What exactly is the pirate box?”

Twitter follower Chris MacDonald asks:

What exactly is the pirate box? (asked on Twitter)

Here’s an easy way to find out:

  1. Go to the corner of Queen and Richmond Streets in downtown Charlottetown.
  2. Sit on the bench beside Sir John A. Macdonald.
  3. Open an wifi-capable portable device: laptop, mobile phone, tablet, etc.
  4. Connect to the wifi SSID PirateBox — Share Freely.
  5. Open your web browser and visit http://piratebox.lan/ (or, indeed, any web address).
  6. That is the PirateBox.

iPad Screen Shot showing PirateBox SSID

PirateBox main screen, screen shot.

On this particular PirateBox you will find, under the Files link, many interesting things:

What’s more, you can share your own content using the Upload feature: just click Browse or Choose File under “Upload”, select a file you’d like to share, and your file will, once uploaded, become available to others in the “upload” folder.

All of this is happening disconnected from the Internet, running off a $35 box that you can buy on Amazon.com using software you can download for free.

Comments

Dan James's picture
Dan James on July 30, 2013 - 13:48 Permalink

So it’s kind of like geocaching but instead of dollar store trinkets it’s digital material/trinkets.