[Freedombox-discuss] Wish list

[A. F. Cano]

On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 09:56:35PM -0400, thinkmoore at hushmail.com wrote:
>    Hi Nick,
>    I'm not as technically adept as you guys, so I hope I am not on the wrong
>    wavelength, but I will try to answer your question.
>    I want basically what James Vasile on the website said. I want to use
>    Freedombox for a more anonymous Internet experience without the hassle of
>    becoming too l33t.

+1 to everything below.  Comments interspersed.

>    - I want to have secure, anonymous voice/video/text conversations with
>    people (Skype-replacement).
>    - I want to be altogether untraceable on the Internet
>    - I want to remove ads from my browsing experience

I'm already using privoxy for this, on the same machine as the
browser.  Very happy camper.

>    - I want to have the privacy of no one watching me when I don't want them
>    to be

NoScript (iceweasel/firefox add-on) is very helpful.  It's amazing the
amount of invasive scripting it prevents from running.  In combination
with download helper, it makes for faster youtube (and other)
downloading.  Unfortunately, it needs manual intervention often (to
re-enable specific scripts) to make certain sites work.

>    - I want to fileshare and download things anonymously
>    - I want Tor, Torrent, and Freedombox traffic to be indistinguishable from
>    normal traffic

That's likely to be hard.  But yes, it's a good goal.

>    - I want to get around Internet censorship, such as DNS blocking

IDONS?

>    - I want to get around ISPs discriminating usage and throttling users

I'd go further.  With mesh networks, as the user base grows, the ISPs
would become less and less relevant.  Ultimately and ideally, there
would be none: the device would be the network.

>    - Avoid relying on ISPs and DNS altogether? O.o (Because they're
>    centralized)

Absolutely.  That should be the end result.

>    I'm okay with having to, for example, plug it into a computer, or into a
>    wall on its own - or even better, both.

My original vision was of an anonymizing, decentralized, mesh-network
router that would replace all the centralized/corporatized "services",
in combination with the regular Debian computer I use behind the
FreedomBox firewall.  As has been discussed, the problem of what to put
on the box proper and how to interface with the user is not an easy one.
Should the FreedomBox replace the computer and all the software a user
might currently use? Should the user be forced to log in directly to
the FreedomBox in order to use the software there? To what extent can
the FreedomBox be made a transparent proxy for what users would normally
use on a regular (Debian?) computer?

I understand that (for instance) the browser can leak enough information
that it cannot be ignored, so a proxy-only solution might not enough, or
very hard to implement.

I suppose the FreedomBox could be made a server and the computer the
user sits in front of have the client part, but that would mean
rewriting/modifying a lot of software.

I think the project is going in a good direction, so thanks a bunch to
the developers.

>    That's the main experience I want to get from using Freedombox. Anything
>    else would be cool too, but come second for me.
>    If this isn't the kind of response you're looking for, don't mind me O:)
>    I'll be one of the first to buy this thing :)
>    - Thinkmoore

A.