[Commotion-dev] What would you do with the USB port on your Commotion access point?

[Joshua Breitbart]

I love this discussion. I want all of these things.

I like to think of my Commotion network as a way to speak with my
neighbors, so I'd love to see a kind of profile device. I imagine the
smallest piece of hardware that could host a super simple page with a
standard set of profile information, and with easy-to-follow
instructions for how to load it up. This page would be advertised like a
service on the network, so you could click on it in the applications
list and it would open a page in a browser that tells you a little bit
about the node host (in this case, me).

It would basically present the social complement to the technical
information the router itself is broadcasting. Could be a short video, a
profile photo, and a few lines of text. An application on a client
device could pull the information and present it in a more pleasing
format, maybe something that looked like http://cassco.co/

Ideally, this would cost only marginally more than the router itself, so
every host could also participate as a presenter on the network. Many of
the things people are talking about in this thread are also acts of
self-expression, using different kinds of data or protocols. My ideal is
the one that speaks the most basic form of expression possible. So,
bonus points if an LED on the "profile device" flashes every time
someone views your profile, or if on the profile page was a button
someone could click to make the LED turn on and off.


Josh
 

On 1/23/13 1:12 PM, Paul Gardner-Stephen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 12:39 AM, Dan Staples
> <danstaples at opentechinstitute.org> wrote:
>> A USRP for OpenBTS! Although I doubt a router has the processing power
>> needed to encode voice data and the like... A HackRF would also be a
>> great peripheral to use once those are publicly available:
>> http://ossmann.blogspot.com/2012/06/introducing-hackrf.html.
> Well, remember the Mesh Potato ran a full asterisk install on a 180MHz
> MIPS, which is about as slow as any router.  So OpenBTS is not out of
> the question.
>
>> I currently have a router with a USB port, that I run DD-WRT on. I have
>> a 250GB HDD plugged into it, which I use for automated backups of a
>> website I run, plus a SFTP server. A USB port was a deciding factor in
>> the router I decided to buy...It's an ASUS WL-520GU. But I could also
>> see a 3G dongle as a big appeal for a USB port.
>>
>> Another idea is to use a USB drive as a crypto device. Insert the USB
>> flash drive to unlock a keyring or some private key material. That would
>> be an easy way to deploy multiple routers on a network that need to use
>> a common encryption key(s).
> Related to that, I would use it for connecting mass storage for
> Rhizome caching.
>
> Also, once we get the code written, to connect an Arduino+HopeRFM23BP
> for long-range meshing.  We are going to try this with a pile of
> TP-LINK WR703N's that we have.
>
> Paul.
>
>> Dan
>>
>> On Wed 23 Jan 2013 03:46:25 AM EST, Christian Huldt wrote:
>>> Ben West skrev 2013-01-22 22:15:
>>>>
>>>> What could this USB port do for you?
>>>>
>>>> - Filesystem for squid proxy? (Probably not very practical)
>>>> - 3G/4G modem for Internet gateway?
>>>> - USB sound adapter for streaming MP3 applications?
>>>> - Control this desktop rocket launcher
>>>> http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/8a0f/ ?
>>>
>>> 3G/4G modem and/or a tellstick to control some equipment
>>> http://www.telldus.se/products/tellstick
>>>
>>>
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>>> --
>>> Dan Staples
>>>
>>> Open Technology Institute
>>> https://commotionwireless.net
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