[HN Gopher] Internet in a Box ___________________________________________________________________ Internet in a Box Author : thunderbong Score : 504 points Date : 2021-06-20 08:59 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (internet-in-a-box.org) (TXT) w3m dump (internet-in-a-box.org) | amelius wrote: | They should include StackOverflow, but it's probably illegal to | scrape it. | detaro wrote: | The data is CC-licensed and they provide a download for a data | dump, scraping it is just wasting your time. | myself248 wrote: | What? There's a button to include those sites. I configured | mine to include raspberrypi.stackoverflow and a few others. | | All the StackOverflow sites are available as Kiwix ZIM files, | so if you select the ZIM server to be installed, you can check | boxes for whatever content packs you want. | ivan_ah wrote: | IIAB is just scripts for automating installing other software, | so it doesn't include content -- you download the content | separately based on the app you need. | | For StackOverflow content, the best way to get it offline is | through the Kiwix ZIM files (compressed archive suitable for | web content). | | IIAB will install kiwix-serve by default, then you need to | download the relevant ZIM files from here: | https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages (search | for the ones with stackexchange.com ) | ShantiBhardwa wrote: | With IIAB running on platform like raspberry pi you can carry a | slice of internet content in your pocket in a safe way. No need | for any external network connectivity as it acts as local hotspot | using Wi-Fi. With open source educational content like full | Wikipedia, TED videos, text books, medical reference material you | have you own portable reference library which can be shared with | a group of people for self learning. IIAB opens up access to free | knowledge which can provide huge opportunities for remote | communities for a very small set up cost. | Quequau wrote: | This seems like an evolution of PirateBox & LibraryBox. | JKCalhoun wrote: | I was reminded of "BBS In A Box" -- a very early CD ROM | offering of freeware/filez. | juloo wrote: | Wikipedia can be browsed offline: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#Of... | soared wrote: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkeS_EAIpv4 | | This is much better at describing how this can be used in the | real world. A mesh network in town lets people communicate/post | videos/etc. | brunoluiz wrote: | For a second, I thought it was a reference to the IT Crowd. | | Anyways, amazing initiative! | fredley wrote: | Missed an opportunity to replicate the iconic black casing and | red LED | developer93 wrote: | Article seems to indicate it's just an installation, so it | could still be made so. | aaron695 wrote: | These don't work and never have. | | We have 20 years on this. I get in the 90's it would have seemed | like a quick win. But it didn't work. This inability to move on | is frustrating. | | If you care , which most people don't. But if you do, what you | want on them is porn and copyright TV. If you don't understand | why I can't really help you, it's a pretty simple idea. | | You can't do that obviously, so how do you do it by proxy? | | That is the solution to find. | | One simple idea, find places without internet, find a cafe and | sell them Starlink. You charity sets it up for free, they pay | something per month. Report what happens. I'd bet it'd be very | cost effective. Unfortunately it is boring and people don't get | to feel good about themselves, so it won't get funded, so perhaps | it's just as dumb. | Ensorceled wrote: | Yes, what very, very poor rural schools and hospitals in the | heart of Africa really want is porn and not access to teaching | aids and medical databases. | aaron695 wrote: | What's an example medical database they could and would want | to setup and will IIAB run those services? | Ensorceled wrote: | It's literally in the article: | | > See Mexico's live demo and these medical examples used by | clinics in Asia and Africa especially, as hosted by the | Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia). | aaron695 wrote: | What is the medical database called? | | They have a lot of flat garbage that if you really want | you can just put on your phone, I can see those. | | A database (For Africa as you mention) is a big deal, | it's queryable store of info. It's rare to see these open | source (or CC) Does it use MySql? MSAccess? How hard is | it to set up? | | I don't think they will have any. Databases need to be | updated, it's easier to add 4G if they are needed. | | Chemwatch did a pretty good setup with CD that did the 3 | month updates. In the developed world is still ran into | problems with being up to date enough, I think most would | be online now. And it cost money because it's a hard | thing to do. | | You can't just say, they will 'run datavbases on the | IIAB' That's an ongoing commitment that needs to be | supported. Else it becomes another bricked device in the | NGO graveyard. | Ensorceled wrote: | Are you arguing with me or or the article? I'm not a | doctor, I can't review the databases they include. | | Have you read the article? It has links. | tyingq wrote: | I'm confused by this comment. They cite examples of it working. | Similar setups have been working in Cuba for a long time. What | isn't working? | | Are you just saying that actual free internet access would be | better? Sure, that's true, but not practical everywhere. | aaron695 wrote: | > Similar setups have been working in Cuba for a long time. | | Official Sneakernet is terrabytes of TV (Government | 'sanctioned' without porn or politics) - | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal | | If this is what it is, then I'm totally wrong. This is a | really good idea. A wireless hotspot, anyone can setup to | distribute terabytes of material to others, preferably with a | charge/login option. | | Years ago we did this with a wireless access point 'Login for | free movies" in our apartment. But couldn't (at the time) | work out an easy way to distribute the AVI's once randoms | connected. | | Wikipedia not clear IIAB is this and I didn't see it from the | web site - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet-in-a-Box | | To do this, what's vital is cafe owners and teachers and | students can buy this product and easily dump stuff on. A | movies section, comics section, a books section they can make | pretty, they need ownership in their collations. | | Their FAQ is on OLPC's site which had a horrific attitude of | not allowing others to use their products and locking them | down. | | Once you pay someone to set IIAB up, giving them Starlink | would be around the same price. IIAB has to be open and easy | to buy. | | > They cite examples of it working | | Where? The Dominican Republic video was 4 years ago. Is it up | and running? These things are easy to send in a team for and | have running for a few months. I would be surprised if one | was running for more than a year without an expat there. | abrax3141 wrote: | Web free As free as the web blows As free as the web grows Web | free to follow your heart Web free The wiki surrounds you The | porn still astounds you Each time you look up a star | tudorw wrote: | Poetry drops worse than jokes on this crowd, I enjoyed it | though :) | edgeform wrote: | Very cool device. The dean and doctor discussing the document | they've been writing in Creole (context tells us it's probably a | local dialect) could be uploaded to the device for everyone else | that has them to use is a great reflection of how far this device | can reach. | | Agree with the other comment, not what I thought the device was | going to be initially. Not everything needs a buzzword marketing | name so it doesn't need to be like Doctr or something like that, | but maybe Medic-in-a-Box or something that conveys this is a | medical device. | Popegaf wrote: | This makes me think of Freedombox (https://freedombox.org/). Are | they related / can these be merged? | julienreszka wrote: | The name is misleading | z3ncyberpunk wrote: | No it isn't. | ekianjo wrote: | Amusing name, but if it's not networked in any way, it's not | really 'internet', it's just an extract of various sources that's | pretty much static in time. | pronoiac wrote: | Sneakernet updates seem doable? If you follow the "adding the | quality content" link to | https://github.com/iiab/iiab/wiki/IIAB-Installation#add-cont... | , there are many sources mentioned, like Kiwix ZIM files, which | can include fairly frequent updates. | ekianjo wrote: | If you are in a place without connection, how do you get | updates? Any kind of diff mechanism with USB storage? | z3ncyberpunk wrote: | The same way every other sneaker net gets updates? | scoopertrooper wrote: | I think a hot swap system would work best. The central | office of an aid organisation could just send new drives | along with workers delivering food and other supplies. | | I imagine you could keep it relatively up-to-date that way. | [deleted] | sidcool wrote: | Gavin Belson signature collection | SMAAART wrote: | A few years ago I read an article describing the sam phenomenon | in Cuba. Highly interesting | johnklos wrote: | I love things like this, and I have a number of open wifi | networks which could use this, but it seems people have gotten in | to the habit of thinking that one service should run on one | device, and that's all. It'd be nice if people would say what the | software requirements are, regardless of the complexity of setup. | nchelluri wrote: | http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_hardware_should_I_us... | | http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_OS_should_I_use.3F | | http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... | ivan_ah wrote: | To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for | Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and | the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open | content that get served from localhost, see full list here: | http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... | | The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring | internet accessed work offline (either on localhost or local area | network). In practice, using IIAB goes a little something like | this: 1. find device (the more storage the | better) 2. install free software on device using IIAB | scripts 3. download free content (various content packs) | 4. deploy device anywhere in the world to enjoy all the | FOSS and free content on local network | | The IIAB scripts make installation and download setup fully | automatable (battle-tested Ansible scripts | https://github.com/iiab/iiab/tree/master/roles ), which is | exciting because you can provision "learning server" devices very | easily. | brador wrote: | Surely an old android smartphone can do all this better than a | hard to replace/repair UNIX "internet-in-a-box"? | | Old Android phone: | | 1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable). | | 2. All the Android apps. | | 3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot. | | 4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store. | | 5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery. | | 6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirement UI/UX. | | 7. Easy to code to extend functionality any way you like. | | Any old Samsung would be great, S4 was good and less than $50 a | shot used with an OLED 1080p screen. | mdorazio wrote: | I think you're misunderstanding the point of this. It's not | meant to be a device that people directly interact with. It's | meant to be a local server that anyone nearby with a wi-fi | connection can tap into regardless of broader internet | availability. In that way it's likely to last much longer | since it can be placed somewhere safe and not run the risk of | being stolen/fought over/dropped/smashed/etc. and the end | point used by the local population doesn't matter - a | chromebook, second-hand android phone, whatever. | desktopninja wrote: | Your thoughts are in the right place. Reuse old Android | devices for this purpose. Could be one very phat app :) | tehbeard wrote: | Ignoring the other comments point that this is meant as a | server rather than a direct kiosk, lets smash each of these | points. | | > 1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable). | | Broken/scratched/hard to read in sunlight/draining power. | | > 2. All the Android apps. | | All the android apps for that old version of android, | presuming they work without a wifi connection. | | > 3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot. | | Very dependant on the phone make/model, and server/hotspot | wouldn't be that performant. | | > 4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store. | | Again, very dependant on the make/model. | | > 5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery. | | Solar power I will give you, but you'll be hard pressed to | find a phone suitable as server/hotspot with a removable | battery. | | > 6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirement UI/UX. | | That's very dependant on the app developers if we go with | point 2, I know plenty of apps with terrible UI/UX. | | > 7. Easy to code to extend functionality any way you like. | | Not on phone, you can maybe automate stuff with the likes of | Tasker (see counterpoint 6 about UI/UX though) To really | extend it you'd need a PC at which point... just use the PC? | Or a pi. | squarefoot wrote: | It could also be made with ultra cheap repurposed routers such | as the old TP-Link TL-MR3020 or similar ones, whose hardware is | really limited for doing anything serious but still can run | older OpenWRT versions. All it needs is to activate a file | sharing service and stick an USB drive to be shared with the | usual protocols. I mention it because I've found some at flea | markets for 5 to 10 Euros. | | Actually a possibly better solution would be to use a | ESP32-like board (therefore no Linux or any other OS) to keep | power consumption as low as possible, in order to supply it | through solar power, de facto turning it into a self sustaining | device in which passers by could download files or even upload | their ones, including messages, photos etc. that would stay | online say for some time before being deleted. I have no idea | though if the ESP32 network stack implementation and resources | would allow that. | JKCalhoun wrote: | I would love to have one myself. I may have to put one | together. | | Just thinking if I had the device and if even only Wikipedia | were on it -- would save perhaps a small amount of internet | traffic? Maybe negligible, but I think if I knew I had a "local | cache" of all of Wikipedia I might rely on it more. | | Then I wonder if there was a way to integrate it with my | browsing of the actual internet -- perhaps keeping a running | feed of Wikipedia article links somewhere in my UI as I type | words or as some script scans the contents of the pages I am | browsing so that detail on any topic is literally a click away. | With the local Wikipedia cache of course I have no privacy | concerns. | karmanyaahm wrote: | For my wikipedia cache I use IPFS companion and | https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/. All the devices that | use this approach on a local network can share data. And to | make sure unused wikipedia pages aren't garbage collected, | https://github.com/ipfs/distributed-wikipedia- | mirror#cohost-... | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | "With the local Wikipedia cache of course I have no privacy | concerns." | | This is one reason why bulk data downloads are (IMO) | extraordinarily useful. Speed and reliability are some | others. | | There is no reason to limit this approach to Wikipedia. It | can be applied to any data that we consume regularly. I use | this approach for DNS data and some websites (= frontends to | databases) I use frequently, though none of those sources | facilitate bulk dowloads the way Wikimedia does. | kayodelycaon wrote: | I use Kiwix in my iPad to store all of Wikipedia (with | images). It's a 88gb download. | | Just the text is smaller at 11gb. | nine_k wrote: | Do you even update it? Like maybe once a year? | BelenusMordred wrote: | A large omnidirectional antenna could be a decent addition? | | The RPi inbuilt module doesn't have the much range, assume the | other options are the same, antennas are cheap and even better | can be homemade quite easily with instructions and raw materials. | myself248 wrote: | That's how I have mine set up. | | You don't need to use the pi's built-in wireless, but it's a | cheap way to get started and covers most use-cases where the | users are very near the device. I've got an old Ubiquiti Bullet | M2HP mated to a broomstick omni acting as the AP for my IIAB | network, and you can hit it from halfway down the block. | Further if I get some more height under the 'tenna. | | I wish 802.11ah was more common; a low speed long range option | would be perfect for lightweight content like this. But until | phones have the radios, the use-case just isn't there. | pentae wrote: | This would be really useful in a Zombie apocalypse | poxwole wrote: | This Jen, is the internet. | [deleted] | londons_explore wrote: | Does this solve real people's actual problems? | | Selling the 32 gig SD card together with an Android app to browse | the data seems far better. The majority of the world either has | an Android phone (possibly a decade old), or a family member with | one. | | Have the android app available in the app store and the data | downloadable for those who occasionally have internet | connectivity (for example visiting a big city), but don't have | money for an sd card. | tyingq wrote: | >Does this solve real people's actual problems? | | It's unclear what product you're asking that about. The post is | from "Internet in a Box" who don't sell anything. Just | volunteers that put the software together. They do mention a | few things being sold by others that use the work created by | "Internet in a Box". | | >Selling the 32 gig SD card together with an Android app to | browse the data seems far better. | | There's a couple of versions of this mentioned. The one used by | clinics would fit on that, but it only has medical info. The | hardware for the more general purpose one is using a 1TB drive. | I assume that's for the Wikipedia + Maps + Literature + Khan | Academy content mentioned. | makeitdouble wrote: | At this point there are still an number of people who for any | reason can't or don't want to use a smartphone. | | Pushing a 60 year old to understand a completely new paradigm | is fine if you are putting the time and energy to assist them | until they are proficient, but otherwise they might be better | with an old computer and check pages through local wi-fi. | | There also enough remote locations where phone connectivity is | just bad, and they keep 2G rugged phones around for their main | use. In these situation I'd imagine a laptop being easier to | use than a second phone just for that. | sgt wrote: | If you think a smart phone lasts 10 years in the hands of poor | people, you are extremely optimistic. | | From what I can tell, even here in South Africa's townships | they are using fairly new Samsung, Huawei etc smart phones | (always with a broken screen - this happens without exception), | albeit cheap ones. | | Even my gardener has a Samsung 10 something. Not entirely sure | how he can afford it, but I suspect he borrowed a lot of money | to afford it. Having next to nothing, the smart phones becomes | your communication channel and your media center, news and.. | hopefully learning. | | You'd be surprised how many poor smart phone users exists in | all of Africa. And 3G or better is almost everywhere now. | | The pricing has come down and that is truly bridging the | digital divide. | alienthrowaway wrote: | > Not entirely sure how he can afford it, but I suspect he | borrowed a lot of money to afford it | | There's a gray/black market for second hand phones whose | provenance is...questionable. As someone who involuntarily | contributed a phone to this surprisingly international | parallel supply chain, the sellers are probably not selling | at Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price. | roughly wrote: | Hell, you don't even need theft to handle most of the | supply problem. The MSRP of a 5 year old android phone is | effectively $0. | Scoundreller wrote: | In this case, It's a Galaxy S10, a 2 year old phone that | currently retails on Ebay for US$200-US$300. | Scoundreller wrote: | > always with a broken screen - this happens without | exception | | Are the devices super-low end? Users underestimate how | sensitive they are to breakage? Regularly thrown? Broken | units that are usable end up there for export or? | laumars wrote: | There's a lot of African countries where that isn't the case. | I recently did some work for a mobile based game targeting a | number of African countries and we had to support WAP and | SMS. | | India is another country where poorer regions wouldn't have | good cell coverage with most people without phones (let alone | smart phones). | | If you live in a region that can have luxuries like a | gardener, then you're likely already more affluent than those | who this project is targeting. | ivan_ah wrote: | > Does this solve real people's actual problems? | | I have seen a IIAB device used in a school in a remote area | (one IIAB for several clients on the WLAN, old PCs with wired | network, phones, and tablets). | | The IIAB scripts, | https://github.com/iiab/iiab/tree/master/roles , make setting | up such servers very easy (including best FOSS apps, wifi hot | spot, networking, and web admin interface). You just need to | bring one beefy hard disk and you suddenly have access to all | of Khan Academy, wikipedia in dozens of languages, and all | kinds of other collections of educational and reference | materials. | | Of course nothing prevents you for copying content over to | individual mobile phones and tablets (like takeout), but | centralized setup of a "learning resources hotspot" that people | can connect to is very efficient first start. | | Related: see related info about installing Kolibri and Kiwix in | this comment (these are two of the apps that are available via | the IIAB install scripts) | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26137100 | desktopninja wrote: | Oh for a minute I thought you meant Kolibri-OS ... love that | project! | telesilla wrote: | Get on a plane and then a bus and then a microbus or some kind | of informal rural transit, go as far as you can into the | mountains or the desert or the jungle and take with you one of | these and a mikrotik router and a source of solar power. You | won't be able to get much of a cell signal - or it's slow or | expensive - and community access to Wikipedia and health-care | information could be the most useful treasure you bring with | you, without needing to worry about the kind of devices they | run. | mysterydip wrote: | In addition to the use cases mentioned, I'd love to have an | offline reference like this when I'm developing in places without | internet access. | myself248 wrote: | That's the use-case I set mine up for, just for fun. Unplug my | cable modem and see how long I can still be productive. | | With a local copy of most StackOverflow sites and Wikipedia, | I'm pretty well equipped for a certain set of problems. | | Next up, I need to figure out how to wield the various github- | mirror-an-entire-org scripts I've found, to keep a local copy | of Adafruit's github, since their code and libraries power a | lot of the hardware I have sitting around. And then maybe a | mirror of Seeed Studio's wiki and whatever else I can find. | | then this: https://blog.thelifeofkenneth.com/2018/01/off-grid- | raspbian-... but I'll need to add more disk space. | mysterydip wrote: | How much disk space does wikipedia and SO take for you? | Scoundreller wrote: | On Kiwix, the entire english Wikipedia with images but not | videos is 90gb. 6.3m articles. | | You can pick and choose categories to some degree (e.g. I'm | downloading some to get the videos as well), but I think | this leads to some redundancy. | | 134gb for stackoverflow, but it's from 2019. This guy does | sql files, but viewing is another story: | https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2015/10/how-to-download- | th... | | There are torrent links here: | https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages but I | think in iOS, you're stuck downloading over http. | IncRnd wrote: | The headline is extremely misleading, which is a shame, since the | product seems very useful. I had expected to see a remote | Internet router of some kind, yet this is literally NOT the | Internet. | pronoiac wrote: | It's an offline stash of free knowledge, such as Wikipedia, Khan | Academy, and OpenStreetMap. | | It brought to mind El Paquete Semanal, Cuba's sneakernet culture | drop: https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-cuban-cdn/ | graderjs wrote: | If you're interested in offline HiFi archiving checkout my | project 22120 to create a personal offline browsing archive: | | Https://github.com/i5ik/22120 | tyingq wrote: | _" An archivist browser controller that caches everything you | browse, a library server with full text search to serve your | archive."_ | | Ah, wow, that's a very cool way to build up the content. | JKCalhoun wrote: | Data hoarder that I am I would like it to scrape more of | the site than I actually visit ... in case I missed | something when I'm browsing offline later. | tyingq wrote: | Yeah, a "spider this page with depth X" would be a neat | addition. | | Edit: Though the way it works as a sort of proxy, it | seems like you could combine it with something like this, | and it would just work: https://github.com/naoak/chrome- | site-spider | graderjs wrote: | Cool thanks for that, indeed it seems like it would work. | vishnugupta wrote: | Webaroo[1] was one such product | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webaroo | mast wrote: | Nice idea, but as other commenters has pointed out, maybe not the | best name. Back in the 90's when I first connected to the | internet, my ISP provided a package called Internet in a Box made | by a company called Spry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBox | falcor84 wrote: | >back in the 90's | | I'll just put this here https://youtu.be/FBw-Z8ULwcc | ashleyn wrote: | This was my first thought as well! Our first computer came with | Spry Internet in a Box in 1996. Mosaic was already aging pretty | badly at that point, the early web changed fast. | Krasnol wrote: | Never heard of the company but I think it's much better than | what we see otherwise. Like names of food or things that sound | like something which has absolutely no relation to the product. | codeulike wrote: | _Back in the 90's_ | | Well forget it then, it might as well have been a billion years | ago. Internet in a Box is an ideal name - describes exactly | what it does. | tyingq wrote: | The 90's Internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfMrVKnGzwg | | _" On your marks, get set...we're riding on the Internet"_ | foolinaround wrote: | maybe there is already an internal search engine app that does | the indexing of the local contents of the drive, to provide a | quick search interface on the topic - with links to the actual | material? | | Also, based on trends, would'nt most of the populated world (even | 3rd world) be covered by internet in the next decade? The prices | may not come down enough to serve the needs of the population? | Ensorceled wrote: | The complaints about the name for a free product, created by a | charity, that aims to help the deeply poor and remote because it | "conflicts" with an inside joke from a cult BBC comedy that | wrapped up 8 years ago are, at best, a bit silly. | Natfan wrote: | "The IT Crowd is a British sitcom originally broadcast by | Channel 4" | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_IT_Crowd | batch12 wrote: | I saw one complaint and a few jokes. The fact that the top | comment is a complaint about a complaint is sillier. Why not | reply to that single person? | Ensorceled wrote: | There were several name complaints and several jokes and they | formed the bulk of the initial comments. The complaint that | triggered me to write this comment has been deleted since I | made my comment and it looks like a couple of others have | been deleted as well. | culopatin wrote: | I thought of "It's a d** in a box!". | | https://youtu.be/Rt0spqQtMKg | Nzola wrote: | The Lokole email benefit to the offline communities: When a | community has no Internet availability or its population cannot | individually afford existing Internet data, it will be very | difficult for this community to use traditional email | sustainably, but condemned to use SMS. As you know, SMS has a | limited capacity. The Lokole is the solution to this problem. The | Lokole brings the online email full power to offline use for the | unconnected communities in a shareable, affordable and | sustainable way. Using the Lokole reduces the cost of data to | more than 95%. For instance in the Congo DRC, 100 people can | share US$ 0.50 a day to send a hundreds of emails with | attachments. The Lokole creates a shareable local email network | in the office, school, or clinics and church facilities without | Internet. The Lokole email can also be accessed online such as | Internet cafe. | agnidh wrote: | For those who are interested here are some links to examples of | curations done by implementers: | | http://iiab.me/jamaica/ | | http://iiab.me/mexico/ | | http://iiab.me/haiti/ | | http://iiab.me/en-medical/ | Brajeshwar wrote: | This is awesome. A friend of mine and I once did something for | the local kids of our hometown way back (I guess, 2005-2007) | where there was no proper Internet in that part of the country. A | local LAN setup with few Desktop computers, where we load up | videos for education. While kids takes turn to use the computers, | they can watch videos in groups -- Videos which are readily | available for free on the Internet. It didn't really "succeed" | due to many reasons and I gave up. | | On a lighter note; here is an "Internet in a Box" | https://www.dropbox.com/s/52f9ceusbm9kd4j/internet-in-a-box.... | eigenvalue wrote: | I vividly remember my dad buying that internet in a box thing | in the 90s. What a ridiculous product. | banana_giraffe wrote: | I worked for the division of CompuServe responsible for that. | I even have "Internet In a Box For Kids" still in the shrink- | wrap on a shelf behind me. I keep it in case I ever need to | bootstrap the Internet after a disaster. | | That division had some .. uh .. interesting sales ideas. One | of the ones I remember painfully was an attempt to cross- | promote our sign-up disks with a heavy metal band. Disks were | given out for free at concerts. The net result, to be | expected, I suppose, was an impressive number of confused | fans calling up support and asking when the next concert was. | _hyn3 wrote: | I don't think it was ridiculous, except perhaps for the name, | but non-tech people back then didn't even really know what | the Internet was. It probably didn't seem far-fetched, since | most (all?) products were basically tangible things that | could fit into a box, and it probably bridged the gap. | | In that box was a browser and list of dial-up POPs and | designed to compete with AOL, which offered AOL's version of | the Internet and was peppering the country with free floppies | (and later CD-ROM's). | | Other than AOL, most people in the country could only do | dial-up to gain access to the _World Wide Web_ (it sounds so | quaint when you write it out now!). | | Juno did this even better -- for free, with ads: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Online_Services | | Shockingly, they're still doing it today! I had no idea there | was a market for free dial-up internet in 2021! That is so | cool. | | https://www.juno.com/free | | A lucky few within a certain distance from their CLEC's CO | could get DSL or would spring $800/mo (or a lot more!) for a | 1.5Megabit/s T1. | | I think it was around the late 90's that Time Warner and a | few other cable companies started testing out high-speed | cable. | | So, to me, the Internet-In-A-Box product was a cool thing | that didn't last that long because most people migrated from | dial-up to broadband as quickly as they were able. I wonder, | though, why it died so quickly while Juno is still around | 20-something years later! Freemium is a better business | model? | jlanger wrote: | The name is confusing, I also was expecting a reference to the IT | Crowd. As others have suggested, a more direct and contextual | name might help. | Nzola wrote: | The Lokole email benefit to the offline communities; When a | community has no Internet availability or its population cannot | individually afford existing Internet data, it will be very | difficult for this community to use traditional email | sustainably, but condemned to use SMS. As you know, SMS has a | limited capacity. The Lokole is the solution to this problem. The | Lokole brings the online email full power to offline use for the | unconnected communities in a shareable, affordable and | sustainable way. Using the Lokole reduces the cost of data to | more than 95%. For instance in the Congo DRC, 100 people can | share US$ 0.50 a day to send a hundreds of emails with | attachments. The Lokole creates a shareable local email network | in the office, school, or clinics and church facilities without | Internet. The Lokole email can also be accessed online such as | Internet cafe. | MandieD wrote: | I like the idea as part of our power outage prep kit - running on | a single Raspberry Pi means it can run off one of those | ubiquitous power banks that can be safely charged from our small | generator. | jimmar wrote: | Who first coined "Internet in a box?" When I saw the title, I | thought back fondly to 1994 when my dad came home with a package | of software called "Internet in a box" - | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBox. | pridkett wrote: | Same here. I remember thinking it promised so much, but there | were always problems with getting it to work. I managed to have | someone walk me through how to get Trumpet Winsock to work with | a university dialup a few months later and the rest was | history. | s_dev wrote: | The naming reminds me of MailInABox: https://mailinabox.email/ | gnabgib wrote: | Perhaps S3E4 of [IT | Crowd](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487831/episodes?season=3)? | from 2008. | | https://theitcrowd.fandom.com/wiki/The_Internet | DyslexicAtheist wrote: | first ting I thought of was _The IT Crowd_ : | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg | midasuni wrote: | Did Stephen Hawking demagnetise it? Shouldn't it be on top of Big | Ben? | ChrisMarshallNY wrote: | What? No one has mentioned Moss' "This is the Internet"? | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg | maxwelldone wrote: | The one that's kept on top of the Big Ben? | smoldesu wrote: | I hope the advent of machine learning will afford us a way to | filter out 50-95% of the laugh tracks in The IT Crowd. I'd love | to be able to watch it for more than 5 minutes at a time again. | amelius wrote: | Not my kind of humor (I'm the guy in the audience who wasn't | laughing). | bruce343434 wrote: | "the internet" [crowd start laughing uncontrollably, the | booms of hystericallity are so loud they create a big bang] | Scene_Cast2 wrote: | That particular gag is rather meh, compared to the rest of | the show, IMHO. | iso1210 wrote: | It's iconic, but there were many more subtle gags | | The IT Crowd popularised "have you tried turning it off and | on again" | ThinkBeat wrote: | When I read the headline, I had an alternate vision of this. | | A super hardened computer, drop proof, waterproof, weatherproof, | sandproof, rated for at least 20 years of use. | | No moveable parts and everything stored on PROM. | | It would come with a kit to use any power source possible | | That should be able to survive in remote village with no | supervision required for a long time. | | I did not imagine a PI with a plastic case and a standard | harddrive. | | Clearly the rugged one would cost magnitudes more and things like | WordPress and other programs like it would not be possible on | rugged version either. | | I would think that as a plus not a minus. | | If a village fills up a blog or some other such software with | large amounts of data and the harddrive crashes its gone. Does | not come with a backup as far asI can see | myself248 wrote: | There's absolutely nothing preventing you from building your | IIAB into precisely such an enclosure with such a power supply. | IIAB is a set of scripts to load the software onto such a box, | and they also have a cheap hardware recipe that'll get you | going for the 99.9994% of situations where being sandproof is | not important. | | But you can use those very same scripts to install the content | on your sandproof ultramachine. What's the gripe? | agnidh wrote: | I should add that there is backup to another sdcard for cloning | or archiving. Cost is a major criterion for most deployments | that use a Raspberry Pi. | nfriedly wrote: | I think that's a little unfair. The focus here is on the | software. Yes, the examples show it running on a pi, but they | don't limit it to that. It should also be able to run on your | hypothetical rugged box. | anamexis wrote: | As you mention, this would cost magnitudes more. Why not just | send at least 20 RPis instead? | Balduran wrote: | I also thought of this. What's the max life of a device like | raspberry pi? 5? 10 years? What could be the causes of their | failure? | pcdoodle wrote: | A USB booting pi should last 30+ years if it's kept out of | the sun and rain. | evilstark wrote: | I'm going to put one of these in my "zombie-apocalypse" go-bag. | jbverschoor wrote: | Confusing name.. It made me think it's some sort of alternative | mesh network for the internet, or an alternative internet. | | It's basically wikipedia and other things on an access point, | right? | imranq wrote: | I like the idea. It would be cool if multiple devices could | create a mesh network where students and teachers could | communicate with each other without a connection to the global | internet | agnidh wrote: | Most IIAB installations are single server, but some have indeed | implemented a mesh network including long distance links using | wifi extenders. Of course this is no longer a low cost project. | raidicy wrote: | This was my thought exactly. Excuse my naivety, but shouldn't a | wifi-enabled pi be able to broadcast and automatically connect | to others around it? And as long as they all have unique names | shouldn't <piname>:port_number be possible for a simple web | sever on them? | insaaniManav wrote: | It's evolving , just backwards (read:arparent) | myself248 wrote: | see also https://github.com/iiab/iiab/issues/1540 | | there's thinking along this line, just needs some muscle behind | the implementation | spicybright wrote: | I love it! I just hope this gets deployed with more rugged | hardware than a raspi. Especially if they're relying on it for | medical info. | | Sd cards suck. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-06-20 23:00 UTC)