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Berkman LibraryBox

Benevolent Access Points from DEFCON

Here’s a presentation by Kevin Carter from DEFCON 2015 about the Piratebox project, but almost everything he points out as a benefit is equally applicable to LibraryBox. I would argue that in a few ways, LibraryBox is even better…mainly in the ease of customization for your own uses. LibraryBox puts all of the files for the web interface on the USB drive, which makes customizing much more straightforward.

He definitely gets the variety of benefits this sort of device can bring, from routing around censorship to providing a secure place to communicate in politically charged areas. These issues are exactly what I’m going to be working on as a Fellow at the Berkman Center this upcoming year.

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Gadgets LibraryBox Media Personal Technology

LibraryBox

What is LibraryBox? It’s my newest hack, a hardware and software project that takes the “pirate” out of PirateBox to produce a tiny, battery-powered, linux-based, anonymous file server capable of serving arbitrary types of digital files to anyone with a wifi-enabled device.

But, you may ask, what is it for? It’s for any situation where you need to distribue digital files but don’t have or don’t want Internet access. LibraryBox is based on a fork of the PirateBox project, using the TP-Link MR-3020 router, an 802.11n router that is capable of running on a USB 5 volt power source. This means that for about $40 and some time, you can have a file server that fits in your pocket. I loaded my demo unit with the top 100 Public Domain ebooks from Feedbooks and Project Gutenberg, and hooked it up to an iPad battery pack that will run it for 16 hours.

This means I can be a walking digital library, giving people access to eBooks anywhere I happen to have the LibraryBox. These could be used in a million different ways, from bringing eBooks, Audio, even movies to areas with digital devices but without Internet access to just being a personal file server for conference slides or other resources.

More information, including pictures and such, are all up on the LibraryBox website. The code is all licensed under the GPL and is available on Github. Several people have looked at the project, and I’m hoping that others will see the value and help me make it better. There’s lots of improvements possible, and I (and hopefully many others) will be working on making the process easier and better for users.