[Freedombox-discuss] What do you use your FBX for?

[Jay Sulzberger]

On Mon, 10 Dec 2012, maxigas maxigas <maxigas at anargeek.net> wrote:

> From: Rob van der Hoeven <robvanderhoeven at ziggo.nl>
> Subject: Re: [Freedombox-discuss] What do you use your FBX for?
> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:30:52 +0100
>> It is possible that Time-Warner blocks port 80 but i find this highly
>> unlikely. Someone else on the list with a Time-Warner Cable connection
>> with the same problems?
>
> i think you are misunderstanding the original mail where TWC was an
> example name for a big provider.  the message was not about a specific
> technical problem but about the general assumptions behind the
> feasability of freedombox.  the poster would like to live in a world
> where carriers cannot put up firewalls, or at least that does not stop
> freedombox from operating as a distributed infrastructure.
>
> posting how-tos about port forwarding will not solve that issue.
>
> maxigas, kiberpunk

Yes.  Hackers and sysadmins, in particular builders of the
Freedombox, need such how-tos.  And our how-tos should be as good
as we can make them.  Rob's post at

   http://freedomboxblog.nl/ssh-access-from-the-internet-to-my-freedombox/

looks to me to be solid (I have not yet tried the particular
recipe).

But, and now I just repeat what you say, further work of a
different sort is also required.  This further work must be done,
I think, if the Freedombox is to be used by many people.  Because
even with the best how-tos ever seen for how to set up incoming
connections, using our present software and hardware, most people
will not be able to set up a system that accepts incoming
connections.  (Or some might, and leave their system open to many
attacks.)

Our side would be helped by more people using port forwarding
today to, for example, chat (encrypted) directly, to send email
(encrypted) directly, and more suchlike.  If more people make
direct connections, no third party in the way, then more people
will understand what the Net is.  And then, I hope, more people
will understand how close we are to losing the Net.  And these
people will fight to keep our Net, when the Englobulators figure
out what the Net is, and they make their moves to suppress it at
the level of "Only these authorized connections may be made.".
So we should work to make available a solid easy to use, somewhat
hardened, "open up a path through the home router to the Net"
stack of software and hardware.  So instead of a how-to on port
forwarding, as port forwarding is done today, what we want is a
button on the home computer screen which says, say, "Encrypted
Chat" and hitting that button opens such a path, and runs the
encrypting chat program.  This requires, I think, new code on
both the computer and on the home router.

Please forgive this re-statement of both the rationale and the
the goal of the Freedombox Project!

oo--JS.


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