Shut Off the Internet With a Literal Valve

Post Reply New Topic

As sysadmin, they occasionally need to throttle network bandwidth—typically, they'd do this using a bunch of terminal commands. "There were some software solutions which simplifies it," Dagli told me via email. "But there wasn't any hardware solution...And it should be as easy as our grandmothers can use."

They connected a classic metal valve to a custom-built single board computer that runs an embedded operating system, and developed the software that controls the network. Turning the valve left increases the bandwidth, and turning it right slows it down. Lefty loosy, righty tighty.

Since several people in the YouTube comments and across Reddit asked where they could purchase this steampunk creation, Dagli and the team started a crowdfunding campaign to make and ship more of them. As of publishing, they had raised $20 of their $50,000 goal in five days.