Sneakernet
Encyclopedia
Sneakernet is an informal term describing the transfer of electronic information, especially computer file
s, by physically courier
ing removable media such as magnetic tape
, floppy disk
s, compact disc
s, USB flash drive
s, or external hard drives from one computer
to another. This is usually in lieu of transferring the information over a computer network
. The name is pronounced similar to ethernet
and is a tongue-in-cheek
reference to sneakers (footwear)
.
Sneakernet, whether called that or not, is often used as an academic example to illustrate the trade-off between latency and bandwidth.
This form of data transfer is also used for peer-to-peer
(or friend-to-friend
) file sharing and has grown in popularity in metropolitan area
s and college
communities, sometimes for the purpose of distributing works of authorship. The ease of this system has been facilitated by the availability of USB external hard drives, USB flash drive
s and portable music players such as the Apple iPod
.
The United States Postal Service
also offers a Media Mail service for compact disc
s among other items. This provides a viable mode of transport for long distance sneakernet use. In fact, when mailing a sufficiently large hard drive or a spindle of DVDs, the throughput (amount of data per unit time) may compete favorably with other methods of data transfer.
standpoint, sneakernets can achieve tremendous throughput, but they suffer from high latency (see Comparison of latency and throughput). The throughput
of the network is directly proportional to the size of the transmitted file(s). Latency
is based on the amount of time it takes to fully process the request for information. Latency would include the time it takes to write the storage media and the time to travel from point A to point B.
For example: Person A requested Person B to send them a DVD
(4.7 GB) worth of information. Over the Internet the latency for the file request may be milliseconds, but at a modest broadband
download speed of 50 kB/s it may take up to a day to complete the transfer. On the other hand, Person B could burn a DVD and deliver it to Person A in an hour. The latency was an hour but the throughput of the transfer is roughly equal to a transfer rate of 1305 kB/s.
The theoretical capacity of a Boeing 747 filled with Blu-Ray discs is 595,520,000 Gigabytes, resulting in a 245,829 Gbit/s flight from New York to Los Angeles.
Similarly, the largest backup tape available is the LTO-5, with a capacity of 1500 GB. If a tape of this capacity were sent by overnight mail and were to arrive around 20 hours after it was sent, the effective data rate would be 166 Mbit/s. With networking technology, this magnitude of speed over this distance would be very difficult to attain without a costly dedicated connection as one would likely need to use several hops
and have a connection that is not overbooked
.
And with a modern, updated for 2011 example, using a common 3TB capacity 3.5" Hard Drive (105mm x 25mm dimensions) available on the consumer retail market, we have the following example:
Boeing 747-400 carrying capacity in cargo configuration, in cubic meters:159
Volume of 3.5" Drive (102mm x 25mm) in cubic meters: 0.00255
Number of 3.5 Drives per 747: 62,353
Data capacity of 3.5 Drive (TB): 3
Data capacity of 747 in Gigabytes:187,059,000
bits per byte: 8
In Gigabits: 1,496,472,000
Distance between LAX and JFK in km: 3,983
Speed of a Boeing 747-400, in knots: 507 (940 km/h)
Time to fly between LAX and JFK at 507 knots, in seconds: 15,254
Bandwidth of the 747 in Gbits/Second: 98,103
So our 747-enhanced Sneakernet Bandwidth: 98 Terabits per second
Sneakernets may also be used in tandem with computer network data transfer to increase data security. For example, a file or collection of files may be encrypted and sent over the Internet
while the encryption key is printed and hand delivered or mailed. This method greatly reduces the possibility of an individual intercepting both the key and encrypted data.
Another way sneakernets are used together with network transfers is to provide an initial full backup as a base for incremental backups. Consider large (several terabytes) dataset that grows by just a few megabytes a day. You want to back up this large dataset to a remote location on a daily basis but the job will take a very long time to copy over a network and will never complete before more data is added to the source. One solution is to make a local copy of the data, which is then physically relocated to the remote location and topped up with daily incremental backups over a network.
There is also the limitation of read/write speeds on a computer. There are three ways disk speed can be increased. The speed of the drive and/or the media may be increased, multiple disks may be used (one disk may be read as another is written to), or simultaneous use of multiple disks. This is generally not an issue for a sneakernet, as it often makes use of removable media
.
The original version of this quotation came much earlier; the very first problem in Tanenbaum's 1981 textbook Computer Networks asks the student to calculate the throughput of a St. Bernard
carrying floppy disk
s (which are said to hold 250 kilobytes of data). The first USENET
citation is July 16, 1985, and it was widely considered a chestnut
already, possibly dating from the 1970s . Other alleged speakers included Tom Reidel, Warren Jackson, or Bob Sutterfield. The station wagon transporting magnetic tapes is the canonical version, but variants using trucks or Boeing 747
s and later storage technologies such as CD-ROM
s have frequently appeared.
novel Going Postal
includes a contest between a horse-back courier and the "Grand Trunk Clacks" (a semaphore line) to see which is faster to transmit the contents of a book to a remote destination.
The "valuable data file" has become a common MacGuffin
in action films and television programs, and indeed the motif of the "valuable letter or documents" (pre-electronic information storage technology) dates back hundreds of years.
placed on audio files as well as physical media to prevent the user from copying and distributing that data.
In 1992 the Software Publisher Association (now known as the SIIA) produced a PSA
campaign titled Don't Copy That Floppy
.
SD Cards, as well as DVD-R/-RAM/-RW disks use "Content Protection for Recordable Media
(CPRM)."
Memory Stick
Cards and PlayStation 2
memory cards use the Sony-developed MagicGate
DRM technology.
Computer file
A computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is durable in the sense that it remains available for programs to use after the current program has finished...
s, by physically courier
Courier
A courier is a person or a company who delivers messages, packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for...
ing removable media such as magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
, floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s, compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
s, USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
s, or external hard drives from one computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
to another. This is usually in lieu of transferring the information over a computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
. The name is pronounced similar to ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
and is a tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek
Tongue-in-cheek is a phrase used as a figure of speech to imply that a statement or other production is humorously intended and it should not be taken at face value. The facial expression typically indicates that one is joking or making a mental effort. In the past, it may also have indicated...
reference to sneakers (footwear)
Sneakers (footwear)
The American term sneakers is a synonym for athletic shoes. More specifically, sneakers refer to footwear made of flexible material, typically featuring a sole made of rubber and an upper part made of leather or canvas. Sneakers were originally sporting apparel, but are today worn much more widely...
.
Sneakernet, whether called that or not, is often used as an academic example to illustrate the trade-off between latency and bandwidth.
Summary and background
Sneakernets are in use throughout the computer world. Sneakernets may be used when computer networks are prohibitively expensive for the owner to maintain, in high-security environments where manual inspection (for re-classification of information) is necessary, where information needs to be shared between networks with different levels of security clearance, when data transfer is impractical due to bandwidth limitations, when a guest laptop is incompatible with the local network, or simply when two computers are not powered up at the same time or lack the correct interconnecting cabling. Because sneakernets take advantage of physical media, different security measures must be taken into account for the transfer of sensitive information.This form of data transfer is also used for peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
(or friend-to-friend
Friend-to-friend
A friend-to-friend computer network is a type of peer-to-peer network in which users only make direct connections with people they know. Passwords or digital signatures can be used for authentication....
) file sharing and has grown in popularity in metropolitan area
Metropolitan area
The term metropolitan area refers to a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories, sharing industry, infrastructure, and housing. A metropolitan area usually encompasses multiple jurisdictions and municipalities: neighborhoods, townships,...
s and college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
communities, sometimes for the purpose of distributing works of authorship. The ease of this system has been facilitated by the availability of USB external hard drives, USB flash drive
USB flash drive
A flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
s and portable music players such as the Apple iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
.
The United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
also offers a Media Mail service for compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
s among other items. This provides a viable mode of transport for long distance sneakernet use. In fact, when mailing a sufficiently large hard drive or a spindle of DVDs, the throughput (amount of data per unit time) may compete favorably with other methods of data transfer.
Theory
From an information theoryInformation theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
standpoint, sneakernets can achieve tremendous throughput, but they suffer from high latency (see Comparison of latency and throughput). The throughput
Throughput
In communication networks, such as Ethernet or packet radio, throughput or network throughput is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel. This data may be delivered over a physical or logical link, or pass through a certain network node...
of the network is directly proportional to the size of the transmitted file(s). Latency
Latency (engineering)
Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
is based on the amount of time it takes to fully process the request for information. Latency would include the time it takes to write the storage media and the time to travel from point A to point B.
For example: Person A requested Person B to send them a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
(4.7 GB) worth of information. Over the Internet the latency for the file request may be milliseconds, but at a modest broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
download speed of 50 kB/s it may take up to a day to complete the transfer. On the other hand, Person B could burn a DVD and deliver it to Person A in an hour. The latency was an hour but the throughput of the transfer is roughly equal to a transfer rate of 1305 kB/s.
The theoretical capacity of a Boeing 747 filled with Blu-Ray discs is 595,520,000 Gigabytes, resulting in a 245,829 Gbit/s flight from New York to Los Angeles.
Similarly, the largest backup tape available is the LTO-5, with a capacity of 1500 GB. If a tape of this capacity were sent by overnight mail and were to arrive around 20 hours after it was sent, the effective data rate would be 166 Mbit/s. With networking technology, this magnitude of speed over this distance would be very difficult to attain without a costly dedicated connection as one would likely need to use several hops
Hop (networking)
Data packets often have to go through routers , if not several, before they reach their final destination. Each time packets are passed to the next router a hop occurs. .- Hop Count :The distance between two hosts...
and have a connection that is not overbooked
Overselling
Overselling or Overbooking refers to the selling of a volatile good or service in excess of actual capacity. Overselling is a common practice in the travel and lodging industry. In telecommunications, sometimes the term oversubscription is preferred...
.
And with a modern, updated for 2011 example, using a common 3TB capacity 3.5" Hard Drive (105mm x 25mm dimensions) available on the consumer retail market, we have the following example:
Boeing 747-400 carrying capacity in cargo configuration, in cubic meters:159
Volume of 3.5" Drive (102mm x 25mm) in cubic meters: 0.00255
Number of 3.5 Drives per 747: 62,353
Data capacity of 3.5 Drive (TB): 3
Data capacity of 747 in Gigabytes:187,059,000
bits per byte: 8
In Gigabits: 1,496,472,000
Distance between LAX and JFK in km: 3,983
Speed of a Boeing 747-400, in knots: 507 (940 km/h)
Time to fly between LAX and JFK at 507 knots, in seconds: 15,254
Bandwidth of the 747 in Gbits/Second: 98,103
So our 747-enhanced Sneakernet Bandwidth: 98 Terabits per second
Sneakernets may also be used in tandem with computer network data transfer to increase data security. For example, a file or collection of files may be encrypted and sent over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
while the encryption key is printed and hand delivered or mailed. This method greatly reduces the possibility of an individual intercepting both the key and encrypted data.
Another way sneakernets are used together with network transfers is to provide an initial full backup as a base for incremental backups. Consider large (several terabytes) dataset that grows by just a few megabytes a day. You want to back up this large dataset to a remote location on a daily basis but the job will take a very long time to copy over a network and will never complete before more data is added to the source. One solution is to make a local copy of the data, which is then physically relocated to the remote location and topped up with daily incremental backups over a network.
There is also the limitation of read/write speeds on a computer. There are three ways disk speed can be increased. The speed of the drive and/or the media may be increased, multiple disks may be used (one disk may be read as another is written to), or simultaneous use of multiple disks. This is generally not an issue for a sneakernet, as it often makes use of removable media
Removable media
In computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which is designed to be removed from the computer without powering the computer off.Some types of removable media are designed to be read by removable readers and drives...
.
Usage examples
- The May 2011 raid of Osama Bin LadenOsama bin LadenOsama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
's compound revealed that he used a series of USB thumb drives to store his email drafts. A courier of his would then take the saved emails to a nearby Internet cafe and send them out to the desired recipients. - In September 2009, Durban company Unlimited IT reportedly pitted a carrier pigeonCarrier pigeonA carrier pigeon is a homing pigeon that is used to carry messages. Using pigeons to carry messages is generally called "pigeon post". Most homing or racing type varieties are used to carry messages. There is no specific breed actually called "carrier pigeon"...
against South African ISP Telkom to transfer 4 GB of data 60 miles (96.6 km) from HowickHowick, KwaZulu-NatalHowick is a town located in the uMgungundlovu District of KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. The town is 1050 m above sea level, and about 88 kilometres from the port city of Durban. It enjoys warm summers and cool dry winters. A snappy chill descends upon Howick when snow falls on the nearby...
to DurbanDurbanDurban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
. The pigeon, carrying the data on a memory stickUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
, arrived in one hour eight minutes, with the data taking another hour to upload. During the same two-hour period, only about 4% of the data had been transferred over the ADSL link. A similar experiment was conducted in England in September 2010; the "pigeonnet" also proved superior. - GoogleGoogleGoogle Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
has reportedly used a sneakernet to transport datasets too large for current computer networks, up to 120TB in size. - The SETI@homeSETI@homeSETI@home is an Internet-based public volunteer computing project employing the BOINC software platform, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence...
project uses a sneakernet to overcome bandwidth limitations: data recorded by the radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto RicoArecibo ObservatoryThe Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near the city of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. It is operated by SRI International under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation...
is stored on magnetic tapes which are then shipped to Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
for processing. In 2005, Jim Gray reported sending hard drives and even "metal boxes with processors" to transport large amounts of data by postal mail. - Many film editing and visual effects companies transfer large film-scans using hard drives shipped via courier (to reduce bandwidth bills, and to reserve bandwidth for more time-critical transfers)
- Wizzy Digital CourierWizzy Digital CourierWizzy Digital Courier is a project to distribute useful data to places with no Internet connection. Primarily for e-mail, it also carries web content . From an early description of the project 1:...
provides Internet access to schools with poor or no network connectivity by implementing UUCPUUCPUUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
on USB memory sticks. This allows email transport and scoops of web pages that back-fill a web cache. - When home broadband access was less common, many people downloaded large files over their workplace networks and took them home by sneakernet. Today when home broadband is more common, sometimes technical workers at institutions with congested WAN links do the reverse: downloading data at home in the evening and carrying the files to work on USB flash drives.
- In the AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
demosceneDemosceneThe demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
the primary method of exchanging data was using snail mailSnail mailSnail mail or smail is a dysphemistic retronym—named after the snail with its slow speed—used to refer to letters and missives carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between dispatch of a letter and its receipt, versus the virtually instantaneous...
to exchange floppies between groups. Each group had at least one person designated as a swapper, who would exchange news, data and productions with swappers from other groups this way. The best swappers were known to send and receive over 100 mails a month. - Online DVD rentalOnline DVD rentalDVD-by-mail services allow a person to rent DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, video games and VCDs, among other film media online; for delivery by mail. Generally, all interaction between the renter and the rental company takes place through the company's website....
services such as NetflixNetflixNetflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...
and GameFlyGameFlyGameFly is an American online video game rental subscription service that specializes in providing games for game consoles and handheld game consoles....
are effectively sneakernets, as they deliver data on DVDs and other media via regular mailMailMail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...
. - Petroleum seismic surveys routinely record field data which are many terabytes in size. A cluster computer is required to process these data, and may take a year or more, during which time the field crew will wish to work in other areas. The field data are generally hand-carried on tape, and increasingly on hard disk inserts, to the processing centre.
- Data analytics teams in the financial services sector often use sneakernets to transfer sensitive corporate information, such as ledger entries, customer data and financial statistics. There are several reasons for this: firstly, sneakernets can provide very high security (and possibly more importantly, they are perceived to be secure); secondly, the volumes of data concerned are often extremely high; and thirdly, setting up secure network links between the client business and the analytics team's facilities is often either impossible or an extremely convoluted process.
- Amazon Web ServicesAmazon Web ServicesAmazon Web Services is a collection of remote computing services that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com...
allows transferring data between the cloud and a physical storage device. - Very Long Baseline InterferometryVery Long Baseline InterferometryVery Long Baseline Interferometry is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. It allows observations of an object that are made simultaneously by many telescopes to be combined, emulating a telescope with a size equal to the maximum separation between the telescopes.Data...
performed using the Very Long Baseline ArrayVery Long Baseline ArrayThe Very Long Baseline Array is a system of ten radio telescopes controlled remotely from the Array Operations Center in Socorro, New Mexico by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The array works together as the world's largest dedicated, full-time astronomical instrument using the...
ships hard drives to a data reduction site in Socorro, New Mexico. They refer to their data transfer mechanism as "HDOA" (Hard Drives On Airplane).
Non-fiction
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagonStation wagonA station wagon is a body style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door , instead of a trunk lid...
full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
—
The original version of this quotation came much earlier; the very first problem in Tanenbaum's 1981 textbook Computer Networks asks the student to calculate the throughput of a St. Bernard
St. Bernard (dog)
The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...
carrying floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
s (which are said to hold 250 kilobytes of data). The first USENET
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
citation is July 16, 1985, and it was widely considered a chestnut
Chestnut (joke)
Chestnut is a British slang term for an old joke, often as old chestnut.The term is also used for a piece of music in the repertoire that has grown stale or hackneyed with too much repetition....
already, possibly dating from the 1970s . Other alleged speakers included Tom Reidel, Warren Jackson, or Bob Sutterfield. The station wagon transporting magnetic tapes is the canonical version, but variants using trucks or Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
s and later storage technologies such as CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
s have frequently appeared.
Fiction
The Terry PratchettTerry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
novel Going Postal
Going Postal
Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel, released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2004. Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, Going Postal is divided into chapters, a feature previously seen only in Pratchett's children's books and the Science of Discworld series...
includes a contest between a horse-back courier and the "Grand Trunk Clacks" (a semaphore line) to see which is faster to transmit the contents of a book to a remote destination.
The "valuable data file" has become a common MacGuffin
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
in action films and television programs, and indeed the motif of the "valuable letter or documents" (pre-electronic information storage technology) dates back hundreds of years.
- The film Live Free or Die HardLive Free or Die HardLive Free or Die Hard , is a 2007 American action film, and the fourth installment in the Die Hard series. The film was directed by Len Wiseman and stars Bruce Willis as John McClane. The name was adapted from the state motto of New Hampshire, "Live Free or Die"...
depicts a digital thief attempting to download 500TB of financial data to a suitcase sized package(s).
- The 1995 film Johnny MnemonicJohnny Mnemonic (film)Johnny Mnemonic is a 1995 cyberpunk film, loosely based on the short story "Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson. The title character, a man with a cybernetic brain implant designed to store information, is played by Keanu Reeves. The film portrays Gibson's dystopian view of the future with the world...
, based on the short story by William GibsonWilliam GibsonWilliam Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
, stars Keanu ReevesKeanu ReevesKeanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...
as a digital courier with 320 GB of corporate data transported in his head. Gibson's 2007 novel Spook CountrySpook CountrySpook Country is a 2007 novel by speculative fiction author William Gibson. A political thriller set in contemporary North America, it followed on from the author's previous novel, Pattern Recognition , and was succeeded in 2010 by Zero History, which featured much of its core cast of characters...
also featured sneakernets, with iPods being the storage device used to clandestinely move information.
Similar concepts
- Delay-tolerant networks, such as the Haggle project at Cambridge University
- IP over Avian CarriersIP over Avian CarriersIn computer networking, IP over Avian Carriers is a humorously intended proposal to carry Internet Protocol traffic by birds such as homing pigeons. IP over Avian Carriers was initially described in RFC 1149, a Request for Comments issued by the Internet Engineering Task Force written by D....
(RFC 1149), transmission of messages via homing pigeon
Copyright concerns
There have been many steps to inhibit the use of sneakernet techniques to prevent copyright infringement of information, most notably copy protectionCopy protection
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy obstruction, copy prevention and copy restriction, refer to techniques used for preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media, usually for copyright reasons.- Terminology :Media corporations have always used the term...
placed on audio files as well as physical media to prevent the user from copying and distributing that data.
In 1992 the Software Publisher Association (now known as the SIIA) produced a PSA
Public service announcement
A public service announcement or public service ad is a type of advertisement featured on television, radio, print or other media...
campaign titled Don't Copy That Floppy
Don't Copy That Floppy
Don’t Copy That Floppy was an anti-copyright infringement campaign run by the Software Publishers Association beginning in 1992. The video for the campaign, starring M. E. Hart as “MC Double Def DP,” was filmed at Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C...
.
SD Cards, as well as DVD-R/-RAM/-RW disks use "Content Protection for Recordable Media
Content Protection for Recordable Media
Content Protection for Recordable Media and Pre-Recorded Media is a mechanism for controlling the copying, moving and deletion of digital media on a host device, such as a personal computer, or other digital player...
(CPRM)."
Memory Stick
Memory Stick
Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks...
Cards and PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
memory cards use the Sony-developed MagicGate
MagicGate
MagicGate is a copy-protection technology introduced by Sony in 1999 as part of the Secure Digital Music Initiative . It works by encrypting the content on the device and using MagicGate chips in both the storage device and the reader to enforce control over how files are copied.MagicGate...
DRM technology.
See also
- Darknet (file sharing)
- Jargon FileJargon FileThe Jargon File is a glossary of computer programmer slang. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI Lab and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, including Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Carnegie Mellon...
- Meatspace (tongue-in-cheek implication of the real world as a similar analogue to cyberspace writ large)
- Pod slurpingPod slurpingPod slurping is the act of using a portable data storage device such as an iPod digital audio player to illicitly download large quantities of confidential data by directly plugging it into a computer where the data is held, and which may be on the inside of a firewall.There has been some work in...
- Wizzy Digital CourierWizzy Digital CourierWizzy Digital Courier is a project to distribute useful data to places with no Internet connection. Primarily for e-mail, it also carries web content . From an early description of the project 1:...
is a project to distribute data like emailEmailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
to places with no InternetInternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
connection, via USB flash driveUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
.
External links
- "Don't Copy That Floppy" in Internet Archive
- Entry for "sneakernet" in the Jargon File
- Sneaker Net 2.0
- "Buzzwords Galore and Bandwidth that May Rival Your Stationwagon"