The Cuban Memory Stick Underground

circletimessquare writes "The NyTimes has an aticle describing how students and others in Cuba have taken to passing around media on memory sticks, as this is the only way they can get around state-controlled media. Also driving this phenomenon is the fact that there are so few places to get on the Internet. In Old Havana there is only one Internet cafe; getting online there for an hour costs 1/3 of the average Cuban's monthly wages. Local entrepreneurs get the memory sticks from European friends, since they are scarce to find in Cuba through normal channels, and expensive."

Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Internet

[gnick]

Not bad bandwidth, but the lag time can be a bitch.

I see...

[Aegis Runestone]

I see that your memory stick is as big as mine.

Re:Image in my head

[swb311]

Who cares, I'm going to go home and look inside all of my old guitars.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers [wikipedia.org] I think this is better and more subtle if they really want the Internet.

Bandwidth

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a pre-revolutionary automobile loaded with thumb drives!

Is that a cigar in your pocket

[Timesprout]

or did you just get a new batch of porn?

Re:sneakernet

[ISurfTooMuch]

American media? With the garbage we produce here, this would likely end up backfiring.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[gnick]

Wow, and I thought back when I was playing Quake MY lag was bad!

Actually, I believe that there was an attempt to port Quake [wikipedia.org] so that it's playable via Sneakernet.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[kesuki]

are you kidding, with 55% packet loss, and 6165731.1 ms lag over 3 miles... i think the little thumb drive method is way easier. not to mention getting carrier pigeons to cross a couple hundred miles of ocean doesn't work very well either. plus carrier pigeons are really bandwidth restricted, they can at most carry .5 ounces of microfilm which then requires a microfilm reader... thumb drives just work in any usb enabled pc, even ones running linux, and you can get a whole month of blog sites, interesting news etc all in one package with a thumb drive. if they're relatives have the cash they can even send feature length films on thumb drives (i've seen 8 GB modules, in divx/xvid format that's a lot of movie)

Working so well

[Bombula]

Jeez, I finally get it! And here I thought the whole strategy of destroying a country through decades of economic sanctions based on political ideology two generations out of date was one of the great disasters of US foreign policy. But it's actually a clever strategy to turn a whole nation into a think tank and foster innovation the old fashioned way: by creating necessity! It's so simple!

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Notquitecajun]

Insert Monty Python and the Holy Grail coconut-laden swallow jokes HERE.

Re:Interesting

[DeadChobi]

Don't copy that floppy.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[jeffstar]

in soviet cuba they slashdot YOU!

no?

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Duncan Blackthorne]

..so would a hawk or eagle in the mix qualify as a BITM (Bird In The Middle) attack, or DoP (Denial of Pigeon) attack?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Image in my head

[fireman sam]

Dude, those bits are medicinal.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Chris Burke]

Actually, I believe that there was an attempt to port Quake so that it's playable via Sneakernet.

Lame. It doesn't even support rocket jumping!

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Anonymous Coward]

.5oz of microfilm? That seems far lighter than a coconut. Maybe they should stop tying such small packages to their legs and just let them grip it by the husk...or you know, whatever.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[idontgno]

Think of it as an avian spoofed RESET packet.

I'm sure Comcast is evaluating it even as we speak...

Re:Want to bring down the Cuban government?

[modecx]

Sounds a lot like my idea. But with my idea, we also air-drop a few entire Wal-Mart stores, about a hundred thousand gallons of Pabst Blue Ribbon, 10 tons of pre-soiled wife beaters, and a few thousand mobile homes out of a some C-5 Galaxy transports. (each trailer complete with 100 square feet of artificial turf, one plastic flamingo, one garden gnome, and one non-functional Pontiac Trans-Am, and four concrete blocks). Once they were all setup, Wal-Mart would implement a "guns-for-stuff" policy, where they would trade in AK-47s and RPGs for cheap Chinese made crap. I'd give them two, maybe three weeks before the insurgents realize the superior cost savings afforded to them by Wal-Mart, and the American way. The mobile homes, shirts and cheap beer is ancillary to the effort.

Re:Handing off thumb drives - The new Cuban Intern

[Amouth]

basicly what you are saying is build a token ring network where some poor guy walks around carring the token.. might want to watch out.. i wouldn't be supprised if IBM has a patent for that