hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr0654.txt

Episode: 654
Title: HPR0654: Offline Filesharing
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0654/hpr0654.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:27:27

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Howdy y'all, this is J-Boo 92 with Hacker Public Radio.
This is my first podcast for HPR, so let me know what you think.
What I'd like to talk to you about, what I'd like to talk about today is offline
peer-to-peer networks, offline file sharing.
Now, the first question that probably comes to mind is what exactly is offline file sharing?
How does it work? Basically, I'll be talking about two types of offline sharing.
Dead drops and off-the-grid hubs. Dead drops, as you've probably heard about,
are flash drives left around in semi-random places.
For instance, recently someone in New York, I believe, invented some flash drives
into walls and buildings, thus creating an offline file sharing network.
Now, basically, to use it, you would simply walk up,
plug in your laptop, and see what's there.
Now, of course, the limitations of this sort of system are quite obvious.
Someone could upload some sort of malicious code onto the device,
and have it auto-run, or replace the flash drive altogether with something like a
teensy programming board, program to type in Windows R,
CMD, WACK, format C, which it can do in less than a tenth of a second,
because, hey, let's face it, that's how that works.
Sorry. So, dead dropping data on flash drives that are in known static locations
is one way to set up an offline period-to-peer network.
Another, and, in my opinion, better method, is to set up some sort of self-contained
portable Wi-Fi server. One of the best ways I've seen to do this is in a project
called Pirate Box. Basically, it's a small server, wireless router,
and a power supply, all jammed into a launch box.
Of course, you could use any sort of enclosure or hardware that you like,
but what they used was a dock star running Debian,
and a small Python-based server known as Droopy,
which they made some modifications to, links in the show notes,
and a small ASUS router with DDWRT.
Basically, what this allows for is a portable server that anyone can connect to
and share their files. Of course, the speed here is limited by the transfer speed
of the router you use, and various other things.
Now, what the Pirate Box basically is is a no-log easy-to-brow, easy-to-upload server.
Personally, what I would do is add some sort of authorization page
with something aligned to the lines of a disclaimer that says,
don't upload anything that could get the owner of this driver arrested or anything,
nor will I upload anything nefarious,
and I do understand that the server doesn't log any personal information,
and accept that the file here may be offensive, illegal, potentially harmful,
et cetera, you know, basic disclaimers,
which would, of course, A, safeguard me, the person owning the drive,
and B, give the user some sort of idea what wouldn't be acceptable.
And more importantly to me,
would allow you to assign them some sort of unique number to each user,
so that you could do a basic yet still anonymous log of, say,
user32 uploaded file 123.xyz, which was Y megabytes.
User 83 downloaded 123.xyz, which was Y megabytes,
and file 123.xyz has been downloaded X times,
which I think would be an interesting thing to keep track of.
And not to think about it, it probably adds something about promising not to add,
not to hog network resources or track other users and stuff like that to that disclaimer page,
but I digress.
And the thing I'd probably change about the pirate box would be to add some sort of
antivirus scan program, just to add a bit of security to that.
So the benefits of this sort of off-the-grid sharing hub over say a dead drop network
would be portability, scalability, and perhaps even legality,
because I'm sure there are very few people who would let you embed flash drives in their walls.
Now, of course, this sort of setup can be done with just some laptop setup with an ad hoc network
and a little bit of redirection.
And I plan to try something like this at a security competition,
I'll be attending in April.
So watch for my cover to that and I'll update on this little project around then.
So that about wraps this up.
This has been JBoo92 with hacker public radio.
Let me know what you think in the comments, or if the comments still suck as bad as I used to,
I'll put some sort of contact info in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to hacker public radio.
Thank you all for watching by caro.net.
So head on over to C-A-R-O dot E-N-C for all of us here.
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