[tor-talk] transparent tor routers

[Christian Stöveken]

Hello all,

I was talking to one of the tor developers at the Wauholland place the
last day @32C3 about his opinion on transparent tor wlan boxes like
anonabox or invinzbox and others.
(Roger or Sam probably I'm terribly sorry, I forgot to write down the name)

I'm not trying to run in their footsteps claiming anonymity for the
uneducated user,
but think there are other interesting prospects.

The question was whether the tor project would be interested in gaining
these
new users or not and also about the impact of an increase e.g. 1000 or more
of these
boxes (users) would have on the tor network.

The response was that more users will generate more noise in the tor network
and that this is definitely wanted.

Also supply will meet demand and that the tor network will handle the user
growth.


Here goes the idea:
I can provide transparent tor wifi routers or facilitate a manufacturing
contact for a router.

The torbox would simply keep the data plan subscriber (his public ip) out
of sight,
thus keeping the wlan provider from liability issues caused by the internet
users.
This will enable lots of places to provide free internet to the community.

In my opinion this box should ideally originate out of the tor project /
the tor community.
Also I could offer building a Tor branded box (torbox) if that is in the
interest of the project .

Again - the focus is not to provide the user with anonymity - which we know
can't be gained
trough a transparent tor proxy whilst not educating / radically changing
your internet
behavior at the same time.

There are some challenges - e.g. verifying the authenticity of the running
firmware
(who flashes it, trust issues).

I can imagine building a tor hidden service for updating the box or maybe
even an
OpenWRT build system to generate the transparent tor enabled firmware
can be setup on an official tor site.

We already have a build system and update URL running and are working on
further
advancing the project.

Feel free to respond with ideas, concerns, people to get in touch with, ...


Best Regards,
Christian

connector.one