Daniel Hepper Shows Off the World's Only Ad-Blocking PoE-Powered Can of SPAM

With an Orange Pi Zero, PiHole, a Dremel tool, and a 10-year-old can of meat, Hepper's home network is enhanced.

Programmer Daniel Hepper has shown off a project that he describes, somewhat unfairly, as a "stupid idea:" A can of SPAM, the chopped pork and ham product, which keeps adverts off his home network.

"Almost a decade ago, I brought this can of SPAM as a souvenir from a trip to Australia. It has been collecting dust in various corners of my office ever since," Hepper explains. "Instead of throwing it away like a sensible person, I decided I wanted to somehow run PiHole on it. A spam filter in a can of SPAM. Well, an ad filter, but you get the point."

Originally developed for the Raspberry Pi family of single-board computers, but now more broadly compatible, PiHole is a turnkey solution for using DNS-level blocklists on a home network. Queries from devices on the network go through the PiHole server, and if they match an entry on a regularly-updated blocklist — which can include everything from online advertising to spam sources, phishing sites, or adult entertainment, as the user desires — the lookup is rejected.

PiHoles are common, but PiHoles in a SPAM can less so. "I set myself three design constraints," Hepper writes. "It should look stock, whatever that means for ad-filtering can of SPAM, it should not use Wi-Fi, because I didn’t want to have additional latency on every DNS request, and it should only use one cable."

The solution, having discounted smaller devices like a Raspberry Pi Zero owing to the lack of on-board Ethernet: An Orange Pi Zero LTS, which includes native Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support. "It sits on a 3D-printed frame which covers the part of the label that normally shows the nutrition information."

To make the device fit, a flexible microSD expansion cable was used - the Orange Pi Zero taking up every last part of the can's footprint, leaving no room for storage without it. Finally, the label was removed from the tin, an opening for the computer's ports cut out, and the pink meaty goodness within extracted. With the label attached, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a standard can of SPAM — if you don't notice the Ethernet cable at the back, anyway.

The full build is showcased on Hepper's Twitter account.

Gareth Halfacree
Freelance journalist, technical author, hacker, tinkerer, erstwhile sysadmin. For hire: freelance@halfacree.co.uk.
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