Probably not the safest, though.
Cloud data storage got you down? Sure, google will give you 2TB of cloud storage for a nominal charge of $10 a month; you can even add to that. But what if you want it all, but for $0?
Well, that’s where YouTuber HistidineDwarf comes in. HistidineDwarf created a utility, called AKA ISG (short for Infinite Storage Glitch, natch) that will allow you to stuff a zip file with a number of different files, and convert it into video. When you need your data back, you simply rip the video and run it through the program. The really interesting thing about this video, though, is that it resembles old school TV static. An example of this video output is below.
There are, however, downsides. Notably, you can see that the details never get too fine in that video, and that’s by design. YouTube’s compression needed to be accounted for, so the smallest anything gets is a 2×2 pixel square. But there’s no guarantee that this will be enough, especially if things change on YouTube. The real downside to this, though, is that it dramatically increases file size. It causes the size to balloon to 3-4 times the initial file size; so that means a 1 GB file can become a 3-4 GB video. If you have to deal with a data cap, that ain’t gonna be fun.
The other major downside is that we’re talking about YouTube. They perennially screw over their userbase even when there isn’t a financial incentive for them to do so. It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t clamp down on this sort of use of their servers, or worse, decide to monetize it themselves.
On the other hand, for you and I, it’s free real estate…
That said, as HistidineDwarf posted over on github:
Treat this less like the next dropbox and more like a “party trick” or a set of techniques to learn to pass data through compression. I do not endorse high volume use of this tool. I will also refrain from approving more commits to make the tool more convenient to use. There are several bugs that limit the use like the poor use of RAM limiting the size of files to about 100mb and they will remain. If you wish to fix these, you are on your own.
If Youtube sends me a Cease and Desist I’ll gladly shut this down.
HistidineDwarf
Source: Gizmodo
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