Internet in a Box • Hacker News Board

Re: Internet in a Box

#31

Post by jauntywundrkind » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 10:38 PM UTC

Vaguely interesting, but I am far more interested in actual connective technology.

The Commotion "Internet in a Suitcase" project (~2012) was much more up my alley. Is much more the sort of thing I wish that, for example the State Department would still fund.

> Commotion relies on several open source projects: OLSR, OpenWrt, OpenBTS, and Serval project.

So, mesh, wifi, cellular, and voice technologies, packaged onto semi affordable hardware... That's the real stuff! That's what democratic values should look like, that'a what we could build that would embody our (USA's) founding principles, would fight tyrant info-control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commotion_Wireless

Re: Internet in a Box

#32

Post by thefreeman » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 10:44 PM UTC

dcreater wrote: post #22

I've seen many such projects - while the problem is real, these solutions in actual practice/deployment are gimmicky and questionably useful at best. I'd like to hear from the actual people using this on a day to day basis - if any exist.

I think part of the point is you _can't_ hear from them... because they don't have access to the real internet?

Re: Internet in a Box

#33

Post by didgeoridoo » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

“This, Jen, is the Internet.”

Re: Internet in a Box

#34

Post by zkiihne » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 10:57 PM UTC

I want this but an LLM.

Re: Internet in a Box

#35

Post by bdcravens » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:02 PM UTC

I feel like this could be useful in an incarcerated environment, where they offer computer classes but can't grant access to the Internet for security reasons.

Re: Internet in a Box

#36

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:14 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #12

What would it take to give these poor children a Starlink connection?

[deleted]

Re: Internet in a Box

#37

Post by notarealllama » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:16 PM UTC

zkiihne wrote: post #34

I want this but an LLM.

OpenwebUI and you can run quantized or low end models (Llama 3 4b or gemma 4b) on a 4-6gb graphic card.

It's a game changer to run local (no usage caps for a weekend blitz project)

Re: Internet in a Box

#38

Post by nonrandomstring » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:23 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #35

I feel like this could be useful in an incarcerated environment, where they offer computer classes but can't grant access to the Internet for security reasons.

That sounds like the last few universities I taught in. (quite seriously).

Re: Internet in a Box

#39

Post by drilbo » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:29 PM UTC

minhazm wrote: post #19

bobsmooth wrote: post #9

This is cool but I feel like buying a 1000 count of cheap USB sticks and loading them with wikipedia or whatever would be cheaper and more useful.

What would they be plugging these USB flash drives into? Underdeveloped countries / regions have very low penetration with traditional laptops / desktop computers. But nearly everyone has a smartphone of some kind, which has WiFi. That's the reason the form factor of these are mobile hotspots.

Well, I have a few flash drives with USB-C connections built in, and 1 or 2 with USB-B

Re: Internet in a Box

#40

Post by aaron695 » Sun, Apr 27, 2025, 11:31 PM UTC

Internet in a Box DOES NOT WORK

I don't know how many more times this needs to be proven.

You do not understand data, you do not understand the reality around you, you do not understand 80:20 style engineering rules, you can't look at previous implementations of the Internet in a Box and see it didn't work.

Worse, you now live in a Starlink era where you can give them a real "Internet in a Box" and there is no solution people can just roll out. Talking a proper Linux setup, real hacker and nerd stuff, but because it's not Data Hording 101 no one will tackle it.

Internet in a Box is a great example of why Western foreign aid is failing and China is moving in. The West no longer builds infrastructure for the poor (like a Linux build) and feeds them wishy washy stuff. Facebook does more for the poor in this area.