"You can't stop the signal, Mal." -- Mr. Universe, in Serenity.
A tip of the boonie hat and deep genuflection to Irregular Will for this link on Freedom Box.
What is Freedom Box?
Freedom Box is the name we give to a personal server running a free software operating system, with free applications designed to create and preserve personal privacy.
Freedom Box software is particularly tailored to run in "plug servers," which are compact computers that are no larger than power adapters for electronic appliances.
Located in people's homes or offices such inexpensive servers can provide privacy in normal life, and safe communications for people seeking to preserve their freedom in oppressive regimes.
Why Freedom Box?
Because social networking and digital communications technologies are now critical to people fighting to make freedom in their societies or simply trying to preserve their privacy where the Web and other parts of the Net are intensively surveilled by profit-seekers and government agencies. Because smartphones, mobile tablets, and other common forms of consumer electronics are being built as "platforms" to control their users and monitor their activity.
Freedom Box exists to counter these unfree "platform" technologies that threaten political freedom. Freedom Box exists to provide people with privacy-respecting technology alternatives in normal times, and to offer ways to collaborate safely and securely with others in building social networks of protest, demonstration, and mobilization for political change in the not-so-normal times.
Freedom Box software is built to run on hardware that already exists, and will soon become much more widely available and much more inexpensive. "Plug servers" and other compact devices are going to become ubiquitous in the next few years, serving as "media centers," "communications centers," "wireless routers," and many other familiar and not-so-familiar roles in office and home.
Freedom Box software images will turn all sorts of such devices into privacy appliances. Taken together, these appliances will afford people around the world options for communicating, publishing, and collaborating that will resist state intervention or disruption. People owning these appliances will be able to restore anonymity in the Net, despite efforts of despotic regimes to keep track of who reads what and who communicates with whom.
If anyone has any experience with this, please post your comments.
7 comments:
Heh! I have a Guru Plug Server and a Guru Plug Super Plus. I got the Guru Plug instead of one of the other offerings because the Guru Plug had a Debian distribution as the operating system and I have been running Debian since about 1998. Here are some links to vendors of these plug computers:
http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-22-sheevaplug-dev-kit-us.aspx
(perhaps the original ??? scroll down to find the Guru Plug offerings)
https://store.tonido.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1
(an attractive system if this is what you are looking for)
As it is set up, my Guru Plugs do not do what is envisioned in the Freedom Plug. The software has been developed to do the mesh communications for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.
http://one.laptop.org/
(this is the current not-for-profit organization and web site)
Not only mesh communications but this project had a hand in developing some great hardware suitable for off the grid operation and some great educational software. The operating system is free (as in freedom) software.
The start of the free software can be found at the Free Software Foundation.
http://www.fsf.org/
Finally, a plug (no pun intended) for Debian, the universal operating system (RMS says "Debian GNU/Linux")
http://www.debian.org/
(heh! new and "improved" web site)
Not going to make this work in the real world without custom hardware and software. Otherwise why not just run it on laptops?
Anytime you want to upgrade some part of the software/firmware on this device, there's a security issue. Unless this is handled with secure cryptographic methods, you have a security problem. Even if security is handled perfectly, if you trust the wrong people to write/review/compile your code, you have a trust problem that cannot be overcome with basic computer security measures. Sophisticated heuristic measures would need to be used to detect this kind of an attack.
In short -- this is going nowhere.
The Amateur Radio community along with the free software developers are cooperating unintentionally in the following fashion:
1. There are radio frequency allocations in the 2.4 GHz band which overlap in part the allocation for WiFi, an Part 15 (no license) use. In the Amateur Radio allocated portion, a licensed Amateur Radio Operator may legally use higher power and highly directional antennas to communicat with other licensed Amateur Radio Operators.
2. The free(dom) software community has produced software to replace the factory supplied operating system that come with the Wireless Broadban Router. One manufacturer supplies their hardware with one of these free operating systems.
http://www.buffalotech.com/
3. There is interest (Amateur Radio) and development (both Amateur Radio and the free software community) in using these low cost devises in emergency communications situations. The Anchorage Amateur Radio Club (my affiliation) has a project using these devices to setup broadband networks in support of the local and Alaska State governments when responding to an emergency.
There is much going on in this area.
One last comment regarding the free software efforts on wireless routers:
I inherited a Buffalo route and extender. I was able to put the dd-wrt replacement software on it with only a few tries. It is an older model and works quite well as a wireless bridge - no set-up, just connect the Internet cable and any WiFi enabled device can connect to the Internet.
Warning! Information Overload!
http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index
Unleash Your Router
Not enough coffee to fully digest this but I will be coming back to it.
You know I've been a programmer since 1995. But I've worked in small shops where I've had to do it all outside of pulling cables.
I've not done much hobby Info. Tech. outside of work because I need that time for my other hobbies (and to keep what little sanity I have).
But you post here makes me think I need to be doing more hobby IT. It might be one of the biggest contributions I can make to our AO.
Sounds like we may be going back to the days of Bulletin Board Systems, that essentially went away with the advent of the Internet. They worked then; no reason they can't work now.
The problem I have with 'freedom applications/appliances/platforms' is that it could easily be bait for the most active in any given field, in this case the 'freedom' movement. Think of it this way: if some gov organization wanted to locate the most radical element in society, wouldn't it behoove them to start an 'underground' project that would promote privacy and freedom? That would be a lot easier than tracking down each and every one of them by their emails and blog posts. The best plan is to be Grey. Buy a regular laptop/netbook with your consumer credit card, then create a linux os bootable usb drive. Be Grey, stay Grey.
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