmas list can actually USE a USB key. You may be opening up yourself to noob hell ("Hey, you know that USB thing you sent? Well, since you know computer stuff, I've got this problem with Windows...")
I say, sell 'em all on Fleabay. Should be able to get a couple bucks each. Buy a deck of pre-stamped postcards. Give the kids next door $10 to crayon Christmas trees on them. There you go: organic, primitive. Etc.
Now do something for yourself instead. Like, buy some pr0n DVDs. Or pizza & wings. Hell, do both and have a night in. Enjoy yourself in multiple ways
LABEL it "Best of Metallica", but put on bazillion-kbps full copies of Load and St. Anger
PUNK'D!
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Install a Linux boot, but configure it with GNUstep and Windowmaker so it boots up looking like an old NeXT box.
One year it was just the word blah blah blah over and over with keywords,
What the hell does that even mean?
Comment of the year
People can buy their own USB sticks.
there's a couple of people here who can use USB sticks for a very awesome purpose, I'd donate the USB sticks and do something else. The glowing christmas cards look cool :)
Put Christmas music on all of them and give them to people!!
Carrie -The Christmas Angel
give them to the homeless so they can carry their personal information with them.
Give the gift of retro gaming!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Wouldn't Next Christmas be 2010? I think the submitter is more interested about this Christmas, in 2009.
well, the windows 7 release candidate is like 2.4 GB - how about sending them 5/6 of a windows RC x86 install dvd?
...it's June. Little early, no?
Put copies of 'The Obama Decepton', an easily watchable video that is under 2hrs in length.
Gosh what a puzzle: GM is going bust, North Korea has become a nuclear power, Africa is hungry, Imadinnerjacket of Iran is threatening to destroy Israel, unemployment is at a 25 year high in the US, Ireland and Iceland are almost bankrupt, AIDS is still spreading in the world and some claim the planet is warming..... And you are wondering what to do with 78 USB drives for Christmas. You should get out more: the air in your parents basement is obviously affecting your brain. Sorry I must concur with another poster, you are a fucking ArfWit. .
Put a recovery file set (such as USB editions of Knoppix, Puppy, or Damn Small Linux) on the stick with instructions on how to recover from a Windows system crash. In the remaining space, an e-book reader, the Baen Free Library and other free e-books worth their salt.
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Ha, ha, ha! Mp3re: X-Files.
There is nothing to FEAR but NOTHING itself; and I fear there is a whole lot of nothing going on. --scorpivs
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick
They'll never forget next Christmas.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to be added to your Christmas list.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Gutten Tag, Two gigs of memory is plenty enough for several "Christmas Carol" movies in different versions ! You could also add retro 1880's Christmas cards that you could research on the net. Maybe select a couple of really nice ones and GIMP them to include faces of your family, or maybe go slightly goofy and do a spoof. You have lots of time and most of these movies are virtually free, or maybe $5... Enjoy, Uuh, could I be on your Christmas list? Ed Parton, 967 Sourwood Circle, Marietta, GA 30008 . . . (its all over the internet anyway) Oh, Feliz Navidad. www.edparton.com