Want to Leave The Internet? What are the Options?

Last week, The Verge, an online tech publication, announced that their Senior Editor, Paul Miller, had decided to leave the internet. It sounds crazy, I know, but leaving the internet while still working for an online publication isn't as insane as you'd think.



There are many reasons that unplugging can be good for our souls, can help us get out and interact with others and even lead to more uninterrupted time to work on hobbies and other projects. But, going offline doesn't have to mean giving up on digital technology. Believe it or not, most computers work just fine without an internet connection. Although many people have embraced the idea of using cloud drives, most computers have hard drives of their own and have the ability to do many things, even without a broadband connection.



If you've thought about pulling the plug on the internet, here are a couple of interesting way The Verge came up with to access data without the use of the worldwide web:



Data drops - These started as an artistic project to make a statement about peer-to-peer file sharing, but has actually caught on. The site Dead Drops offers a map of USB thumb drives installed in public spaces that allow users to link up to them and share a file or leave one. Currently, there are 1,000 of these dead drops with a total of 2.7 terabytes of storage. In addition, there is a grassroots movement to put wireless dead drops on aerial drones, making a pirate network that is free from the laws of any country.



Pigeons - Believe it or not, using pigeons for large file transfers might actually be faster than the internet. In 2010, ten carrier pigeons were sent from Yorkshire to Skegness in the UK, a distance of about 120km. The pigeons were carrying USB drives containing a 300 MB file. It took an hour and fifteen minutes for the birds to deliver their cargo. For larger files, this method could actually be much faster than mailing disks or trying to upload or download the data.



Would you leave the internet? If so, how would you do you job?