Bookmark and Share

What we discover when we sift through digital refuse.

By **Rebecca Bates**

rsz_bates.jpgWe are a species of voyeurs. We people watch, scavenge, Facebook stalk in the hopes that we might steal a glimpse into the private lives of our peers.

To satisfy this urge, recent Parsons grad Justin Blinder has created Dumpster Drive, a file sharing application that mimics the act of digging through someone’s trash. While the software is still in rudimentary stages, the process is quite clear. Let’s say you’re in possession of Beirut’s new single “East Harlem” and absolutely hate it (shame on you), and you wish to purge your hard drive of the song forever. Rather than dragging the file to your computer’s trashcan, you might instead choose to “dump” it into your Dumpster Drive folder. While this will delete the song on your computer, it will then become available for download by other Dumpster Drive users. Unlike other modes of file sharing, where files can be downloaded an infinite number of times by an infinite number of people, once one person has downloaded your dumped item, it disappears from the application altogether. Dumpster Drive therefore turns your electronic refuse into a limited commodity. You relinquish and claim ownership over digital files as you would trash in a dumpster, thereby rendering them a kind of material object.

The philosophy behind the project is not really so different from, say, trolling a friend of a friend’s photos on Facebook. Again, we are all voyeurs. Dumpster Drive embraces this nosy curiosity in an honest and ostensibly harmless way—there are no user names, which means all files are dumped and downloaded anonymously. Eventually, you begin to learn about the tastes of your faceless digital neighbors based on what they’ve discarded. A recent foray into the dumpster revealed Lady Gaga’s new album, several episodes of Nurse Jackie, and a collection of photographs of Paris Hilton. Some of the available material is actually worth salvaging, however. I’m currently listening to Springfactory’s timely and charming song “As Winter Gives Way to Spring,” something I’d never heard before randomly downloading it from the dumpster. I also just dumped one of my more terrible poems, so feel free to scour Blinder’s application for that (hint: it’s called “Rebecca Bates, A Piece of Shit”).

Essentially, you’ll either find this software pointless or strangely enchanting…or completely inaccessible to you if you’re a PC user.

(Readers should note that I made it through this entire post without saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”)

Copyright 2011 Rebecca Bates

________________________________________________________________________

Rebecca Bates is the blog editor at Guernica. She’s on Twitter.

  Glenn Greewald on WikiLeaks & Establishment Media: Since the technology to reveal government secrets won’t go away, no matter what is done to WikiLeaks, the government wants to make you afraid you’ll end up like Bradley Manning if you blow the whistle.More
 
  Terrence McNally: Why We’ve Started Expecting More from Technology and Less from Each Other: Author Sherry Turkle on her new book arguing that relentless connection through technology leads to a new solitude. More
     
  Sarah Seltzer: Facebook Will Share Users’ Phone Number, Email, and Address with Third Parties: But bit by bit, Facebook privacy has been vanishing—even as more people put more their lives and information on the site. More
 
  Justin Alvarez: “Love the Future!”: As Ai Weiwei’s whereabouts are still unknown, netizens have taken it upon themselves to spread his message. More

At Guernica, we’ve spent the last 15 years producing uncompromising journalism.

More than 80% of our finances come from readers like you. And we’re constantly working to produce a magazine that deserves you—a magazine that is a platform for ideas fostering justice, equality, and civic action.

If you value Guernica’s role in this era of obfuscation, please donate.

Help us stay in the fight by giving here.