I want to leave an internet connected device at a home I will be leaving. Suggestions? - A convenient exit proxy for the future.

[Kiislova]

I came to an agreement with my landlord in which I will be replacing his now useless telephone installation on his home (which I am inhabiting now) with wired gigabit ethernet for essentially free, that way I can have a decent home office and he gets an upgrade for less than the cost of materials.

Thing is, during the installation I found one of the secondary distribution boxes was just a lid on a hollow wall, with a shitton of room for a 5-plug gigabit ethernet and almost anything I would want to it occurred to me that I could leave there a small computer (old laptop, raspberry pi) on some ungodly corner of the wall that would give me access to that network even when I eventually leave the place in the foreseeable future.

So, what would I need (hardware and software) to have a system that can stay online for years, won't degrade over time, is accesible in one way or another even if the router is changed, and is so unlikely to crash that I would never need to visit that place ever again to "turn it on and off again"

Also, and just for fun, how illegal is this on your jurismydicktion?

 

[Sam Losco]

What is the purpose? Just to be able to remote into the network and poke around?

 

[Demonslayer1776]

Is it big enough to fit a body?

 

[Kiislova]

What is the purpose? Just to be able to remote into the network and poke around?

Pretty much that. Most likely it will become torrent exit proxy in the near future, as moving into a less pirate friendly country is likely in the next years.

Is it big enough to fit a body?

With some effort and a saw it just may. Just not an average amerifat.

 

[seri0us]

Raspberry pi connected to a powerbank should work.

 

[Grub]

I'd imagine it's illegal, but anyway...

If you're going to do this, I'd recommend pulling a 14/2 wire from an outlet somewhere to your box and if it's big enough installing an outlet inside. You'd probably need a router wired directly.

Honestly, I'd skip the box. There's always a chance someone will actually check the box some day. Just cut a hole in the wall, install an outlet inside the wall, router and some kind of laptop, raspberry pi whatever in the wall wire your Ethernet plugs and patch up the drywall and paint it. It's not hard to cut and patch drywall. Install some kind of headless server os on the device then you can SSH into it and your set.

As for longevity, well, if the power goes out for longer than the laptop's battery or whatever your backup power source is, you're probably screwed. If the place is ever renovated or someone needs to cut open the wall in the place you choose, well again fucked.

I mean, the ideas pretty ridiculous all around, but anyway,

 

[I Love Beef]

Itt, tl;dr "So you want to want to be a dialup cowboy"

 

[Kiislova]

Itt, tl;dr "So you want to want to be a dialup cowboy"

Well that took me back to some ancient times

 

[Coffee Shits]

I feel you're better off renting a seedbox rather than going through the hassle of burying an RPi in a wall somewhere. Eventually that server will go offline and then you're SOL if you're keeping it a secret from the guy you're skimming bandwidth from.

 

[Polarity]

Mistake #1 is doing anything for your landlord for free. This is a really dumb and bad idea, and now makes you liable for anything and everything that tenants do on this network in the future.

 

[notafederalagent]

I tend to think of the worst case scenario about things like this. Imagine a house fire happens and they pinpoint the source of ignition to the same wall your equipment is hidden in. Even if it had nothing to do with your setup, you're going to hate life if they drag you through civil or criminal court. That would be my top concern more than the legality of the setup you're describing.