Introduced | 2011 |
---|---|
Discontinued | 2019 |
Language | English |
A PirateBox is a portable electronic device, often consisting of a Wi-Fi router and a device for storing information, creating a wireless network that allows users who are connected to share files anonymously and locally. [1] By design, this device is disconnected from the Internet.
The PirateBox was originally designed to exchange data freely under the public domain or under a free license.
The PirateBox was designed in 2011 by David Darts, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University under Free Art License. It has since become highly popular in Western Europe, particularly in France by Jean Debaecker, and its development is largely maintained by Matthias Strubel. The usage of the PirateBox-Concept turns slowly away from common local filesharing to purposes in education, concerning public schools [2] or private events like CryptoParties, [3] a crucial point also being circumvention of censorship [4] since it can be operated behind strong physical barriers.
On 17 November 2019, Matthias Strubel announced the closure of the Pirate Box project, citing more routers having locked firmware and browsers forcing https. [5]
As of version 1.0, there is an improved installation path, with only a few steps followed by an automatic install. [6]
The PirateBox can be set up in Raspberry Pi. The steps can be followed in the reference article. [7]
Users connect to the PirateBox via Wi-Fi (using a laptop, for example) without having to learn the password. They can then access the local web page of the PirateBox to download or upload files, or access an anonymous chat room or forum. [1] All such data exchanges are confined to the PirateBox's local network and are not connected to the Internet. [8]
Several educational projects use the devices to deliver content to students allowing them to share by chat or forum. The PirateBox is also used in places where Internet access is rare or impractical.
Not an exhaustive list:
The PirateBox official wiki has an up-to-date hardware-list of compatible devices. [18]
Broadcom Corporation was an American fabless semiconductor company that made products for the wireless and broadband communication industry. It was acquired by Avago Technologies in 2016 and currently operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of the merged entity Broadcom Inc.
The Linksys WRT54G Wi-Fi series is a series of Wi-Fi–capable residential gateways marketed by Linksys, a subsidiary of Cisco, from 2003 until acquired by Belkin in 2013. A residential gateway connects a local area network to a wide area network.
A wireless router is a device that performs the functions of a router and also includes the functions of a wireless access point. It is used to provide access to the Internet or a private computer network. Depending on the manufacturer and model, it can function in a wired local area network, in a wireless-only LAN, or in a mixed wired and wireless network.
The Nexus One is an Android smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC as Google's first Nexus smartphone. The Nexus became available on January 5, 2010, and features the ability to transcribe voice to text, an additional microphone for dynamic noise suppression, and voice guided turn-by-turn navigation to drivers.
MiFi is a brand name to describe a wireless router that acts as a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot.
Linksys manufactures a series of network routers. Many models are shipped with Linux-based firmware and can run third-party firmware. The first model to support third-party firmware was the very popular Linksys WRT54G series.
OpenWrt is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All components have been optimized to be small enough to fit into the limited storage and memory available in home routers.
Raspberry Pi is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in association with Broadcom. The Raspberry Pi project originally leaned toward the promotion of teaching basic computer science in schools. The original model became more popular than anticipated, selling outside its target market for uses such as robotics. It is widely used in many areas, such as for weather monitoring, because of its low cost, modularity, and open design. It is typically used by computer and electronic hobbyists, due to its adoption of the HDMI and USB standards.
The Acer Iconia is a range of tablet computers from Acer Inc. of Taiwan.
The MK802 is a PC-on-a-stick produced by Rikomagic, a Chinese company using mostly two series of Systems on a chip architectures:
Miracast is a standard for wireless connections from sending devices to display receivers, introduced in 2012 by the Wi-Fi Alliance. It can roughly be described as "HDMI over Wi-Fi", replacing the cable from the device to the display.
The Nexus 6 is a phablet co-developed by Google and Motorola Mobility that runs the Android operating system. The successor to the Nexus 5, it is the sixth smartphone in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer devices marketed by Google and built by an original equipment manufacturer partner. Nexus 6 and the HTC Nexus 9 served as the launch devices for Android 5.0 "Lollipop".
Intel Galileo is the first in a line of Arduino-certified development boards based on Intel x86 architecture and is designed for the maker and education communities. Intel released two versions of Galileo, referred to as Gen 1 and Gen 2. These development boards are sometimes called "Breakout boards".
Banana Pi is a line of single-board computers produced by the Chinese company Shenzhen SINOVOIP Co., Ltd., its spin-off Guangdong BiPai Technology Co., Ltd. and supported by Hon Hai Technology (Foxconn).
The Shield Tablet, later relaunched as the Shield Tablet K1, is a gaming tablet, developed by Nvidia and released on July 29, 2014. It was Nvidia's second portable gaming device that uses Android. Compared to the Shield Portable, the controller is not permanently connected to the screen, rather it can be purchased separately. Up to four controllers can be wirelessly connected at the same time. While the Shield tablet features an 8-inch 1920×1200 pixel display, it can output 4K resolution signal to a television via HDMI.
Steam Link is a hardware and software product developed by Valve Corporation for streaming Steam content from a personal computer or Steam Machine wirelessly to a mobile device or other monitor. Steam Link was originally released as a hardware device alongside the debut of Steam Machines in November 2015. Valve discontinued the Steam Link hardware device in November 2018, in favor of supporting its software-based Steam Link application for mobile devices and smart televisions, as well as providing Steam Link as a software package for the Raspberry Pi microcomputer.
GoWarrior is an open-source and community-supported computing platform. GoWarrior is designed for the world of makers, hackers, educators, hobbyists, and newbies to build electronics projects. It offers a complete package of hardware, software and cloud service.
Pine Store Limited, known by its trade name Pine64, is a Hong Kong-based organization that designs, manufactures, and sells single-board computers, notebook computers, a smartwatch, and smartphones. Its name was inspired by the mathematical constants pi and e with a reference to 64-bit computing power.
The charts below compare hardware and firmware features in the FRITZ!Box device range.
The PinePhone is a smartphone developed by Hong Kong-based computer manufacturer Pine64, intended to allow the user to have full control over the device. Measures to ensure this are: running mainline Linux-based mobile operating systems, assembling the phone with screws, and simplifying the disassembly for repairs and upgrades. LTE, GPS, Wi-Fi, BlueTooth and both cameras can be physically switched off. The PinePhone ships with the Manjaro Linux-based operating system using the Plasma Mobile graphic interface, although other distributions can be installed by users.