Banned Book Library in a Wi-Fi Smart Light Bulb

Well done! What a cool project and impressive write up. As KYC and Age Verification laws continue to gain steam, efforts like this will safeguard humanity's rights to freedom of speech and association.

What follows is not a critique of the author, for he or she is likely immersed in the same "banned books" media psyop as other Western News Consoomers.

As of this reply, the "banned" books in question [0] are:

Jack_London_-_Call_of_the_Wild.epub

Mark_Twain_-_Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn.epub

Mark_Twain_-_The_Adventures_of_Tom_Sawyer.epub

Women_in_Love_-_D_H_Lawrence.epub

These books are all available on Amazon for under $10. Further, they are often assigned reading in high school or university literature classes.

A thought experiment by comparison: what if the collection consisted of the following?

- The Camp of the Saints

- Culture of Critique

- The Turner Diaries

Until a recent reprint of the first title (which thanks to The Streisand Effect was one of the top sellers on Amazon), these were all almost impossible to find and / or prohibitively expensive. Note that I don't necessarily agree with the subject matter of these titles, just pointing out collective blindspots so we the people can avoid actual Bans in the not too distant future.

0: https://codeberg.org/rickoooooo/BannedBookLibrary/src/branch...

“As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth’s final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”

- Commissioner Pravin Lal, Datalinks

Alpha Centauri pertinent as ever.

Years ago there was PirateBox: flash a small Wifi access point with a custom firmware that's a webserver that hosts a forum/filehost. Their website is dead, but here's a mod of the project; https://www.jasongriffey.net/librarybox/

Although, I dread to think what sort of files one would get when user uploads are allowed.

This project and especially one of the closing notes[1] reminds me of a more mature DIY project to make a mesh node using a simple solar lamp[2]. I love the creativity on display here and I especially appreciate all the links to the other blogs and sites that helped you along the way.

1: > I was talking with a friend about this idea and the storage limitation and he thought it would be cool to have these devices form a mesh network

2: https://meshtastic.org/docs/community/enclosures/rak/harbor-...

Nice, but:

"Since the device is a light bulb, it would be difficult to detect and likely to go unnoticed."

I doubt it would be any harder to shut down than any other public-access WiFi device, just a bit of experimentation with turning off power / devices would find it.

I love this idea, thank you for posting it. It can be used for so many interesting projects.

Android loves to auto-disconnect you from any Wifi network that doesn't provide Internet. You need to go through a bunch of arcane settings to disable that feature.

oh this is awesome, i've always thought it could be cool to leave always connect hubs around town. ESP32's would be to awkward but a bunch of lightbulbs would blend right in!

Reads like you had fun, keep up the hacking!

P.S main -> mail I think?

Really cool project!

I can't wait until it's formalized enough that I can just buy a $20 light bulb, update it wirelessly somehow, and then have my own little "light bulb library" server.

Has anyone heard of similar work done with smart light bulbs but for Meshtastic nodes?

You people never disapoint... Putting a web server in a light bulb, I mean who the hell even thinks of that?!

I'm surprised there are banned books with 1st amendment exists in America? I'm curious as to what these are. I think its rather silly that books can be banned.

I think calling them "banned" is so disingenuous. There are actual banned books that are illegal to own in the United States. None of these "banned books" come anywhere close to meeting that criteria.

Very cool project nonetheless!

In the USA, the books that are banned are for public schools. They talk about topics like (gasp) LGBTQ and sex things!

Now where the USA censors routinely is financial censorship. If you can afford the thing thats fincially banned, the sure, its not banned. But if you cant afford it, youre screwed.

And, if you work for a company, they can fire you for any/no reason, INCLUDING your speech off work.

In the USA, its "freedom of speech" if youre independently wealthy. If not, hope you dont offend power.

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