The Idea

To see how effective the Lost USB Drive program really is in a real world scenario. I am looking for one hundred loyal DCoT users who are willing to “lose” a USB drive for me. If you have an old USB drive lying around or you got one as a piece of swag from a conference, I would like you to put the Lost USB drive program on it, register it with DCoT, and then lose it. We will then see how well the program works!

Registration

Here are the details on registering:

1. Send me an e-mail to LostDriveExperiment@dailycupoftech.com indicating that you would be willing to participate. In the e-mail, please include the following information:
   • Your name or pseudonym as you would like it to appear on DCoT
   • The message that you are putting into the lost drive program
   • The address (be as specific as possible) where you intend to “lose” the drive
   • A brief description of the location (e.g. “On a table in the coffee shop”, “On the bus to work”, “In Math class”, etc.)
   • The date you intend to “lose” the drive
2. I will then reply back with a unique DCoT e-mail address that you can add to your lost drive message.
3. Delete all of the files on the drive and then configuring it with the Lost USB Drive Configuration Tool. If you can’t download the executable version, you can download this zipped version.
4. Lose it!

Once your drive has been registered, I’ll add it to the Google map mashup so that we can track the information and the stats. Note: You will not get this drive back so be sure that you do not want it and there is no data on this drive! Any drive that is found and the finder sends an e-mail, the finder will receive an e-mail back stating the following:

Dear Lost USB Drive Finder,

First of all, thank you for your honesty in attempting to return this lost USB drive to its rightful owner. The world need more people like you.

The drive that you have found is part of an experiment on Daily Cup of Tech to see how well the program that is running on the drive works. Since you have attempted to return the drive, it appears to work, at least a bit.

You can find out more about this experiment at http://www.dailycupoftech.com/lost-usb-drive-experiment where you can read about where other drives have been “lost” and how successful this program has been to date.

Also, since you are one of the lucky few who has found a USB drive that is part of this experiment, we would love to hear from you in the comments section of the page to let us know about your experience with finding the drive.

As a reward for your honesty, not only will you receive a double dose of good karma but please keep the USB drive that you have found with our compliments.

Sincerely,
Tim Fehlman
Daily Cup of Tech
http://www.dailycupoftech.com

I will provide regular updates via Daily Cup of Tech as to how this experiment is progressing and I will also update all the

Stats

• Number of Lost Drives: 11
• Number of Returned Drives: 0
• Percentage Returned Drives: 0%

Country Breakdown

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/lost-usb-drive-experiment/trackback/

4 Responses to “Lost USB Drive Experiment”

1. Michael Jordan Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 11:39 pm

   I will be participating in this experiment on DCoT’s behalf. I am going to get the drive now, will complete the rest when I get home from work Friday the 1st of june. it will be interesting.

2. Zachary Says:
   June 21st, 2007 at 3:45 pm

   Interesting.

   The map isn’t working…

3. Mark R Says:
   July 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

   Is this still experimemnt still going on? The numbers so far do not look good. I lost a drive and want to know the probability of it being returned. Thanks.

4. Sam Johnson Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

   I don’t see the starting ‘lost’ dates here?
   Also, this isn’t a good idea at airports or train stations etc since it might be setting off terrorist threat alarms.

Leave a Reply