[HN Gopher] LibraryBox
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LibraryBox
Author : Tomte
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-03-05 12:12 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jasongriffey.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (jasongriffey.net)
| splitbrain wrote:
| Hmm, I can't find any information what content is actually
| distributed by the box. Is this just an "empty" server?
| Tomte wrote:
| Yes, you distribute whatever you like. It's only
| infrastructure, not content.
| rkda wrote:
| Yeah. It's all up to you. I put public domain and Creative
| Commons licensed books in mine.
| griffey wrote:
| At one point there was a sort of "starter" content set that was
| made up of CC or public domain works that was distributed by
| the community as a torrent. But the project itself was always
| about the hardware/infrastructure aspect, not the content
| itself.
| duxup wrote:
| Neat idea, although no longer active.
|
| https://jasongriffey.net/librarybox/notactive.php
|
| I do wonder how readily people would just connect to such a
| thing, or how readily they should just trust such a thing...
| chefandy wrote:
| Great project and Jason is super rad. I'll bet someone with the
| requisite knowledge could pick it up and run with it.
|
| If memory serves me, there was a web server available through a
| standalone open wifi network.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| So how does it work form a user's POV? I connect to the network
| and then get a "sign-in" like screen that lists all the files on
| the device? Or does it route all requests to the local server?
| Can you make this airdrop compatible?
| nicholashead wrote:
| Another project that is still going as far as I know:
| https://internet-in-a-box.org/
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| > LibraryBox is sadly no longer under development. A combination
| of hardware/firmware lockdown made the continuation of the
| project's goals untenable.
|
| I've been worried for the last few years that this kind of
| lockdown is going to be the end of open source OSs for the
| masses.
|
| Right now we have secure boot, and it's feasible but a pain to
| work around it to, say, install Ubuntu on a Dell XPS. But the
| next step after that is, "no, you can't disable secure boot. That
| would be insecure."
| duxup wrote:
| There's a lot of hardware out there that is available though
| isn't there?
|
| Arduinos, Raspberry Pi ?
|
| Maybe not ideal for this situation, but still available, with
| lots of handy extra hardware rather than relying on repurposing
| some other hardware not at all meant to be used in this way.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| That's great for hobbyists and tinkerers, but when Joe Schmoe
| off the street thinks, "man, I sure am tired of the full
| screen unskippable ads in Windows 15", he's not going to
| follow that up with "I guess I'll go buy a low power hobbyist
| board to tinker with an alternate OS for nerds". Whereas
| today you can still just install Linux on the same laptop
| you're already using, and sometimes even Joe Schmoe off the
| street does just that.
| duxup wrote:
| I think maybe you're making a more general statement than
| what LibraryBox was about.
|
| LibraryBox was hardly anything that Joe Schmoe was capable
| / willing to do either.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| I am indeed making a more general statement.
| logtempo wrote:
| It's kind of already there. When I search for "hardware
| computer without secureboot", the first two pages is "how
| to install w11 without TPM". We're not even talking about
| linux.
| palmscenter wrote:
| The issue is the phones to be served by the Box, not the Box
| itself which can easily run on the Pi.
| theon144 wrote:
| The project met the exact same end its predecessor (the
| PirateBox) did, and for pretty much the same reason. However, the
| project is quite old, and the focus on reflashing portable
| routers was a necessity then, but not so anymore - specifically,
| PirateBox (2011) actually predates the first Raspberry Pi (2012),
| and especially the first Pi with an onboard Wi-Fi (2016).
|
| I'm just wondering, why hasn't a SBC-based alternative popped up
| yet? I think the project is/was awesome, I actually did maintain
| 2 public PirateBoxen for a while. Is it a simple lack of
| interest? The fact LibraryBox tried to pick up after PirateBox
| kind of suggests otherwise. I feel like it's actually easier now
| than ever to build a Libary/PirateBox-like project (although I do
| imagine an on-board network card probably has way worse
| performance than even those old portable routers).
|
| I've even tried to put together an image like that in the past
| but I couldn't find a reproducible solution for creating raspi
| images so that put me off, maybe it's time to give it another
| try...
| duxup wrote:
| It probably is easier than ever, but if I think about doing it,
| who is going to randomly connect to my device and download
| files?
|
| And who ... "should" want to with all the security
| considerations and etc?
|
| Still it would be a very cool hobby project none the less.
| palmscenter wrote:
| The main problem with these projects - which was not much of an
| issue when the projects started - is that mobile phones of
| today seek access to web servers at vendors, including the OS
| source and possibly others such as the phone manufacturer and
| ISP. The phones balk if they don't connect to those servers.
| PirateBox and LibraryBox are not just captive portals to
| Internet connections, they are local content and app servers
| and don't need the Internet.
|
| So when you connect to a Box via Wi-Fi your phone demands to
| connect to Internet hosts even though this is unnecessary for
| this use case. This behavior is confusing to the user. Some
| early solutions involved trying to spoof Apple servers for
| example, but the names and IPs of these servers kept changing
| and this kluge became ineffective.
|
| The only solution I am aware of is to pre-inform users of a
| local IP address to browse to once their Wi-Fi is connected to
| the Box. But depending on the occasion and venue, getting such
| instructions to the audience and having them follow it, can be
| its own problem.
| ramses0 wrote:
| SSID: LibraryBox@http-10.20.30.40
|
| I actually have a "MonsterOTG" portable WAP.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THnT-rWFnE8 ...their pitch
| was "put your kids movies on an SD card and they can navigate
| to them from their iPad (on a road-trip)"... or have all the
| media on one SD-card and not have to have them on all your
| phones (like a proto-NAS, kindof).
|
| I used it actually while on a trip to "fake" being a web-
| server. eg: `scp index.html 10.1.10.1:/media/files/public`
| (or whatever) and then I could have my phone navigate to it.
| Chromebook => "OTG-Wifi" && Phone => "OTG-Wifi".
| Chrombook.push(); Phone.fetch(...);
|
| I couldn't connect directly from phone to chromebook, but if
| they were both on the same (captive) wifi, I could actually
| have the phone navigate to the server running on the
| chromebook via that little device as a "wifi mediator" (even
| while in the middle of nowhere with no internet for 50 miles
| around). I had some episodes of Twilight Zone that I'd ripped
| and could connect to it while on a flight. You could take the
| SD-Card out of your camera and fetch pictures over to the
| macbook-without-sd-card situation, then clear the card and
| take more pics (or keep them on and just be guaranteed that
| you have a backup).
|
| There's really some non-pirate use cases of things like that,
| and the overall concept is pretty cool! Got me thinking of
| something like a neighborhood "Captive SSID", like a LAN that
| you opt in to vs the WAN that's always connected. It's really
| instructive to think through for yourself personally: if you
| were on the moon, and all you had was a wifi access point
| that held SD-Cards
| butterbox wrote:
| You can setup DNS on the box to redirect users and to give a
| friendly name to your box. That's what we do for butter box
| (https://likebutter.app/box/). To make it a step easier, we
| provide a QR code. But even that is a little clumsy since you
| must first connect to WiFi, then scan the code.
|
| Captive portals sound nice until you find out how limited
| they are -- a lot of styling, JS and browser features are
| simply unavailable. So, you need to tell users "Close this,
| then go open this site in your real browser"...
|
| Of course, you can't and probably don't want to redirect
| HTTPS traffic since you don't have the matching cert for e.g.
| https://google.com
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > when you connect to a Box via Wi-Fi your phone demands to
| connect to Internet hosts
|
| I don't follow: When my phone connects to a wlan, it will try
| to connect to the Internet, and if the phone can't do that
| then the phone won't function on the wlan?
|
| > The only solution I am aware of is to pre-inform users of a
| local IP address to browse to once their Wi-Fi is connected
| to the Box.
|
| What is the response from this local IP address that solves
| the problem above?
| griffey wrote:
| Thanks for situating this in history! It's easy for people to
| look at the project and be like "why no RPi?" without
| understanding that when LibraryBox started, Raspberry Pi's
| didn't have onboard wifi, and the travel routers we chose to
| support were SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive as well. We're in a
| very different hardware world now.
| butterbox wrote:
| Butter Box (https://likebutter.app/box/) and Internet In a Box
| are two modern descendants of the concept. Both run on RPis
| (and, nominally, some other hardware).
|
| Putting together the images isn't terribly difficult. For
| Butter Box, we just run a script to install all the things we
| want, then make an .iso of that, which we distribute on our
| site and in hardware form.
|
| Those onboard network cards are indeed a problem. You can get
| single-digit # of simultaneous users. But other than that, they
| tend to be very fast for large files since you're not going out
| over the Internet and can saturate the WiFi connection.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| This seems nice if you ran a coffeeshop. Load up with expired
| works of literature and go.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| It would be a better user experience in a coffee shop to just
| have a media server on the network. People are already likely
| connected to your wifi for internet. Setup a local domain and
| post QR codes for it.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Once you go full media, well ... I think that's way more
| troublesome in terms of local bandwidth and trying to find
| public domain music and film.
|
| Although showing _Night of the Living Dead_ in a coffeehouse
| does have some kind of amusement value.
|
| Still, only works if you own it and have local control.
| chefandy wrote:
| As soon as music is involved, ASCAP will come a-knockin' in
| the US at least. They're legally pugnacious even when
| they're in the wrong knowing that bar/restaurant/coffee
| shop/store owners don't have the resources to fight them.
| crtasm wrote:
| A media server for books, literature, newspapers, etc. - I
| don't think they were suggesting sharing/screening movies.
| russfink wrote:
| Why can't I get the same thing with an external USB drive? Bear
| with me a moment - what does LibraryBox do that's better than
| flat file storage? Multiple connections? (Does it do caching as a
| way of ingesting new content for offline viewing?)
| falcolas wrote:
| IIRC, it also offered an anonymous forum.
|
| Plus, it can be easily "hidden" and remain available without
| its owner babysitting the hardware.
| chefandy wrote:
| Security is a big one. No way I'm plugging into some random
| public USB outlet. Aside from that, I believe they were indeed
| intended to serve multiple people at once... encampments,
| communities, short term installations, etc.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > No way I'm plugging into some random public USB outlet.
|
| How is LibraryBox better? You would be connecting to a random
| wifi SSID?
|
| > Aside from that, I believe they were indeed intended to
| serve multiple people at once... encampments, communities,
| short term installations, etc.
|
| Almost any computing device on a network can share files this
| way, with a bit of configuration.
| rolobio wrote:
| My project is similar to this and allows indexing of an
| external drive. Check it out
| https://github.com/lrnselfreliance/wrolpi
| qgin wrote:
| A future version of this might just be a local, offline LLM
| cush wrote:
| A future version of an ebook library would be an offline large
| language model? So like, instead of downloading Moby Dick, you
| can ask for it to be generated?
| n8fr8too wrote:
| There is definitely interest in providing off-grid
| communities easy access to lightweight LLMs... one idea is to
| use something like: https://github.com/mlc-ai/web-llm to
| deliver it in a browser
| cush wrote:
| Oh I see. Was confused. The "this" in OP's comment is an
| offline library. An offline LLM would be nice too.
| butterbox wrote:
| I am a techno-skeptic most of the time, but I don't think this
| idea is particularly crazy. Usability-wise, something you can
| talk to (in your own "low resource" language) is a winner.
|
| The catch is that you have users without either the
| sophistication to size up how trustworthy this model is or to
| do out-of-band verification (remember: no internet). I think a
| RAG model serving answers from Wikipedia could be suitably
| safe, but we'd have to do some user research to know more.
| rolobio wrote:
| I have an open-source project that is similar to this. Its
| purpose is to allow easy creation of an off-grid digital library.
| It can automatically download videos, archive web pages, PDFs,
| etc. It has a global search which searches all your files, as
| well as any Zim files you have downloaded (Wikipedia, etc). It
| also uses OpenStreetMap to display a map which renders the map
| tiles offline.
|
| I would love more people to use it! Check it out:
| https://wrolpi.org
|
| https://github.com/lrnselfreliance/wrolpi
| griffey wrote:
| FWIW: one of the other main issues with the project as it neared
| its end was the move to mandatory SSL connections. By its nature,
| LibraryBox has to be able to work entirely offline, and trying to
| sort out how to manage SSL connections in that situation without
| also causing potential security issues in sensitive use
| situations...well, we tried and couldn't come up with a
| reasonable, usable solution to those overlapping issues.
| butterbox wrote:
| 100%. This is something we are trying to solve with Butter Box
| (https://likebutter.app/box/) but there aren't great answers.
|
| I've considered shipping a unique-to-device certificate for
| e.g. box123.comolamantequilla.com with each box. It doesn't
| solve the evil maid scenario of someone copying it, but it at
| least provides TLS. Realistically, our users are offline and
| mostly not going to verify that comolamantequilla is owned by
| the organization they're intending to trust.
| n8fr8too wrote:
| ButterBox is a semi-spiritual successor to LibraryBox for RPis
| and similar hardware, and built in collab with the F-Droid
| project, to provide off-grid app store access (as well as chat,
| and general file service):
|
| https://likebutter.app/box/
| https://gitlab.com/likebutter/butterbox-rpi/-/blob/main/docs...
| griffey wrote:
| _waves_ at n8fr8too...
| butterbox wrote:
| We build Butter Box, a tool for making life offline a bit
| smoother.
|
| It's based on this same principles and in fact, one of the
| creators is friends with Jason :-)
|
| Ours is tailored for scenarios where Internet is unavailable due
| to disaster, government shutdown or simply cost. It has an app
| store, an encrypted (matrix) chat server with a simple web UI,
| and maps (since you probably didn't download google maps for you
| area before the Internet went out).
|
| We localize the boxes (mostly for central and south america) and
| have sent a few dozen around the world to communities with
| various use cases.
| griffey wrote:
| I haven't done so yet, but I'll throw a link to ButterBox up on
| the LibraryBox site and suggest people take a look.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I'm sure I have had routers that you could plug a USB drive into
| and browse the contents from any device connected to the Wi-Fi.
| And couldn't you do this with pretty much any random Wi-Fi
| capable laptop?
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