Traveling Terabyte Project helps soldiers keep in touch with Defcon
Las Vegas (NV) - Tech savvy soldiers now have a new way to stay in touch with the Defcon computer security convention. Hackers at the Defcon computer security convention have created the "Traveling TeraByte Project" (TTB) - basically is a set of hard drives filled with multimedia in a rugged Pelican case: Soldiers and tech contractors, who missed this year's Defcon, can view and copy nearly a terabyte worth of movies, computer security talks and MP3 music.
Soldiers and contractors have traditionally been sent videotapes, CDs and DVDs from home, but those forms of media often don't hold up well to the intense heat and fine talcum powder-like sand in Iraq or Afghanistan. The TTB is meant to give today's tech-savvy soldier - who often carries a laptop on his/her tour of duty - weeks worth of educational and entertaining multimedia.
The case is to hop around the world to soldiers and contractors stationed in major hotspots like Iraq. Recipients keep the drives for a while and can either copy the contents or simply view the materials directly. At each hop, people are encouraged to add their own videos and pictures to the drives.
Like many projects at Defcon, the TTB was started accidentally when "Deviant Ollam" had two extra hard drives left over from a client's storage upgrade. The two 500 GB hard drives are about 80% full with all the past talks of Defcon along with nearly 100 GB of mp3 files. All the necessary USB and Firewire connecting cables are inside the case, along with power adapters and wall plugs. A water-proof notepad is included so recipients can write notes to the next person in the chain.
The first TTB case began its journey around the world just after the Defcon convention ended. It will go to Tampa, Florida first and then probably to the Middle East. Eventually multiple boxes with different content will be sent around the world. While the TTB project is initially intended to stay within the Defcon community, Deviant Ollam thinks it could also expand to anyone who is interested in computer security.
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Humphrey Cheung was a senior editor at Tom's Hardware, covering a range of topics on computing and consumer electronics. You can find more of his work in many major publications, including CNN and FOX, to name a few.