PirateBox

What about those setups you get when you research solar piratebox?

TP-Link TL-MR3020 3G/4G Wireless Router
USB Thumb Drive (
LiPo Rider Pro (
3.7V LiPo Battery
5W USB Folding Solar Cell

Had a piratebox connected to a small HDD via USB. All on a Raspberry Pi connected to a external chargeable power supply.

It was running in my messenger most of the time and a lot of my friends used it during our free time and stuff.

An Atheros wireless card is essentially just a 400mhz MIPS cpu with an antenna attached, and they're around $10. One B-grade solar cell is something like 6 inches by 3 inches in size and you can buy two dozen of them for something like $30. All you need then is to attach some flash memory and to give it some weatherproofing which can be bought as a solvent in a spray can or bottle for $12.

I don't understand where you're getting 300+ dollars from. At that point it would be cheaper to bribe a construction worker to wire a bunch of pirateboxes into a lamp post.

The point of the solar panel is to recharge the battery, for peak operation and so that you don't have to come back and recharge it manually. Pirateboxes could then be left in place indefinitely and would be self maintaining.

I've had one set up for at least a year, but I've never used it. My biggest problems are that

If there was some way to show that it is an offline server to everybody, that'd be much better. Maybe I should change my SSID to "Local Server (NO WIFI)" or something.

Or better yet: Make it able to connect and redirect to a real connection, so the sharing is just a bonus. Or at least make it able to create a local mesh-net.

I have done this with a portal page.
Nothing got shared, all my mobile internet was burned.

I used one to share pirated shit and textbooks in class. People use it to download stuff but never upload. Still got me some nerd cred I guess.

Bro do you even into camoflage? Don't poo in out mesh network loo!

Wanna put a pirate file server / mesh network router innawoods? Build it into a trail-camera box. Or mount it in / on a deer stand. Other hunters / wild life officers will ignore it as part of the scenery. Hell that's even legal AFAIK, but who needs a "pirate box" innawoods? Maybe as part of a relay system... near a campground... maybe there are woods out back near something more civilized like a starbucks... it's possible.

Wanna put it somewhere urban? Wanna walk on the potentially illegal side (risk of trespassing / "scary fake device" charges)? First of all, don't do anything blatently illegal, it's not worth it. But theoretically, if you were a risk-tasker / lawbreaker, you could: Scout location. Look at other equipment mounted on poles / in equipment closet / on side of building. Construct similar cabinet, paint same color, stick some official looking label on it. Maybe a DANGER HV sticker, maybe just some metallic numbers and letters that look "official". Solar panels are not unusual in my town mounted on signs (to power blinky lights) or poles near the highway (to power emergency call boxes). Be creative. Be bold. To the government / big corp employee mind, a blinky light and big antenna beside other equipment with a big label must mean some other agency must be installing these and we didn't get the memo.

To sum up: Wherever you are, whatever you want to do with the thing, just pick out the most common and most overlooked bit of scenery and put it in / on / disguise it as that.

Exactly. Mesh network WAN, free for all, with creative programming and thoughtful positioning can be multi-routing and self-healing, just like your own private internet, and no fucking censorship.

Creative power ideas: Near HV lines? Look up parasitic power coils. Yes it's illegal, so, only read for educational purposes. Innawoods near running water? Water wheel / inductive motor as generator. Solar recharging lithium is another option. Maybe there is even an outlet available in some locations (again, this is theft without permission, so don't do it).

Here's an idea. I know alot of you fags are NEETS, but what if you had enough non-NEET volunteers, people with vehicles and places to go, who installed one of these in the vehicle? Battery drain would not be too bad if you drive it too and from work every day a few miles to recharge. And the location of the devices would shift.... hard to track. You're just risking it being traced to you if the content of your private network is "naughty".

Random thoughts:

What if you were a cop and had techie cop friends? Every cop car could be a mesh network node.

What if you had a bunch of drones outfitted with mesh network routers? Fly to building tops. Squat until power runs out or you get bored. Fly to different location (obviously different battery system for drone). Solar panels could still be deployed with mechanical creativity.

What if you made your own remote control blimps with some on board intelligence? Fill with walmart helium tank. On board arduino / pi could maintain altitude / geographic location via sensors / gps based on instructions. Again, solar panels extend deployment time.

Top fucking kek, can't wait to hear about you retards getting v& because someone thought you planted a bomb or someone catches on to your distribution of stolen digital goods.

pirateboxes are gay, I made mine a wireless client bridge when I moved into a new apartment.

datenform.de/blog/keepalive/

I don't get what the point of these are

I don't get what he point of Manjaro is.

Never change Germany.

Oh great the weekly pirate box thread is back

sorry, thanks for reminding my to change my flag

Obviously not a calculator solar cell.

What the fuck is that image? I ain't clicking that link.

Data cache only accessible if you light a fire under the rock to power a generator.

People lusting after OC CP I guess.

With internet laws become more strict as time progresses on top of even higher levels of spying from pretty much all governments, it would make sense to develop a way to share data with others that can't be as easily intercepted. Because a PirateBox is not even connected to the internet but is instead its own very small network there simply is no big brother at all, assuming some not CIA guy isn't parked in his van next to it.

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that is pretty cool though

why would you convert it to AC?

also, how does a piratebox work? is it independent (as in, not a meshnet)? how can random people know what address they're supposed to enter in their browsers to find the piratebox's website?

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i'm not sure of the technicals behind it, but if i try to hit the web at the library without a vpn it redirects me to an agreement page. i imagine the same could be done with the piratebox, but instead redirect them to a short intro + simple CRUD interface

It redirects all http requests to its address because it acts like your router and provides DNS.

It can't do https: redirects last I checked. I asked the dev about doing a captive portal like at hotels which would pop up immediately on smartphones, very handy, and he said he's working on that but it's difficult because it interferes with other things the piratebox is supposed to do.

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so the idea is to create a portable modem+router+NAS for little offline networks? not immediately clear to me why filesharing (or even chat, for that matter) has to be done over http through a browser, but I guess it's just because people find it the most intuitive?

also, it's a shame that connecting to multiple WANs simultaneously isn't a thing, otherwise more people would probably be willing to just connect to it in parallel with whatever else they happen to be doing

why are you people talking about leaving them in static locations around the city, like little digital caches ... what would you put on there that people would be remotely interested in?

not opposed to the concept at all, just not sure what vacuum it's filling. If the internet did get mega-locked-down I imagine it would become a lot more common (actually this reminds me a lot of the Stross story "Unwirer" which I've pastebinned for anyone interested pastebin.com/sq9aRgHm)

youtube.com/watch?v=keITiVxhtao

Op related + video related + pic related.

*Will it work?*

Also suspend with balloon on a string onto buildings before popping balloon to drop them off.

Put it all in a thick freezer ziplock to weather proof it.

Solar cell would need some voltage regulating diodes.

No batteries just runs during sunlight.

Looks like the entire bom (build of material) would be less than $5.

No, not really. The energy requirements for RF transmission would make that approach infeasible.

However a very modest solar panel of roughly 1ft^2 could work user if coupled w/ a good antenna system.

Wew that's pretty autistic but neato.