Hardware in-line proxy

Here’s an idea:

Instead of a software launcher, and proxy setting in the browser, why not a in-line plug or router, between ones local network and the Internet?

With such a device, the use of SAFE becomes completely transparent to the user. The device proxies *.safenet domains to SAFE network and passes everything else through.

“Manage Permissions” and “Settings” would be browser-based.

It might be a Raspberry Pi in a case, with an ethernet port on each side, and a couple of LEDs to indicate power and that it has passed a connectivity test.

Thanks for the link. I suppose you are referring to the project called Mammoth. But that looks quite ambitious with various functions and generality beyond SAFE.

I was thinking of something far simpler, that just proxies to SAFE network and nothing more. Since a Raspberry is a Linux computer, then the task reduces to hacking the launcher to run on it.

  • If you’re going to spend $50 on a dumb proxy device, you may as well add $25 or $50 and get a real multifunction product.
  • How much are those embedded Tor proxies selling for and who buys them? I’ve never heard of anyone who even noticed that product, let alone bought one.
  • Pi doesn’t have two network ports. It has one 100Mbit port and (potentially) a WLAN interface, so the performance would be poor. Who would want to spend money on that?
  1. The simple device could be done much sooner.

  2. SAFE has possibilities of vast scale, in both home and business, for which a fancier device might not be needed. Many of the client devices wouldn’t even be computers, but, say, something that needs internet-of-things access or some bulk storage.

There are embedded Tor proxies?! I must get one! :slight_smile: In any case, there are “only” a couple of million Tor users and that number seems fairly constant. Users – Tor Metrics There are more potential SAFE clients.

It has a USB interface, to which a USB-network adapter can be added.

Could the FreedomBox function as this type of thing?

My hope has always been to join a mesh network with a FreedomBox which is also farming for SAFE Network. I assume that those building FreedomBox would incorporate SAFE Network in whatever way they can. I’m not suggesting that a FreedomBox be required to access SAFE, btw.

My hope for a FreedomBox/SAFE farming rig is why this NUC thing caught my attention. Thought it might be a good candidate for the job.

The fact that you didn’t know makes me wonder how much thinking you’ve done about this idea. Okay, maybe it’s a lot. Anyway, some of those embedded devices that supposedly enhance your security shipped with serious security flaws and if one looks at the “classic” secure Linux distro (which has no ARM version) Tails, it turns out its security issues are quite frequent. In my experience no one has made a decent product that is affordable, secure and works well.

Which is why anything that looks remotely attractive costs few hundred dollars, and sells to a tiny minority who can afford it.
The rest of us think we can achieve the same by tuning our Pi, which in most cases is not really true but it is cheap.

I think it’s a great idea. There will be many ways to connect to SAFEnetwork, and one or two will blow our minds, just like desktop PCs did, like email did, like smartphones have etc etc :slight_smile:

I studied such ideas, and used Tails, up until about 18 months ago and since then have done other things entirely. Maidsafe was under my radar. A lot has happened in the intervening time and I have some catching up to do. Thanks for the link.

I sell them here: http://anonymos.earthsociety.org

But Janitor is correct, next to nobody buys them. The market isn’t that large … at least for Tor. I do hope SAFEnet goes better.

BTW, my wifi hardware proxy “anonobox” could be adapted for SAFEnet as it’s basically an ubuntu server box.

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My thinking now is that if SAFE storage space is mountable on ones local file system then a local area network might as well just designate one computer (whether server or peer) to connect to the SAFE network via a software agent and then “share” the drive to other computers on the local network.

How is that different from having a traditional file server with backup-to-cloud?

At least in a regular office environment, there is little need for browsing the SAFE Web. What they want to access is stored locally and maybe in some collaborative Web sites.

You need to think about maid/safe much bigger than mere ‘websites’. This is a new paradigm. Look at it more like your tcp or ip stack and even below or actually much more abstract than those. You are calling objects and not servers or fellow nodes. You are calling and referencing content. Proxying only to reach an old world paradigm called websites and domain names is not at all getting even remotely close to the actual stuff named data networking and content centric networking are about.

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Well, it wouldn’t just be drives. I imagine the local server could be running SQUID (i.e., a web proxy and cache) with a SAFE plugin.

Writing a SAFE plugin for SQUID is an idea, for anyone who’s interested.

I’ve not used squid, but if it is anything like privoxy or polipo, then all you have to do is write a rule for it in the config file - no coding. For my Anonobox system all I’d have to do (I think) to include SAFEnet is to install it and write a forwarding rule in privoxy to redirect safenet URL’s to the safenet software.

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I’ll try it with SQUID.

Yes, FreedomBox could be used for this. See Getting maidsafe on the freedombox server for discussion about that specifically.