WebWaste

March 30, 2005 6:11 AM

WebWaste.net • "WebWaste is an Internet rubbish dump; a collective yet anonymous dustbin, open to all Internet users. By going onto WebWaste you can browse through the rubbish and inspect what Internet users before you have thrown away. This might include images, texts, sounds and movie clips. WebWaste collects trash from your own computer's Recycle Bin and uploads it to the waste dump through the downloadable Dustman-application. This process too is anonymous so no one can know who threw what away."
posted by dhoyt (15 comments total)

That's just a bad bad idea.

There are at least a few corporate scandals waiting to happen because of some tool running this on his work machine. Hooboy.
posted by jaded at 6:23 AM on March 30, 2005

Cripes - next step, incorporate this into a virus... get infected, all the stuff that you thought you'd thrown away appears on teh internets.

Why not just share your recycle bin via p2p?
posted by Chunder at 6:37 AM on March 30, 2005

Jaded -- *bad* idea? Anything that causes a legitimate corporate scandal that otherwise would not have occurred sounds good to me, corporations need more transparency not less.

Something about me likes this idea, although it adds unexpected consequences to deleting your Brittany Spears collection....
posted by JHarris at 6:43 AM on March 30, 2005

Why not just share your recycle bin via p2p?

I pretty much used to do that to get on better Direct Connect hubs.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:51 AM on March 30, 2005

If I were malicious in the slightest, I'd work hard on devising an actionscript-based virus, then put it in my recycle bin...
posted by clevershark at 6:53 AM on March 30, 2005

People, do we outlaw new application because someone might use it to create a security hazard? You have to install the app on your machine, therefore you take personal responsibility for what you delete. Any admin worth anything wouldn't let desktop users install apps anyway.
posted by rzklkng at 7:23 AM on March 30, 2005

Not only that, but it doesn't upload the contents of your Recycle Bin unless you run the desktop app.
posted by rzklkng at 7:26 AM on March 30, 2005

Do you have to put files with different codecs in different trash cans like paper and plastic?
posted by j.p. Hung at 7:45 AM on March 30, 2005

People, do we outlaw new application because someone might use it to create a security hazard?

Nope. I think we're just saying that it can be pretty stupid to run the app, but you can't legislate smart behaviour.
posted by clevershark at 9:18 AM on March 30, 2005

It looks to me like the site/dustbin currently only has three image files and one audio file (and two little rats). Am I missing something?
posted by nobody at 11:53 AM on March 30, 2005

This is worse than the average backdoor. Why would anybody want to upload stuff from their Recycle Bin? Browse through other folk's uploads?....YES. Uploading my own trash....eh..
posted by fire&wings at 3:11 PM on March 30, 2005

This is not inherently stupid at all.

Installing it on a computer that you use for very private and/or proprietary and/or confidential things is, though, obviously. Cure: Don't be stupid.

I think this is neat. it's not forcing anyone to do it. we get to see random data.
posted by blacklite at 4:36 PM on March 30, 2005

"we get to see random data."...

interesting... I get plenty of that, I would prefer focused, meaningful data...

thanks, but i'll pass on this one... :-\
posted by HuronBob at 4:51 PM on March 30, 2005

wow, that site uses a *lot* of resources...was streaming 75kB/s of random images and pegging my cpu use as it tried to scroll it all by...not exactly what I would call a kind interface...
posted by gren at 5:12 PM on March 30, 2005

I like the idea of this. But the awkwardness of aiming for those little dancing plus and minus signs to "zoom" in and out (actually it seems to just resize the images, meaning they overlap when zoomed in and spread out when zoomed out, instead of zooming out toward a vanishing point) is terrible.
posted by nobody at 8:38 AM on March 31, 2005