The Orchid Project

Using Flickr as a platform for the storage and distribution of router firmware

Oliver, 2015

Here I use Flickr as a storage and distribution medium for free, open-source firmware (operating system) images that can be used to liberate 10 popular routers. The firmware images are from the OpenWrt project and are encoded into Creative Commons licensed photos of orchids found on Flickr.

Visit the Flickr gallery here and download the Original Size PNG images. Only these images contain the firmware.

DECODER SOFTWARE

This simple decoder was written in Python and leverages the Python Stepic library. It was written on a GNU/Linux system and should run just fine on an OS X or any GNU/Linux ‘desktop’.

Download it here. Check the SH256SUM like so:

~$ sha256sum orchid-project.zip 
1935348b5f57d89b08f6dabfe4cf4c98e3dda1ee892afd4005055401d93a3a4c orchid-project.zip

If it matches, unpack it to the desktop. Double-click on decode.py to run the application. Alternatively, start it in a terminal program like so:

$ python decode.py

Now download the ZIP of original size image from Flickr to your desktop and then drag-and-drop it onto the decoder. This will extract the firmware to your desktop.

(Tested 2015 and 2016)