The Pluto Switch: Mystery Google Device Appears in Small-Town Iowa
2013 01 04
By Cade Metz | Wired.com
Photos of the mystery computing device appeared on the web in late February. Taken with a smartphone, they were a bit washed out and a little blurry in places, but you could easily read the name printed on the long, thin piece of hardware. “Pluto Switch,” the label said.
The images were posted by two men who said the device had unexpectedly turned up at a branch office in the tiny farmland town of Shelby, Iowa — population: 641 — and they were hoping someone could tell them what it was.
 A closeup of the “Pluto Switch,” a mystery hardware device that landed on the edge of Iowa this past winter.
Clearly, these two men were familiar with the ins and outs of computer networking, and clearly, this was a networking switch, a way of shuttling data between machines. But they’d never heard of the Pluto Switch, and it was littered with networking ports they’d never seen before. “Any ideas?” they asked. “The writing on the back is Finnish.”
According to posts they made to an obscure web discussion forum dedicated to networking hardware — networking-forum.com — they couldn’t actually get the thing to work. But they turned up a few clues indicating who the device belonged to, and eventually, after putting two and two together, they said they’d located the owner and sent the switch back.
It belonged, they said, to Google.
At first, Google didn’t respond to their phone calls, the men said, and when it did, it wouldn’t explain the switch. But apparently, the company offered a reward for its return. “Finally got a hold of a Google network engineer, so the switches are heading home. He wouldn’t tell me what the connector type was so that’s still a mystery,” one of the men told the forum. “The engineer was cool and is going to send us some shirts the public can’t buy.”
[...]
Read the full article at: wired.com
Related Articles
Google starts watching what you do off the Internet too
Google voluntarily plays copyright cop, punishes violators in search results
Google Ordered to Pay a Record $22.5 Million for Violating Privacy
Apple, Google to film homes from the air
Latest News from our Front Page
|
‘Lack of public debate on immigration caused Stockholm riots’
2013 05 25
Mishra Mrutyuanjai raises some points that we discussed with Mikael Jalving about in our Red Ice Radio program, in January earlier this year.
Sweden should put its political correctness aside and start an open debate on immigration as it’s the only way to avoid a repeat of the Stockholm riots, Mishra Mrutyuanjai, Swedish Democrats movement member, told RT.
Stockholm is reeling as ... |
Stockholm riots spread west on sixth night
2013 05 25
Comments in italics
Stockholm experienced a sixth straight night of riots early Saturday, with cars torched in several immigrant-dominated suburbs, as Britain and the United States warned against travelling to the hotspots.
Nearly a week of unrest, which spread briefly Friday night to the medium-sized city of Oerebro 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Stockholm, have put Sweden’s reputation as an oasis ... |
Marc Abramsson from the National Democratic Party comment on the Husby Riots in Stockholm
2013 05 25
Sweden could be paying a tough price for its policies on immigrants and multiculturalism. A Stockholm suburb erupted into violence for a few hours, as crowds of angry, masked youths from migrant families burned cars, smashed windows and hurled stones at police officers.
What’s believed to have fueled the riot was the death of a 69-year-old man, allegedly shot by ... |
‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fifth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm
2013 05 25
Youth gang riots in the Swedish capital Stockholm have entered fifth straight night. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in years.
At least six vehicles were torched throughout the city late on Thursday while the police called for reinforcements from other Swedish cities bracing for further ... |
The Ata ’Alien’ Humanoid May Have An Earthling Cousin
2013 05 24
When a new documentary promised to unveil DNA tests on a 6-inch-tall humanoid found 10 years ago in Chile, everyone weighed in with an opinion.
UFO researchers hoped this might finally be proof of alien visitations. Skeptics were sure it was nothing more than shameless movie promotion.
The latest ripple in this controversy might be the most bizarre turn yet.
And by "ripple," ... |
| More News » |
|
|
|
|
