This article will describe how lemmy instance admins can purge images from pict-rs.
 |
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This is (also) a horror story about accidentally uploading very sensitive data to Lemmy, and the (surprisingly) difficult task of deleting it.
Fortunately, in my case, my image was "orphaned" and never actually attached to a post or comment, so it wouldn't have federated.
If the image has already federated then that's a whole next level problem :(
Unfortunately, the Lemmy devs literally said it would take years to fix this issue. If you think this should be a priority for them, please advocate for them to prioritize it on GitHub:
Hi, unfortunate author here π
The issue happened in Jerboa. I opened a few tickets in the Jerboa app's GitHub to address this:
Can you please tell us which Lemmy client apps you use that store the delete token and have a UI to delete uploaded images?
Unfortunately, at the time of writing:
Because of this, I'm posting here a guide for instance admins to be able to quickly figure out how to delete an image in response to a GDPR Data Erasure request.
pict-rs is a third-party simple image hosting service that runs along-side Lemmy for instances that allow users to upload media.
At the time of writing, there is no WUI for admins to find and delete images. You have to manually query the pict-rs database and execute an API call from the command-line. Worse: Lemmy has no documentation telling instance admins how to delete images π€¦
For the purposes of this example, let's assume you're trying to delete the following image
https://monero.town/pictrs/image/001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp
There are two API endpoints in pict-rs that can be used to delete an image
This API call is publicly-accessible, but it first requires you to
obtain the image's `delete_token`
The `delete_token` is first returned by Lemmy when POSTing to the
`/pictrs/image` endpoint
{
"msg":"ok",
"files":[
{
"file":"001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp",
"delete_token":"d88b7f32-a56f-4679-bd93-4f334764d381"
}
]
}
Two pieces of information are returned here:
Of course, if you didn't capture this image's `delete_token` at
upload-time, then you must fetch it from the postgres DB.
First, open a shell on your running postgres container. If you installed
Lemmy with docker compose, use `docker compose ps` to get the
"SERVICE" name of your postgres host, and then enter it with
`docker exec`
docker compose ps --format "table {{.Service}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Name}}"
docker compose exec <docker_service_name> /bin/bash
For example:
user@host:/home/user/lemmy# docker compose ps --format "table {{.Service}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Name}}"
SERVICE IMAGE NAME
lemmy dessalines/lemmy:0.19.3 lemmy-lemmy-1
lemmy-ui dessalines/lemmy-ui:0.19.3 lemmy-lemmy-ui-1
pictrs docker.io/asonix/pictrs:0.5.4 lemmy-pictrs-1
postfix docker.io/mwader/postfix-relay lemmy-postfix-1
postgres docker.io/postgres:15-alpine lemmy-postgres-1
proxy docker.io/library/nginx lemmy-proxy-1
user@host:/home/user/lemmy#
user@host:/home/user/lemmy# docker compose exec postgres /bin/bash
postgres:/#
Connect to the database as the `lemmy` user
psql -U lemmy
For example
postgres:/# psql -U lemmy
psql (15.5)
Type "help" for help.
lemmy=#
Query for the image by the "alias" (the filename)
select * from image_upload where pictrs_alias = '<image_filename>';
For example
lemmy=# select * from image_upload where pictrs_alias = '001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp';
local_user_id | pictrs_alias | pictrs_delete_token | published
---------------+--------------+---------------------+-----------
1149 | 001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp | d88b7f32-a56f-4679-bd93-4f334764d381 | 2024-02-07 11:10:17.158741+00
(1 row)
lemmy=#
Now, take the `pictrs_delete_token` from the above output, and use
it to delete the image.
The following command should be able to be run on any computer connected to the internet.
curl -i "https://<instance_domain>/pictrs/image/delete/<pictrs_delete_token>/<image_filename>"
For example:
user@disp9140:~$ curl -i "https://monero.town/pictrs/image/delete/d88b7f32-a56f-4679-bd93-4f334764d381/001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp"
HTTP/2 204 No Content
server: nginx
date: Fri, 09 Feb 2024 15:37:48 GMT
vary: Origin, Access-Control-Request-Method, Access-Control-Request-Headers
cache-control: private
referrer-policy: same-origin
x-content-type-options: nosniff
x-frame-options: DENY
x-xss-protection: 1; mode=block
X-Firefox-Spdy: h2
user@disp9140:~$
β Note: If you get an `
incorrect_login` error, then try [a] logging into the instance in your web browser and then [b] pasting the "https://<instance_domain>/pictrs/image/delete/<pictrs_delete_token>/<image_filename>" URL into your web browser.
The image should be deleted.
Alternatively, you could execute the deletion directly inside the pictrs
container. This eliminates the need to fetch the `delete_token`.
First, open a shell on your running `pictrs` container. If you
installed Lemmy with docker compose, use `docker compose ps` to get
the "SERVICE" name of your postgres host, and then enter it with
`docker exec`
docker compose ps --format "table {{.Service}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Name}}"
docker compose exec <docker_service_name> /bin/sh
For example:
user@host:/home/user/lemmy# docker compose ps --format "table {{.Service}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.Name}}"
SERVICE IMAGE NAME
lemmy dessalines/lemmy:0.19.3 lemmy-lemmy-1
lemmy-ui dessalines/lemmy-ui:0.19.3 lemmy-lemmy-ui-1
pictrs docker.io/asonix/pictrs:0.5.4 lemmy-pictrs-1
postfix docker.io/mwader/postfix-relay lemmy-postfix-1
postgres docker.io/postgres:15-alpine lemmy-postgres-1
proxy docker.io/library/nginx lemmy-proxy-1
user@host:/home/user/lemmy#
user@host:/home/user/lemmy# docker compose exec pictrs /bin/sh
~ $
Execute the following command inside the `pictrs` container.
wget --server-response --post-data "" --header "X-Api-Token: ${PICTRS__SERVER__API_KEY}" "http://127.0.0.1:8080/internal/purge?alias=<image_filename>"
For example:
~ $ wget --server-response --post-data "" --header "X-Api-Token: ${PICTRS__SERVER__API_KEY}" "http://127.0.0.1:8080/internal/purge?alias=001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp"
Connecting to 127.0.0.1:8080 (127.0.0.1:8080)
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
content-length: 67
connection: close
content-type: application/json
date: Wed, 14 Feb 2024 12:56:24 GMT
saving to 'purge?alias=001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp'
purge?alias=001665df 100% |*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************| 67 0:00:00 ETA
'purge?alias=001665df-3b25-415f-8a59-3d836bb68dd1.webp' saved
~ $
β Note: There's an error in the pict-rs reference documentation. It says you can POST to `/internal/delete`, but that just returns
404 Not Found.
The image should be deleted
Unfortunately, it seems that the Lemmy develoeprs are not taking these moral and legal (GDPR) risks seriously (they said it may take years before they address them), and they threatened to ban me for trying to highlight the severity of this risk, get them to tag GDPR-related bugs, and to prioritize them.
If GDPR-compliance is important to you on the fediverse, then please provide feedback to the Lemmy developers in the GitHub links above.
This post was copied from the following article: Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story)
|
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This article will describe how lemmy instance admins can purge images from pict-rs.
|
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This is (also) a horror story about accidentally uploading very sensitive data to Lemmy, and the (surprisingly) difficult task of deleting it.
This article will describe how lemmy instance admins can purge images from pict-rs.
|
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This is (also) a horror story about accidentally uploading very sensitive data to Lemmy, and the (surprisingly) difficult task of deleting it.
This article will describe how lemmy instance admins can purge images from pict-rs.
|
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This is (also) a horror story about accidentally uploading very sensitive data to Lemmy, and the (surprisingly) difficult task of deleting it.
This article will describe how lemmy instance admins can purge images from pict-rs.
|
|---|
| Nightmare on Lemmy Street (A Fediverse GDPR Horror Story) |
This is (also) a horror story about accidentally uploading very sensitive data to Lemmy, and the (surprisingly) difficult task of deleting it.
Thanks, but I'm asking because I didn't find the reference documentation especially helpful.
It says I need the "delete token" or "alias". How do I get that for a given URL?
I'm looking for an example that describes how to construct the commands for the API calls knowing only the URL of the image.
Happy 2024! The Eco-Libre project published our 2023 Annual Report for last year.
Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre hardware for sustainable communities.
Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source hardware and software that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.
- Eco-Libre's mission statement
We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.
Michael Altfield registered the domain-name eco-libre.org on June 24th, 2023, a few weeks after arriving to Ecuador.
Over the next 6 months, Eco-Libre committed research and designs to our GitHub org for four projects (licensed CC BY-SA) which address some of the essential requirements for a new community's basic human needs: clean water, shelter, electricity, and ecological processing of waste. By releasing these designs under a libre license, it allows for other communities to build their own infrastructure with minimal effort, and it encourages collaboration on standardized design concepts.
As Eco-Libre's projects mature, we will build experimental prototypes in our own community. To that end, Michael is currently traveling around Ecuador by bicycle in-search of land to found Eco-Libre's first physical site.
In December, Eco-Libre was joined by Jack Nugent, who has since committed contributions to the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The priority focus for Michael in 2024 is to determine the best region in Ecuador to buy land where Eco-Libre can physically iterate on projects.
The priority focus for Jack in 2024 is to finish the research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
Eco-Libre was founded this year (in 2023). In our first 6 months, we've begun work on four libre hardware projects. All of them are currently in the early research stages.
The Eco-Libre Launch-Nest was our first project. The concept is to build a small-footprint, high-occupancy structure for sustainable living of 30-people.
 |
|---|
| Eco-Libre Launch-Nest 2023.09 |
The rooftop has sufficient space for 72 solar panels (2 meter x 1 meter) and 3 parabolic solar concentrators (16 square meter).
The structure is six-stories above-ground, which is the recommended maximum height of a confined masonry structure in an earthquake zone. It also has a basement.
The building is designed with external, enclosed, firewalled staircases on either end. These are symmetrical and designed such that the building design can be rotated around a center courtyard to have four Eco-Libre Launch-Nest structures that share the same stairwells.
Currently only basic, incomplete architectural design-work has been done in CAD. Before a structural analysis can be assessed (eg to determine the location of columns), further work needs to be done on finishing the placement of windows, doors, and dividing walls.
The Eco-Libre Life-Line project is a series of components making up an infrastructure to deliver a clean water pipeline to a community. This includes:
 |
|---|
| Eco-Libre Life-Line 2023.12 |
Michael started the Life-Line project after visiting a number of communities who had constant issues with their water systems breaking or failing to provide clean water. The goal is to design a low-cost, self-cleaning pipeline of systems that require minimal human intervention (max routine maintenance twice per year).
This year we have half-finished the "intake" component in CAD, which consists of building a weir in a stream that funnels turbulent water onto a downward-sloped HDPE barrel with a fine-mesh screen atop it. This design exploits the energy in falling turbulent water to clean the intake screen, and it prevents the intake from being clogged by organic debris during heavy rainfall.
Special thanks to Jack Nugent, who joined Eco-Libre in 2023 and has contributed to research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The goal in 2024 is to finish the "intake" component in CAD and also to design the "settling tank", "pre-filter", and "sand filter" components in CAD.
How do you sustainably begin to build a community on land without electricity and without any structures?
The Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth is a simple storage shed with >1 kW of PV solar panels on the roof. This is the first structure to be built when jumpstarting a new off-grid community. It provides the power, storage, and outdoor workshop space needed to build-out the community.
 |
|---|
| Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth 2023.06 |
This year we've made a simple footprint for the Genesis-Booth in CAD that's 4 meters x 2 meters -- just large enough to fit 4 solar panels (2 meters x 1 meter each). Further work is needed in CAD, but this year we also delved into making a framework for our documentation.
The Eco-Libre documentation is written in reST, generated by Sphinx, and (currently) hosted by GitHub. This is an exceptionally flexible continuous documentation solution that allows for versioned documentation matching versioned releases, works well with git, can be exported to many different flexible formats, and can be extended with custom directives written in python.
The highest priority for the Genesis-Booth is to finish this documentation as a template for other projects. Ideally this should be designed in such a way that information about Eco-Libre in general is seamlessly added to all project's documentations in a reusable way.
The Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower project is a 7 meter x 6 meter structure for storing and processing a community's waste, most importantly their food & fecal compost.
 |
|---|
| Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower 2023.07 |
This structure is 6-stories high and barrier-free, with a wrap-around ramp. All but the top-floor have three doors:
Each deposit closet contains facilities for the collection of human urine and feces and is slightly staggered in elevation so the user's deposits fall by gravity into their designated collection areas for processing.
Separately from compost, this structure also serves as a storage area for recyclable waste materials, such as metal.
This year a first-draft design of the structure has been designed in CAD, but it's very premature.
Next, a second design prototype (where the two deposit closet entrances are on the same side) should be drafted in CAD and compared to the existing design.
If you'd like to help Eco-Libre reach our mission to enfranchise sustainable communities' human rights with libre hardware, please contact us to get involved :)
Cheers,
The Eco-Libre Team
https://www.eco-libre.org/
Happy 2024! The Eco-Libre project published our 2023 Annual Report for last year.
Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre hardware for sustainable communities.
Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source hardware and software that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.
- Eco-Libre's mission statement
We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.
Michael Altfield registered the domain-name eco-libre.org on June 24th, 2023, a few weeks after arriving to Ecuador.
Over the next 6 months, Eco-Libre committed research and designs to our GitHub org for four projects (licensed CC BY-SA) which address some of the essential requirements for a new community's basic human needs: clean water, shelter, electricity, and ecological processing of waste. By releasing these designs under a libre license, it allows for other communities to build their own infrastructure with minimal effort, and it encourages collaboration on standardized design concepts.
As Eco-Libre's projects mature, we will build experimental prototypes in our own community. To that end, Michael is currently traveling around Ecuador by bicycle in-search of land to found Eco-Libre's first physical site.
In December, Eco-Libre was joined by Jack Nugent, who has since committed contributions to the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The priority focus for Michael in 2024 is to determine the best region in Ecuador to buy land where Eco-Libre can physically iterate on projects.
The priority focus for Jack in 2024 is to finish the research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
Eco-Libre was founded this year (in 2023). In our first 6 months, we've begun work on four libre hardware projects. All of them are currently in the early research stages.
The Eco-Libre Launch-Nest was our first project. The concept is to build a small-footprint, high-occupancy structure for sustainable living of 30-people.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Launch-Nest 2023.09 |
The rooftop has sufficient space for 72 solar panels (2 meter x 1 meter) and 3 parabolic solar concentrators (16 square meter).
The structure is six-stories above-ground, which is the recommended maximum height of a confined masonry structure in an earthquake zone. It also has a basement.
The building is designed with external, enclosed, firewalled staircases on either end. These are symmetrical and designed such that the building design can be rotated around a center courtyard to have four Eco-Libre Launch-Nest structures that share the same stairwells.
Currently only basic, incomplete architectural design-work has been done in CAD. Before a structural analysis can be assessed (eg to determine the location of columns), further work needs to be done on finishing the placement of windows, doors, and dividing walls.
The Eco-Libre Life-Line project is a series of components making up an infrastructure to deliver a clean water pipeline to a community. This includes:
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Life-Line 2023.12 |
Michael started the Life-Line project after visiting a number of communities who had constant issues with their water systems breaking or failing to provide clean water. The goal is to design a low-cost, self-cleaning pipeline of systems that require minimal human intervention (max routine maintenance twice per year).
This year we have half-finished the "intake" component in CAD, which consists of building a weir in a stream that funnels turbulent water onto a downward-sloped HDPE barrel with a fine-mesh screen atop it. This design exploits the energy in falling turbulent water to clean the intake screen, and it prevents the intake from being clogged by organic debris during heavy rainfall.
Special thanks to Jack Nugent, who joined Eco-Libre in 2023 and has contributed to research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The goal in 2024 is to finish the "intake" component in CAD and also to design the "settling tank", "pre-filter", and "sand filter" components in CAD.
How do you sustainably begin to build a community on land without electricity and without any structures?
The Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth is a simple storage shed with >1 kW of PV solar panels on the roof. This is the first structure to be built when jumpstarting a new off-grid community. It provides the power, storage, and outdoor workshop space needed to build-out the community.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth 2023.06 |
This year we've made a simple footprint for the Genesis-Booth in CAD that's 4 meters x 2 meters -- just large enough to fit 4 solar panels (2 meters x 1 meter each). Further work is needed in CAD, but this year we also delved into making a framework for our documentation.
The Eco-Libre documentation is written in reST, generated by Sphinx, and (currently) hosted by GitHub. This is an exceptionally flexible continuous documentation solution that allows for versioned documentation matching versioned releases, works well with git, can be exported to many different flexible formats, and can be extended with custom directives written in python.
The highest priority for the Genesis-Booth is to finish this documentation as a template for other projects. Ideally this should be designed in such a way that information about Eco-Libre in general is seamlessly added to all project's documentations in a reusable way.
The Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower project is a 7 meter x 6 meter structure for storing and processing a community's waste, most importantly their food & fecal compost.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower 2023.07 |
This structure is 6-stories high and barrier-free, with a wrap-around ramp. All but the top-floor have three doors:
Each deposit closet contains facilities for the collection of human urine and feces and is slightly staggered in elevation so the user's deposits fall by gravity into their designated collection areas for processing.
Separately from compost, this structure also serves as a storage area for recyclable waste materials, such as metal.
This year a first-draft design of the structure has been designed in CAD, but it's very premature.
Next, a second design prototype (where the two deposit closet entrances are on the same side) should be drafted in CAD and compared to the existing design.
If you'd like to help Eco-Libre reach our mission to enfranchise sustainable communities' human rights with libre hardware, please contact us to get involved :)
Cheers,
The Eco-Libre Team
https://www.eco-libre.org/
Happy 2024! The Eco-Libre project published our 2023 Annual Report for last year.
Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre hardware for sustainable communities.
Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source hardware and software that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.
- Eco-Libre's mission statement
We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.
Michael Altfield registered the domain-name eco-libre.org on June 24th, 2023, a few weeks after arriving to Ecuador.
Over the next 6 months, Eco-Libre committed research and designs to our GitHub org for four projects (licensed CC BY-SA) which address some of the essential requirements for a new community's basic human needs: clean water, shelter, electricity, and ecological processing of waste. By releasing these designs under a libre license, it allows for other communities to build their own infrastructure with minimal effort, and it encourages collaboration on standardized design concepts.
As Eco-Libre's projects mature, we will build experimental prototypes in our own community. To that end, Michael is currently traveling around Ecuador by bicycle in-search of land to found Eco-Libre's first physical site.
In December, Eco-Libre was joined by Jack Nugent, who has since committed contributions to the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The priority focus for Michael in 2024 is to determine the best region in Ecuador to buy land where Eco-Libre can physically iterate on projects.
The priority focus for Jack in 2024 is to finish the research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
Eco-Libre was founded this year (in 2023). In our first 6 months, we've begun work on four libre hardware projects. All of them are currently in the early research stages.
The Eco-Libre Launch-Nest was our first project. The concept is to build a small-footprint, high-occupancy structure for sustainable living of 30-people.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Launch-Nest 2023.09 |
The rooftop has sufficient space for 72 solar panels (2 meter x 1 meter) and 3 parabolic solar concentrators (16 square meter).
The structure is six-stories above-ground, which is the recommended maximum height of a confined masonry structure in an earthquake zone. It also has a basement.
The building is designed with external, enclosed, firewalled staircases on either end. These are symmetrical and designed such that the building design can be rotated around a center courtyard to have four Eco-Libre Launch-Nest structures that share the same stairwells.
Currently only basic, incomplete architectural design-work has been done in CAD. Before a structural analysis can be assessed (eg to determine the location of columns), further work needs to be done on finishing the placement of windows, doors, and dividing walls.
The Eco-Libre Life-Line project is a series of components making up an infrastructure to deliver a clean water pipeline to a community. This includes:
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Life-Line 2023.12 |
Michael started the Life-Line project after visiting a number of communities who had constant issues with their water systems breaking or failing to provide clean water. The goal is to design a low-cost, self-cleaning pipeline of systems that require minimal human intervention (max routine maintenance twice per year).
This year we have half-finished the "intake" component in CAD, which consists of building a weir in a stream that funnels turbulent water onto a downward-sloped HDPE barrel with a fine-mesh screen atop it. This design exploits the energy in falling turbulent water to clean the intake screen, and it prevents the intake from being clogged by organic debris during heavy rainfall.
Special thanks to Jack Nugent, who joined Eco-Libre in 2023 and has contributed to research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The goal in 2024 is to finish the "intake" component in CAD and also to design the "settling tank", "pre-filter", and "sand filter" components in CAD.
How do you sustainably begin to build a community on land without electricity and without any structures?
The Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth is a simple storage shed with >1 kW of PV solar panels on the roof. This is the first structure to be built when jumpstarting a new off-grid community. It provides the power, storage, and outdoor workshop space needed to build-out the community.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth 2023.06 |
This year we've made a simple footprint for the Genesis-Booth in CAD that's 4 meters x 2 meters -- just large enough to fit 4 solar panels (2 meters x 1 meter each). Further work is needed in CAD, but this year we also delved into making a framework for our documentation.
The Eco-Libre documentation is written in reST, generated by Sphinx, and (currently) hosted by GitHub. This is an exceptionally flexible continuous documentation solution that allows for versioned documentation matching versioned releases, works well with git, can be exported to many different flexible formats, and can be extended with custom directives written in python.
The highest priority for the Genesis-Booth is to finish this documentation as a template for other projects. Ideally this should be designed in such a way that information about Eco-Libre in general is seamlessly added to all project's documentations in a reusable way.
The Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower project is a 7 meter x 6 meter structure for storing and processing a community's waste, most importantly their food & fecal compost.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower 2023.07 |
This structure is 6-stories high and barrier-free, with a wrap-around ramp. All but the top-floor have three doors:
Each deposit closet contains facilities for the collection of human urine and feces and is slightly staggered in elevation so the user's deposits fall by gravity into their designated collection areas for processing.
Separately from compost, this structure also serves as a storage area for recyclable waste materials, such as metal.
This year a first-draft design of the structure has been designed in CAD, but it's very premature.
Next, a second design prototype (where the two deposit closet entrances are on the same side) should be drafted in CAD and compared to the existing design.
If you'd like to help Eco-Libre reach our mission to enfranchise sustainable communities' human rights with libre hardware, please contact us to get involved :)
Cheers,
The Eco-Libre Team
https://www.eco-libre.org/
Happy 2024! The Eco-Libre project published our 2023 Annual Report for last year.
Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre hardware for sustainable communities.
Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source hardware and software that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.
- Eco-Libre's mission statement
We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.
Michael Altfield registered the domain-name eco-libre.org on June 24th, 2023, a few weeks after arriving to Ecuador.
Over the next 6 months, Eco-Libre committed research and designs to our GitHub org for four projects (licensed CC BY-SA) which address some of the essential requirements for a new community's basic human needs: clean water, shelter, electricity, and ecological processing of waste. By releasing these designs under a libre license, it allows for other communities to build their own infrastructure with minimal effort, and it encourages collaboration on standardized design concepts.
As Eco-Libre's projects mature, we will build experimental prototypes in our own community. To that end, Michael is currently traveling around Ecuador by bicycle in-search of land to found Eco-Libre's first physical site.
In December, Eco-Libre was joined by Jack Nugent, who has since committed contributions to the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The priority focus for Michael in 2024 is to determine the best region in Ecuador to buy land where Eco-Libre can physically iterate on projects.
The priority focus for Jack in 2024 is to finish the research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
Eco-Libre was founded this year (in 2023). In our first 6 months, we've begun work on four libre hardware projects. All of them are currently in the early research stages.
The Eco-Libre Launch-Nest was our first project. The concept is to build a small-footprint, high-occupancy structure for sustainable living of 30-people.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Launch-Nest 2023.09 |
The rooftop has sufficient space for 72 solar panels (2 meter x 1 meter) and 3 parabolic solar concentrators (16 square meter).
The structure is six-stories above-ground, which is the recommended maximum height of a confined masonry structure in an earthquake zone. It also has a basement.
The building is designed with external, enclosed, firewalled staircases on either end. These are symmetrical and designed such that the building design can be rotated around a center courtyard to have four Eco-Libre Launch-Nest structures that share the same stairwells.
Currently only basic, incomplete architectural design-work has been done in CAD. Before a structural analysis can be assessed (eg to determine the location of columns), further work needs to be done on finishing the placement of windows, doors, and dividing walls.
The Eco-Libre Life-Line project is a series of components making up an infrastructure to deliver a clean water pipeline to a community. This includes:
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Life-Line 2023.12 |
Michael started the Life-Line project after visiting a number of communities who had constant issues with their water systems breaking or failing to provide clean water. The goal is to design a low-cost, self-cleaning pipeline of systems that require minimal human intervention (max routine maintenance twice per year).
This year we have half-finished the "intake" component in CAD, which consists of building a weir in a stream that funnels turbulent water onto a downward-sloped HDPE barrel with a fine-mesh screen atop it. This design exploits the energy in falling turbulent water to clean the intake screen, and it prevents the intake from being clogged by organic debris during heavy rainfall.
Special thanks to Jack Nugent, who joined Eco-Libre in 2023 and has contributed to research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The goal in 2024 is to finish the "intake" component in CAD and also to design the "settling tank", "pre-filter", and "sand filter" components in CAD.
How do you sustainably begin to build a community on land without electricity and without any structures?
The Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth is a simple storage shed with >1 kW of PV solar panels on the roof. This is the first structure to be built when jumpstarting a new off-grid community. It provides the power, storage, and outdoor workshop space needed to build-out the community.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth 2023.06 |
This year we've made a simple footprint for the Genesis-Booth in CAD that's 4 meters x 2 meters -- just large enough to fit 4 solar panels (2 meters x 1 meter each). Further work is needed in CAD, but this year we also delved into making a framework for our documentation.
The Eco-Libre documentation is written in reST, generated by Sphinx, and (currently) hosted by GitHub. This is an exceptionally flexible continuous documentation solution that allows for versioned documentation matching versioned releases, works well with git, can be exported to many different flexible formats, and can be extended with custom directives written in python.
The highest priority for the Genesis-Booth is to finish this documentation as a template for other projects. Ideally this should be designed in such a way that information about Eco-Libre in general is seamlessly added to all project's documentations in a reusable way.
The Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower project is a 7 meter x 6 meter structure for storing and processing a community's waste, most importantly their food & fecal compost.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower 2023.07 |
This structure is 6-stories high and barrier-free, with a wrap-around ramp. All but the top-floor have three doors:
Each deposit closet contains facilities for the collection of human urine and feces and is slightly staggered in elevation so the user's deposits fall by gravity into their designated collection areas for processing.
Separately from compost, this structure also serves as a storage area for recyclable waste materials, such as metal.
This year a first-draft design of the structure has been designed in CAD, but it's very premature.
Next, a second design prototype (where the two deposit closet entrances are on the same side) should be drafted in CAD and compared to the existing design.
If you'd like to help Eco-Libre reach our mission to enfranchise sustainable communities' human rights with libre hardware, please contact us to get involved :)
Cheers,
The Eco-Libre Team
https://www.eco-libre.org/
~Happy 2024! The Eco-Libre project published our 2023 Annual Report for last year.
Eco-Libre is a volunteer-run project that designs libre hardware for sustainable communities.
Eco-Libre's mission is to research, develop, document, teach, build, and distribute open-source hardware and software that sustainably enfranchises communities' human rights.
- Eco-Libre's mission statement
We aim to provide clear documentation to build low-cost machines, tools, and infrastructure for people all over the world who wish to live in sustainable communities with others.
Michael Altfield registered the domain-name eco-libre.org on June 24th, 2023, a few weeks after arriving to Ecuador.
Over the next 6 months, Eco-Libre committed research and designs to our GitHub org for four projects (licensed CC BY-SA) which address some of the essential requirements for a new community's basic human needs: clean water, shelter, electricity, and ecological processing of waste. By releasing these designs under a libre license, it allows for other communities to build their own infrastructure with minimal effort, and it encourages collaboration on standardized design concepts.
As Eco-Libre's projects mature, we will build experimental prototypes in our own community. To that end, Michael is currently traveling around Ecuador by bicycle in-search of land to found Eco-Libre's first physical site.
In December, Eco-Libre was joined by Jack Nugent, who has since committed contributions to the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The priority focus for Michael in 2024 is to determine the best region in Ecuador to buy land where Eco-Libre can physically iterate on projects.
The priority focus for Jack in 2024 is to finish the research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
Eco-Libre was founded this year (in 2023). In our first 6 months, we've begun work on four libre hardware projects. All of them are currently in the early research stages.
The Eco-Libre Launch-Nest was our first project. The concept is to build a small-footprint, high-occupancy structure for sustainable living of 30-people.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Launch-Nest 2023.09 |
The rooftop has sufficient space for 72 solar panels (2 meter x 1 meter) and 3 parabolic solar concentrators (16 square meter).
The structure is six-stories above-ground, which is the recommended maximum height of a confined masonry structure in an earthquake zone. It also has a basement.
The building is designed with external, enclosed, firewalled staircases on either end. These are symmetrical and designed such that the building design can be rotated around a center courtyard to have four Eco-Libre Launch-Nest structures that share the same stairwells.
Currently only basic, incomplete architectural design-work has been done in CAD. Before a structural analysis can be assessed (eg to determine the location of columns), further work needs to be done on finishing the placement of windows, doors, and dividing walls.
The Eco-Libre Life-Line project is a series of components making up an infrastructure to deliver a clean water pipeline to a community. This includes:
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Life-Line 2023.12 |
Michael started the Life-Line project after visiting a number of communities who had constant issues with their water systems breaking or failing to provide clean water. The goal is to design a low-cost, self-cleaning pipeline of systems that require minimal human intervention (max routine maintenance twice per year).
This year we have half-finished the "intake" component in CAD, which consists of building a weir in a stream that funnels turbulent water onto a downward-sloped HDPE barrel with a fine-mesh screen atop it. This design exploits the energy in falling turbulent water to clean the intake screen, and it prevents the intake from being clogged by organic debris during heavy rainfall.
Special thanks to Jack Nugent, who joined Eco-Libre in 2023 and has contributed to research, design, and documentation of the Eco-Libre Life-Line project.
The goal in 2024 is to finish the "intake" component in CAD and also to design the "settling tank", "pre-filter", and "sand filter" components in CAD.
How do you sustainably begin to build a community on land without electricity and without any structures?
The Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth is a simple storage shed with >1 kW of PV solar panels on the roof. This is the first structure to be built when jumpstarting a new off-grid community. It provides the power, storage, and outdoor workshop space needed to build-out the community.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Genesis-Booth 2023.06 |
This year we've made a simple footprint for the Genesis-Booth in CAD that's 4 meters x 2 meters -- just large enough to fit 4 solar panels (2 meters x 1 meter each). Further work is needed in CAD, but this year we also delved into making a framework for our documentation.
The Eco-Libre documentation is written in reST, generated by Sphinx, and (currently) hosted by GitHub. This is an exceptionally flexible continuous documentation solution that allows for versioned documentation matching versioned releases, works well with git, can be exported to many different flexible formats, and can be extended with custom directives written in python.
The highest priority for the Genesis-Booth is to finish this documentation as a template for other projects. Ideally this should be designed in such a way that information about Eco-Libre in general is seamlessly added to all project's documentations in a reusable way.
The Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower project is a 7 meter x 6 meter structure for storing and processing a community's waste, most importantly their food & fecal compost.
|
|---|
| Eco-Libre Treasure-Tower 2023.07 |
This structure is 6-stories high and barrier-free, with a wrap-around ramp. All but the top-floor have three doors:
Each deposit closet contains facilities for the collection of human urine and feces and is slightly staggered in elevation so the user's deposits fall by gravity into their designated collection areas for processing.
Separately from compost, this structure also serves as a storage area for recyclable waste materials, such as metal.
This year a first-draft design of the structure has been designed in CAD, but it's very premature.
Next, a second design prototype (where the two deposit closet entrances are on the same side) should be drafted in CAD and compared to the existing design.
If you'd like to help Eco-Libre reach our mission to enfranchise sustainable communities' human rights with libre hardware, please contact us to get involved :)
Cheers,
The Eco-Libre Team
https://www.eco-libre.org/
~
Yes BusKill works similarly -- any USB drive can use the BusKill software
The BusKill cable is just nice because it includes a magnetic breakaway, so it works when the laptop is snatched-away at any angle. There's actually a ton of anti-forensics software like usbkill and BusKill; we enumerate them all on our documentation's Similar Projects section
You may want to check ^ it out :)
Thank you for supporting open-source security hardware <3
I made a video of this (demo in Windows, MacOS, Linux, TAILS, and QubesOS) with the old DIY model here (sorry for the terrible audio quality)
We're currently working on an updated video with someone who is much better at video production than me; it should be finished in early 2024.
I've paid myself nothing so-far. The price just barely breaks-even for the business. There's one-time costs like a few grand for a CNC'd injection mold and assembly jig, but also certification fees, product boxes, cardstock paper for documentation inserts, printing fees, artist commissions, packaging materials, warehousing, shipping, other logistics fees, etc.
All of this is explained in-detail in "The Finances" section here.
I prefer open-source hardware to be designed using common off-the-shelf items that are easily found everywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the one vendor of a USB-A magnetic breakaway couplers decided to EOL their product shortly after I published a guide on how to build your own BusKill cable. After we published, they all got sold-out, and we had to go to manufacturers for a custom component.
Prices would drop dramatically if we could do production runs (and actually sell) >10,000 units at a time. Currently we only sell a few cables per month. If you want to help, please tell all your security-conscious friends about BusKill :)
Unfortunately, that's what it costs to make open-source hardware at small-scale.
There's a cheaper $59 cable available or you could build your own.
Theft of high-risk users' data. Data could include private keys (eg theft of cryptocurrency assets), contacts of correspondence (eg sources of a journalist -- such as whistleblowers), etc.
For more information, see the Who Uses BusKill? section of the documentation.
Hi, Michael Altfield here. I was the sysadmin for OSE from 2017-2020.
Everything OSE does is transparent, so you can just check the OSE websites to see what everyone is currently working-on. OSE contributors log their hours in a worklog called "OSE Dev". There you can quickly see who is working on what.
The above graphs show 4 contributors in the past ~10 weeks (one is me; we had some issues with the apache config recently). There's no direct link, but you can then check the wiki to see people's work logs (just search for the person's name and
Log):I also like to look at the MediaWiki "Recent Changes" page to peak at what people are up-to as well:
I told Marcin about Lemmy back in June 2023. Another OSE contributor even created an OSE community on the slrpnk.net instance, but it appears to have been abandoned. I'll email him about this thread to see if he'll bite and publish updates in this community since there's clearly interest :)
Also, shameless plug: I started an org that's very similar in spirit to OSE called Eco-Libre, with a focus on projects to sustainably enfranchise human rights in smaller communities. We're currently accepting volunteers ;)