Smuggling USB Sticks

23 thoughts on “Smuggling USB Sticks”

1. 2012-11-11 14:48

   

   Hem Sharma Acharya says:

   1GB=1024MB 32GB=1024*32=32768MB 1CD=700MB in general so 32768/700=46.8 is ~47 CDs What made you write 32 GB is equivalent to 700 CDs?

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-11 15:21

      

      he must have meant says:

      Audio CDs.

      Reply
   2. 2012-11-11 15:25

      

      Terence Eden says:

      I was talking about length of musical content - not file size. MP3 compression is around 11:1. Most music CDs - based on a quick sample of my collection - seem to clock in around the 45 - 50 minute mark. Call it 500 MB. So, a 500MB album is compressed to a 45MB MP3. 32000 / 45 is ~700 CDs worth of music. That is, if you were to take the top 700 albums of all time and turn them into MP3s, they would fit onto a 32GB microSD card. Sorry for the confusion.

      Reply
      1. 2012-11-11 23:12

         

         Thom says:

         Back in the old days before CDs, we referred to that as an album.

         Reply
   3. 2012-11-11 15:28

      

      cyx says:

      I think he counted the CD not as an mp3 CD, but an audio CD. A typical CD has a maximum of 80 minutes available to it, if you do that then 1440 * 21 == 30,240 minutes using 80 minutes, you get 378 CDs. In his case, he used the average number of minutes to be 43.2 for a CD.

      Reply
   4. 2012-11-11 15:29

      

      therealspike says:

      Once compress in mp3, now you get the math.

      Reply
   5. 2012-11-11 15:31

      

      t3kcit says:

      I assume he calculated the time of music, i.e. 74 minutes, stored as mp3.

      Reply
   6. 2012-11-11 17:10

      

      Guy says:

      He's talking about minutes of music. And if audio CDs have an average length of 43 minutes we'll reach the (30000 minutes / 43 minutes/CD) = 698 CDs. Those are just approximate numbers.

      Reply
2. 2012-11-11 15:19

   

   Kai Hendry says:

   I haven't tried it, but http://git-annex.branchable.com/ allegedly helps moving large amounts of data on removable drives, which I find interesting.

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-12 11:09

      

      pqs says:

      It is very interesting. It can revolutionize sneakernets!

      Reply
3. 2012-11-11 15:34

   

   Eißer Klugsch says:

   20 high definition movies. more like 1 bluray or 3 cheap rips

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-11 15:44

      

      Terence Eden says:

      Indeed, it does rather depend on how you compress it, whether you want surround sound, if you care about extras, subtitles, etc. If you're going to fill up an microSD card to watch on your phone, then a 720p film with a stereo soundtrack will take up around 1.5GB.

      Reply
4. 2012-11-11 16:37

   

   Chris Gonnerman says:

   None of this argument about numbers in any way invalidates his premise. You're just being pedantic.

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-11 19:30

      

      Michael (@YourDesigncoza) says:

      I agree ::: Interesting point raised, something I've never thought about :::

      Reply
5. 2012-11-11 17:09

   

   Iranian boy says:

   "The film was smuggled from Iran in a Flash-Drive hidden inside a cake to Cannes for screening a few months back.", you guys are just funny, I am iranian and I go there all the times, no one checks anything more than usual screening at airport, I wish internet had fact check, just like spell check, so you will get correction before post anything funny on internet

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-12 01:00

      

      joeav says:

      if you have a lot to lose, and you don't want the risk, you smugle. I unwittingly found myself "smuggling" stuff (" ") on flights several times and did not get caught. but if its not just a customs issue where I pay a penalty and that's it - if I'm risking jail or worse, I would never do it intentionally without a really good reason (like the example above), and then also using the least risky method I can think of. given that, cake is kind of suspect... like baking contraband into a loaf of bread.

      Reply
6. 2012-11-11 17:38

   

   William Tucker says:

   The math is all very interesting but rather trivial when you consider the much more important points of the post. So while the pedantic of you calculate the bits and bytes - the rest of us will focus on the importance of the control, ownership and flow of information around the world. Terence, you have my gratitude for your post.

   Reply
7. 2012-11-11 18:49

   

   Johann says:

   You wrote: "SOPA, DEA, and HADOPI all conspire to break the way we share knowledge - under the benign guise of copyright protection." "Ever since Gutenberg started the information revolution, vested interests have tried to burn books." Are you saying that things like SOPA are really just efforts to "burn books" (i.e. censorship)? I don't get that impression. If anything, things like SOPA are attempts to protect creative works, or at least to keep publishers in business, which is the opposite of censorship. (I'm not saying I agree with things like SOPA, or that they'd work. I'm just saying that their motives are not censorship.)

   Reply
   1. 2012-11-11 19:10

      

      Terence Eden says:

      That's a good point. From my point of view, those laws are designed to protect a very specific way of creating and distributing media. While their overarching aim is probably the protection of their existing business models - the side effect is likely to be the shuttering of sites which distribute content not under the control of those who have purchased the laws. The other significant side effect is that, once governments have the power to shut down sites which break copyright laws, they will be able to more easily shut down sites with which they disagree.

      Reply
      1. 2012-11-12 01:56

         

         joeav says:

         yours might be the best put argument I read on this. I always thought that if this is the direction things are going, worthwhile artists will have to adapt to what they should also see as a positive trend. think back on the 80's for a clearer perspective - I don't have much sympathy for a musician who got sore over kids passing around his tapes, or a film maker who has an issue with video recorders. Tour more, work with smaller labels for bigger cuts, cut the assholes out of the business completely. Be a little poorer. Use the internet. Louis C K made a million (in two weeks) and counting from users volunteering to pay $5 per unencrypted download when they could probably get it on and off a torrent tracker easy. https://buy.louisck.net/news/another-statement-from-louis-c-k Its simple for me: rent Cronenberg, download Cameron. then we see who gets more love. If digital information turned out to be a much freer medium than what studios and record companies had foresight to see, it shouldnt be anyone elses problem. They standardized the thing, then they get upset over what it does. The internet is a public library and there are copy machines in the basement. Just don't bind and sell the junk.

         Reply

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1. 2012-11-12 08:33

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2. 2012-11-16 18:38

   Bruce Lawson’s personal site  : Reading List:

   [...] Smuggling USB Sticks “Ever since Gutenberg started the information revolution, vested interests have tried to burn books. We’re just going to have to create more and more books until their efforts are overwhelmed.” [...]
3. 2016-11-14 07:01

   Start up: SoC wars, more Brexit PC price hikes, USB smuggling, Pixel reviewed, and more | The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say:

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