People frighten by PirateBox's logo and ESSID name

Sorry for this over-thread, but recently this has happened to me!

Since my installation and configuration of my first pirate box I has begun to carry it with me almost everywhere. What I have noticed is that really really few people has used it (just a pair of connection from some friends) despite I switch it on in public and crowdy places like long train trips, conferences, home (reachable from the neighborhood).

And finally one day I came with it at a local linux group meeting. People where curios about the hardware and finally I explained how it works, what it does and what it is for.

The funniest thing was that one of the guest was refusing to connecting at the wifi just because of the essid name PIRATE! He said that he was frighten that a pirate wifi could crack his computer, and when he saw the PirateBox's Logo he was even more scared...

I'm concerning now about the Pirate name and Logo because I'm worried that it could really step people out of trying the piratebox utility. I'm sorry but here in Italy the average computer user is not really skilled (they think it's safer to do not use the pirate box but usually they install and download on their phone and PC any crappy software, even with dubious cracking utilities...).
Have you experience similar issues?

Thank for hearing,
bye bye

(remember, I'm serious and this story is not a joke!)

Hi risca!

Thanks for your report. I agree that there are alot of negative points objective and subjective to the Pirate and the skull. It is still an provocation

Feel free to adjust or exchange the names. We have some modification howtos on piratebox.cc and it is designed to be modalbe.

- And don't worry, I had other funny observations, too. Once my box has an infinitive redirect because I made a mistake through development, so there was a rumour in the train, that the Box is leeching files from the connected computer - lol

About the name & logo: more later


Matthias

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This is only my signature.

@risca, thanks for sharing your experiences with the PirateBox. As Matthias mentioned, you're welcome to change the SSID (wireless network) name to something else. This page on the wiki will teach you how.

You're not the first person to raise this question about the provocative nature of the project's title. While it may indeed scare away some new users from joining your network, the reality is that anyone who actually wanted to harm others with the PirateBox would be unlikely to name the SSID something scary. Instead they would call it "Free Wifi" or some other inocuous sounding name.

darts Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the reality is
> that anyone who actually wanted to harm others
> with the PirateBox would be unlikely to name the
> SSID something scary. Instead they would call it
> "Free Wifi" or some other inocuous sounding name.

I totally agree with you!
But this is the way of thinking of many people also outside of informatics technology where they act illogically because of ignorance or misbelives (think about people complaining about vaccine, or people loving homeopathy and instead refusing normal medicine...).

At the end I enjoyed as well the project logo and name, and probably it's the best that could be used. I've already changed the ESSID, but just for translating the motto in Italian ("PIRATEBOX - condivisione libera"). Probably too few people are capable of appreciate the provocation or the free sharing.

Maybe could be useful to bring together some fliers to explain the project and what it is for, does anybody has already prepared one?

One more interesting thing is that also some couldn't understand the aim of the PIRATEBOX because they keep saying: "but I watch movies on streaming... why should I ever connect to this?"

there is still a long way head,
and remember: sharing is caring...

So how do you change the piratebox logo to a different image? Is there a guide for doing this? Which html/css files do you edit? The image is on many pages (homepage, forum page, "browse files" pages, etc).

For exchanging the image, you can easily exchange three files in the /opt/piratebox/www folder.
These are:

favicon.ico  ( Symbol on browser's url bar)
piratebox-logo-horizontal-white.png ( the picture on the top of the index page)
piratebox-logo-small.png  ( the logo on the imageboard)

The is the easiest way to exchange the picture/logo itself.

regards Matthias

where is the '/opt/piratebox/www folder' folder? I can't find it on the memory stick

Thanks

Martin

you need to login via ssh/telnet to find it. It is on the firmware. You can use you local linux computer to edit on your desktop/notebook... but that is more an advanced task.

Thank you Matthias! I think I will leave that one!

I use my PirateBox around non-geeks and changed the ESSID to ShareBox and the logo to something more bland. In addition the ShoutBox is prepopulated with a comment on what the box is for.

In public areas the true pirates would realize what the box is for. I agree that at events (concerts, auctions, cruises) there are people who have something in common, just that it may not be "sharing for the sake of sharing" and an ESSID relating to the activity would probably have more success.