Building a better anonabox

DipStick McSwindler · 10-03-2015 2:04pm

This post has been deleted.

Kinet1c · 10-03-2015 2:21pm

IrishFeeney92 wrote: »

How do I get one?

They're available on their website.

howamidifferent · 12-03-2015 2:52pm

Yep, I got mine yesterday. Simple plug and play. Great work Khannie

Professey Chin · 12-03-2015 2:58pm

Feck. Forgot I put my home address on it. Now I wont get to play with it until the weekend. Bumgrapes

Khannie · 12-03-2015 10:16pm

howamidifferent wrote: »

Yep, I got mine yesterday. Simple plug and play. Great work Khannie

Thanks very much. Glad you like it. We worked hard to make it work with ease.

Very few talking about the features that cost us the most effort actually (the Tor proxy and bridge config via the UI were hard work for example) but the reviews have all been incredibly positive so we're over the moon.

Robxxx7 · 16-03-2015 8:11pm

Mine arrived today and was installed and up and working in no time ....
Very nice Job with it Khannie .... Will have a good play with it over the course of the next few days..

dbit · 24-03-2015 5:24pm

Very nice indeed . lots of uses for this little guy .............

I do prefer to use Tor alone when accessing censored webs . What about java code and dns leaks as mentioned by one of the guru's a few pages back? has that been certified to the enth degree ? Well done class little product.

Khannie · 24-03-2015 8:51pm

Glad you like it. All DNS requests go through Tor. As for Java code - it's requests would also go through Tor. This is actually one of the ways that a Tor router is safer than the Tor browser bundle - a third party app wont expose your IP.

The router does make NTP requests that don't go over Tor but to the best of my recollection we have everything else locked down (we even proxy our firmware update check over Tor so as not to expose users).

Khannie · 29-03-2015 12:36pm

A new InvizBox firmware is available.

The update is to block an IP leak vulnerability that exists in Firefox and Chrome. We also updated to the latest version of Tor (0.2.5.11).

The update is available for download on our firmware update page: https://www.invizbox.io/firmware/

We would recommend that you update to this newer firmware. The web UI will alert you that it is available anyway.

GAAman · 29-03-2015 12:45pm

Wow, stumbled upon this thread this morning and it went from being an idea to them flying off the shelves!

Fair play Khannie!

Reckon I will be getting one soon too

Blowfish · 02-04-2015 4:07pm

So, ZDNet did a review...

Khannie · 03-04-2015 2:11am

Yeah.... It's basically device agnostic as a review. Every accusation that's made could easily be levelled at PORTAL too. Not very nice really. Completely ignores all the benefits of devices like this.

dbit · 03-04-2015 9:18am

Ye but c'mon if anyone using this is well aware of the pitfalls, Signed in accounts and all , for the most part true anons will not use any identifiable details . The google tracking and plugin tracking could all that not be looped to 127.0.0.1 , or even have a mini browser client deploy from the device that is clean/free from injected or hooked plugins ?

I wouldnt pay much attention to the negs as the product is a major leap forward in an area most have failed to produce and ran away from the challenges . Kudos to you guys itll only get better with time .

The Black Oil · 03-04-2015 1:10pm

Set this up yesterday. Having a little trouble with the stability of the connection. Have unplugged it, for now.

kupus · 04-04-2015 12:07am

Just posting good luck with this.
I dont know anything about this stuff.
When you talk about cookies... I think of mccvities.
When onion is mentioned i think of fried, with sausages and rashers. Tor... Sounds like a norse god missing a h.
But nice to read a good start up business story here on boards and best of luck and hard work (same thing lol) in the future.

Only advice i can give you and its very simple..... "give the people what they want"

Khannie · 04-04-2015 1:02am

The Black Oil wrote: »

Having a little trouble with the stability of the connection.

Tell me more....

Khannie · 04-04-2015 1:04am

We released another firmware. This has two changes: A bug caught by Sean Gallagher from Ars Technica is fixed (solid work on his part in fairness) and we added the option to save settings between flashes.

The Black Oil · 04-04-2015 9:13am

Khannie wrote: »

Tell me more....

Connection drops. Might be Airport (Mac) that's the issue, not sure. Couldn't access boards when the connection was OK.

Kinet1c · 04-04-2015 12:19pm

The Black Oil wrote: »

Connection drops. Might be Airport (Mac) that's the issue, not sure. Couldn't access boards when the connection was OK.

It's working so

Boards doesn't allow connections from TOR.

hooplah · 07-04-2015 9:26am

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9328767

Hacker News discussion of the Anonabox analysis. I posted a link to Invizbox and there's a bit of discussion there.

Khannie · 07-04-2015 10:33pm

Thanks.

We did see that last night. Very nice of you to post that. This bit:

They TOO are only patching a binary firmware delivered by the manufacturer of the router (Gainstrong).

is not true and he really should get accusations like that right before making them, but sure we'll soldier on. For the record: We did our own builds of OpenWRT and Tor from latest source and wrote plenty of our own code (you can see this in the Tor specific functionality that we added to the UI).

We're planning to release a firmware for the anonabox people who got stung with the initial firmware. They've since issued a recall on them. Pretty scary to think that they thought it was OK to send them out in the first place.

Khannie · 08-04-2015 10:30pm

I don't think it's spamming to post this - there was a huge article in Ars Technica today comparing us and anonabox (link).

We came out very strongly on top which was brilliant. It's been hard competing with anonabox. They're very good at spin and we're not, but we're much better at making Tor routers which, thankfully, is what counts when it all boils down to it.

I must say, Sean Gallagher is a top end journalist. He really researches his stories very well. He had our box since Paddy's day, like! I'd say we refreshed his profile page on Ars about 2 billion times between us.

dalta5billion · 08-04-2015 11:20pm

Khannie wrote: »

I don't think it's spamming to post this - there was a huge article in Ars Technica today comparing us and anonabox (link).

We came out very strongly on top which was brilliant. It's been hard competing with anonabox. They're very good at spin and we're not, but we're much better at making Tor routers which, thankfully, is what counts when it all boils down to it.

I must say, Sean Gallagher is a top end journalist. He really researches his stories very well. He had our box since Paddy's day, like! I'd say we refreshed his profile page on Ars about 2 billion times between us.

I've always valued ArsTechnica's journalism pretty highly compared to other sites.

Khannie · 09-04-2015 12:18am

Agreed. The standard of his article makes an absolute mockery of the zdnet one that came out previously.

BoB_BoT · 09-04-2015 1:21pm

bedlam wrote: »

What is the upgrade process for anonabox owners, I thought there was no user accessible interface for those owners?

Return to base or buy a new one.

I'd imagine they'd be receiving regular updates for the Tor side of things, but to patch bugs in the firmware, it's send it back or buy a new one.

Khannie · 09-04-2015 1:50pm

bedlam wrote: »

I meant how will the anonabox users put the invizbox firmware on their devices if there's no user interface

We intend exploiting their security holes to get root. After that we're hoping it's a fairly straightforward upgrade. Just waiting to get the box in hand. A lad from the US who was very unhappy with his anonabox did a swap with us.

BoB_BoT · 09-04-2015 2:03pm

bedlam wrote: »

I meant how will the anonabox users put the invizbox firmware on their devices if there's no user interface

Ha, sorry, stupid of me, didn't read your post properly. My apologies :P

Hotblack Desiato · 12-10-2015 8:23pm

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/tech-tools-invizbox-go-protects-you-on-the-move-1.2382411

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/irish-firm-s-product-to-mask-online-activity-1.2387580

anvilfour · 13-10-2015 8:31am

Very impressive Khannie, I had no idea you were behind this!

For anyone else thinking of ordering one, in the country selection Ireland is listed under "Republic of Ireland", took me a while to find it with my addled English brain.

Khannie · 13-10-2015 8:44am

Thanks for the support everyone.

Yeah, it's me, my wife and our friend. I'm the baldy one.

Handed in the notice at the day job to give it a whirl there a while ago, that's why we had to aim so high with the kickstarter. The oul' bills have to be paid while we do the R&D and of course the hardware has to be paid for. Fun times. I can safely say that I have never had a more stressful time in my life than during this kickstarter and (fun fact) I used to fight professionally and let me tell you....facing off against someone who has trained for years just to kick you around the ring can be a little stressful.

Building a better anonabox

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