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How open source is revitalizing the payphone
How open source is revitalizing the payphone
Klaatu
Mon, 11/28/2022 - 03:00
Phones used to act as the host for computer communication. Modems sent signals from computer to computer by utilizing the phone network. In today's world, though, computers have become the host for telephony apps. Phones aren't really phones any more, they're literal computers. This has enabled some amazing technology, but many people wonder whether we've lost something by giving up the concept of public phones. The PhilTel project in Philadelphia is seeking to change the trajectory of phone communication by reviving some old concepts. I was intrigued, so I spoke to Mike Dank about this exciting and unexpected development.
Klaatu: What's PhilTel?
Mike Dank: PhilTel is a telephone collective based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focusing on making communications accessible to everyone by installing free-to-use payphones. While you'll be able to make standard telephone calls through our phones, we're also focusing on offering interesting services or experiences. We don't want to only facilitate human-to-human interaction but also human-to-machine interaction and give people an environment where they can explore the telephone network and learn from it.
Klaatu: Why are you installing free-to-use payphones? Surely everyone has a mobile phone these days.
Mike: Surprisingly, there are more people out there without mobile phones than you may think! While there are many that won't have a mobile phone due to socioeconomic disparities, others choose not to have them because of concerns about privacy, health, and the effects of being "plugged in" or reachable 24/7. My co-founder on this project does not own a mobile phone himself, so we have first-hand experience with what it is like to not have a phone on your person at all times and how important it is for there to be access to public telephones.
Philadelphia in particular has a lot of payphone use, even as payphone companies have been steadily removing phones from service year after year. Residents who rely on these phones are being increasingly marginalized and if this trend continues, many will be left without a communication platform they need to carry out their lives. At PhilTel, we are committed to increase access to telephone-mediated services through the preservation of public, free-to-use telephone infrastructure.
Klaatu: You obviously know a lot about phones. It makes me think of the phone phreaking scene in the 1950s.
Mike: Yes, "phone phreaking" is a term used to describe the culture and activities of people who explore the phone system and equipment connected to it. While people have been phreaking since the 1950s, it rose to prominence in the 1970s with the advent of the "blue box": a hobbyist-built, pocket sized device that could produce tones which would allow the user to place free long-distance calls. Later phreaking devices such as the "red box," commonly made by modifying a pocket tone dialer, would allow the user to imitate coin tones at a payphone so calls could be made for free. It's important to note that phone phreaking is still alive and well today, but the focus is on discovery and gaining an understanding of how the phone system works while communications fraud is now widely frowned upon.
In many ways, hacking and hacker culture can be seen as an offshoot of phreaking, and it is undeniable that phreaking had a direct influence on hacking as we know it today. With the advent of personal computing in the 1980s, many curious and tech-savvy people would communicate over bulletin board systems to share information about exploring the phone system and, increasingly, the computers that were connected to it.
Anyone who identifies as a hacker these days can trace the culture back to those early days of phone phreaking where the curious spent days or months or weeks doing experiments with the phone system. PhilTel is a "phreak-friendly" network, and we not only encourage exploration but also have resources to emulate aspects of the phone network of a bygone era. Do you want to use your vintage (or modern recreational) "blue box" or "red box" today? We have ways for you to do that!
More Linux resources Linux commands cheat sheet Advanced Linux commands cheat sheet Free online course: RHEL technical overview Linux networking cheat sheet SELinux cheat sheet Linux common commands cheat sheet What are Linux containers? Our latest Linux articlesKlaatu: How did you get involved with PhilTel?
Mike: Well, I'm one of the PhilTel co-founders! PhilTel draws direct inspiration from a similar project known as Futel, based out of Portland, Oregon. My co-founder and I met a few years back and bonded over our love of telephone infrastructure, including visiting old telephone buildings and finding payphones scattered throughout the city. We had discussions about how it could be beneficial to start a project where we installed and operated payphones and we realized the only thing holding us back was simply sitting down and working out the details for how to do it!
Klaatu: Do you have a background in telephony?
Mike: I don't have any background in telephony myself, but I've had an interest in it since I bought my first Raspberry Pi in 2012 and went about setting up my own PBX so I could give extensions to different phones in my house and allow them to call one another. While I have a formal background in software engineering, I identify more as a hacker who likes to tinker and learn as I go. I'm very lucky to be working with my co-founder as he became interested in telephony in high school and gradually became interested in phreaking as well as VoIP. Nowadays, he primarily does telecom-related software development, including freelance Asterisk development for businesses and development of features and capabilities for telephone hobbyists.
Klaatu: Speaking of Asterisk, what other open source technologies are you using to make this project happen?
Mike: We strive to use as much open source technology as we can with PhilTel! Each payphone site that we will set up has a router running OpenWRT and WireGuard to get a secure VPN connection to our server. Our Linux-based server runs Asterisk, an open source PBX (private branch exchange) toolkit, to connect our phones to the PSTN and other internal services or hobbyist or collector phone networks. We are very fortunate in that my co-founder has an in-depth knowledge with Asterisk as he is a regular code contributor.
Klaatu: How can people get involved with PhilTel?
Mike: There are numerous ways to get involved! If you're a hacker, artist, or engineer with an interest in payphones and things that can be done with and through them, we'd love to hear from you (especially if you're an artist working with audio.) We're always looking for new things to add or new perspectives! If you're local to the Philadelphia area and have ownership of a physical location where we may put a phone, we're always looking for installation sites! If anything about PhilTel interests you, be sure to visit our website for more information and ways to contact us!
One of the founders of the PhilTel open source project shares why free-to-use payphones are critical to social infrastructure.
Image by:Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash
Mobile Linux What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.3 open source audio tools for creators
3 open source audio tools for creators
Ruth Cheesley
Mon, 11/28/2022 - 03:00
Finding good quality, open source audio samples can be a challenge. I've been getting increasingly into composition and creating music in my spare time, using the open source tool Ardour and the creator-focused distribution Ubuntu Studio. I've been looking for samples of specific sounds or loops to include.
I'm familiar with many tools to find images, but until recently, I hadn't come across a similar option for audio resources.
Open source sound samplesFinding specific sounds can be challenging if you can't record them yourself. Several resources are available, but not many provide sounds under an open source license.
FreesoundEnter the incredible treasure trove that is Freesound, a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds where you can browse, download, and even contribute.
You can find pretty much anything on Freesound, from the sounds of a sleepy tour bus on the road to a door opening and closing or a ghostly shriek. While Freesound mainly focuses on sound samples, there are also some loops on the site. Many sounds are licensed under Creative Commons 0, so you can do whatever you like with them from a licensing perspective. However, that's not true for all of them, so check the license before you use anything, as you may need to credit the creator.
The site allows you to check out the sample rate, bit depth, and channels so you can be sure that the sample will work with your composition, and it has a built-in rating system and download count. A waveform display allows you to get some insight into the character of the sound sample before you preview it.
The search filters on Freesound are not as strong as other sites. Sounds will sometimes be grouped into packs of similar sounds, like this one for scary noises. This can help you quickly grab a bunch of similar sounds to play with. The quality of the samples is variable, so you might need to clean up the audio on some samples. If you're feeling bored, there's even an option to select a random sound from the database—and trust me, some are very random! Freesound also has a community forum where you can participate and learn from others.
Nasa space soundsIf you are looking for some otherworldly sounds or want to snoop on the conversations between Earth and space, the Nasa Space Sounds database might be a great place to look. It's fascinating to explore the recordings from the various missions and listen in on the communications back and forth, some of which are narrated. Several recordings have different sounds from different space missions, from the Sounds of Mars from Perseverance Rover to audio from the Apollo missions.
Sounds from the Nasa site are released under the Creative Commons category Public Domain Mark 1.0, meaning that it is free of known restrictions under copyright law.
Audio and video The current state of Linux video editing 23 open source audio-visual production tools How to make a low-cost guitar amp with Linux Blender Cheat Sheet Latest audio and music articles Latest video editing articles Loops for music creationIf your focus is more on creating music, you might be looking for loops: short recordings of music that you can alter and tweak in your own compositions.
There are all kinds of sample packs out there from commercial sources, but there are also a lot of royalty-free loops available on Looperman. With over 200,000 loops uploaded by musicians, DJs, producers, and creators, there's everything from electronic dance music and trap to classical. There are also over 12,000 a cappella and spoken-word loops, and it's a great resource for finding things like bass lines or drum beats. You need to have an account to download, and you must download tracks before you can upload anything.
Looperman resources are not Creative Commons, but the site defaults to a similar concept: "All samples and loops are free to use in commercial and noncommercial projects," according to the site license, but "you can NOT claim copyright of those loops." A cappella and vocal samples are in a separate category, so checking the specific terms for any loop you consider using is important.
Each loop tells you the beats-per-minute, key signature (where relevant), and software it was created in. A waveform shows the character of the loop, which gives you a good idea of whether it is likely to work with your project. You can preview loops within the browser and leave comments for the creator. There is a lively community and many great resources to help you create your own loops.
Get creativeI hope this gives you some ideas of where to find audio resources for your next project, and I look forward to hearing what you have created!
I came across these helpful open source tools for sampling sounds and creating loops for music.
Image by:Internet Archive Book Images. Modified by Opensource.com. CC BY-SA 4.0
Audio and music Open Studio What to read next This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. Register or Login to post a comment.How to Access a Remote Server Using a SSH Jump Host
The post How to Access a Remote Server Using a SSH Jump Host first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides .
A jump host (also known as a jump server) is an intermediary host or an SSH gateway to a remote network, through which a connection can be made to another host in a different
The post How to Access a Remote Server Using a SSH Jump Host first appeared on Tecmint: Linux Howtos, Tutorials & Guides.