The PirateBox

by SideFx

From www.piratebox.cc:

"PirateBox solves a technical/social problem by providing people in the same physical space with an easy way to anonymously communicate and exchange files.  This obviously has larger cultural and political implications and thus the PirateBox also serves as an artistic provocation."

This - along with a love for pirate radio - is the developers' FAQ answer as to why PirateBox was created.

"PirateBox is inspired by the free culture and pirate radio movements.  The name is a playful remixing of the title of the worlds most resilient BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay."

PirateBox is hacking the system and creating your own system.

It's an ingenious program you can burn to an SD card and operate from a Raspberry Pi in addition to other platforms.

In a nutshell, with a battery powered computer the size of a cigarette box and a few add-on components, you create your own anonymous wireless file sharing, chat room, and forum.  The potential for this little network is far reaching in many arenas.

"Along with offline file sharing, media streaming, and community building, the PirateBox has been used by musicians to share their music at festivals and gigs, by teachers to distribute and collect digital materials from students, by emergency response workers and volunteers to publish local first aid information and community updates.  It has also been used by librarians and writers to collect, store, and distribute electronic texts, by conference organizers to distribute conference materials and to provide local wireless commenting during presentations.  PirateBox has also been used by coworkers collaborating on projects, and by CryptoParty workshop leaders to securely share cryptographic keys."

With the Raspberry Pi, you can be up and running in very little time.

All you need is the Raspberry Pi computer, an SD card, a USB flash drive, and a USB Wi-Fi.

The downloads and instructions are available online at: piratebox.cc

Follow the setup sequence - there are some important steps to get it up and running correctly.

"PirateBox is free (as in freedom) because it is registered under the GNU GPLv3."

You can modify and improve PirateBox too.

There are a number of great modifications available on the PirateBox website.  One of these mods moves the forum and file storage to a USB stick.  The entire system can reside on the SD card, but using a USB flash drive is best.  This way you can easily edit, add, and delete content.

Imagine being on a flight with no movies or entertainment or Wi-Fi...  But you do have a PirateBox.

You turn it on and now everyone with a laptop, phone, or iPad has access to an anonymous chat room, forum, and file sharing service.  Fortunately for the entertainment deprived, you have Wayne's World, Hackers, Wag The Dog, etc. on your SD card that now everyone can enjoy.

In addition to movies, you can store pictures, music, documents, and many other file types on the PirateBox.

The PirateBox layout is quite simple.

The main page on the device has an explanation of what it's all about, which can be removed to economize space.  There are links to the "Forums" and "Files" pages as well as an "About" button.

PirateBox's latest edition has a meter to show used space on the flash drive memory.

There is an open anonymous chat space on the main page that allows you to use an alias name and color the text of your posts.  The chat room is automatically reset and deleted when the PirateBox is turned off (there is a modification setting to retain the chat info too).

The "Forums" page is just that.  It's still anonymous, but a permanent record of ideas is kept.  The Forums allow subjects and replies, etc.  With the password (created in setup by the root user), offensive, stupid, and old forum material can be deleted.

The "Files" page shows the files that you have on your flash drive.  Files can also be loaded to the flash drive directly from the upload link on the main page.

From most any Wi-Fi device, phone, iPad, computer, etc., you can connect to the PirateBox and share in anonymous social media.

Go to the "Files" page, click on a song or movie, and instantly you're streaming to your device.

Share your favorite files, pictures, video, documents.

Your actual unfiltered thoughts can be shared in the chat room or in the perhaps more constructive forum.

With its small profile and varied uses, it's hard to go wrong with the PirateBox.

  
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