Wednesday, November 08, 2006

A business opportunity?


This is an interesting idea for the retrieval of a lost USB drive. But, as implemented, the owner of the driver has to advertise real address information to whomever might find the drive.

Perhaps there is a opportunity for an "anonymizing snail mail proxy". The owner of the drive would register an account with such a service and in return receive a shipping address to insert into the USB drive (even if only a readme.txt and not the slicker option shown here). The address would be personalized such that, if in the future the service was sent the drive from somebody who had found it, it could be then forwarded onto the owner.

I wonder if there is a model in which the service does not obtain physical control over the drive but rather simply plays the role of anonymizing the ship-to address?

The alternative is of course to back up the drive's data, encrypt it against anybody who finds it, and write-off the drive as a business expense should it be lost.

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