fossilesqueTo USB, or not to USB
Beaconen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_archaeology
The computational archaeologists run archaeo.social for Mastodon/Matrix. :) They are a rad group.
RiskableSome day, a lucky archeologist will unearth the one true archive from an innocent-looking tarball.
(X) Doubt.
He won’t know what to do with a tarball anymore than I do
Jack Riddle[Any/All]as long as a paper manual exists…
(tar -xzvf <file> btw, the dash before xzvf is optional)
gustofwindI think that’s just finding a usb stick from around a decade ago
Mmmm forbidden chocolate bar.
SHIT! Somebody finally found it! Man, I hope I didn’t have anything on there with my personal info!
FilthyShroomsOne day, an archeologist will find that one thumb drive I lost in 2016 and could never find again
At least you are not the guy who threw away hit bitcoin wallet, are you?
James Howells, a Welsh IT engineer, mistakenly threw away a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin (worth over £500 million/$900M+ as of 2025) in 2013
Dude’s gone full tilt psychotic as a result and is selling shares to excavate the landfill it’s in (he’ll never find it intact and usable, but his life is forever ruined by his refusal to give up)
Yep, kinda sad, his life being consumed by that one mistake and not getting therapy and moving on.
So true. It’s so insidious because there’s that vague hope that there’s a tiny chance he finds it and never goes back to work, or whatever.
It’s right there, balanced just at the end of his fingertips over the gaping maw of madness, like Indie in the Last Crusade reaching for the Holy Grail.
He needs that kindly father figure to tell him
“Lett et gohh, Shon…”
You found a random usb stick and plugged it in?
Listen, not all of us are proud of everything we plug our holes with.
…yes? What did you think it could be? A larval hidden unvaccinated Russian that will activate and drink your blood?
There are tons of ways to exploit a computer via a flash drive like that. Lots of viruses exist that would immediately install themselves upon the drive getting recognized. Famously Iran has a nuclear power plant taken offline by a random flash drive somebody plugged in, but aside Deon state level threats they can also just steal your financial details and personal info
So let me get this straight. You live in an average size North American city with a population of about a million. There have been billions, perhaps zillions of USB thumb drives manufactured over the decades. Every day there are thousands of potential situations where a completely normal and anonymous schmuck like you and me has the right conditions to drop a USB key. Maybe you had one in your backpack and it fell out. Maybe you have a hole in your pants. This can happen every day, in every city.
So now you’re walking down the street and see a USB key on the ground, and your first thought is “IRAAAAAN!! THEY WANT TO STEAL THE $12.15 IN MY CHECKINGS ACCOUNT!!! BECAUSE THEY KNOW MY EVERY MOVEMENT AND LOCATION TO PLANT THIS LUDICROUSLY COMPLEX AND CONVULTED USB KEY APPROACH TO $12!!!”
I suppose you watch the news and see a picture of a coronavirus and think “My God, it’s a WWII naval mine and IT’S COMING RIGHT AT MEEEEEEE!!!”
You see a USB key on the ground, you pick it up and plug it in. The unvaccinated Russian larva can be sterilized by sunlight.
It’s more akin to clicking on every ad you see on the web. Sure you might not get a virus from lots of them but the risk is real and it’s good practice to just not do that. It’s a real and frequently exploited attack vector, it’s just good practice for anybody with a semblance of concern about digital security
You don’t work with anything important or sensitive, we get it.
ChaoticNeutralCzechYou can use a crap old PC with a fresh OS install, then wipe it. Or a DVD player if you only need the file list (those can usually only open JPGs, GIFs, MP3s, and MPGs or AVIs with one of the video codecs allowed on VCDs/DVDs).
One of the classic blunders!
… Unless they’re using an airgapped device or carefully sandboxed VM (even still lol) to satisfy that curiosity.
Ugh I admit I’d be curious lol.
time to buy a few hundred usb sticks, fill them with zip bombs, and bury them in random place.
FUCK YOU future archeologists
Samsy
QuinnyCodedwhen I was in highschool after a bad storm an iPod charger was sticking out of some dirt half buried. Wonder how long ago it was dropped, how different schools were back then
AgentOrangesicleI lost a thumbdrive full of adult furry content in Auckland. Gotta wonder how that story turned out.