[Freedombox-discuss] Some advice on moving Plinth forward?

[James Vasile]

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On Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:57:54 +0000, Alistair Davidson <alistair.l.davidson at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Mathieu Jourdan
> <mathieu.jourdan at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
> > Hi Alistair,
> >
> > Le 15 février 2012 15:06, Alistair Davidson
> > <alistair.l.davidson at gmail.com> a écrit :
> > > So, let's move towards some user stories.
> > >
> > > I'm a coder but not so hot at routing etc, so I'm going to act like a
> > dumb
> > > designer who is ignorant of technical limitations ;) Here are a few of my
> > > ideal stories, and some technical questions:
> > >
> > > Alice is concerned about privacy. She wants to buy a device that will
> > > automatically manage this for her. She buys a Freedombox, and following
> > the
> > > instruction sticker on the plug, she plugs an ethernet cable from her
> > modem
> > > to the freedombox, which then acts as a router using sensible default
> > > settings. (is this the correct process?)
> >
> > She also has to plug one more cable to link her freedombox to her
> > personal computer, in order to configure it.
> >
> > But other people may have multiple computers directly connected to a
> > switch-router-modem appliance, then routing may not be needed and DHCP
> > may be pointless.
> >
> 
> Could you describe the planned network topology a bit more? Does freedombox
> sit 'between' me and my router? Physically or just virtually? :)

We're trying not to lock the topology down until we have to.  We want it
to work in as many configurations as possible.  In my mind, though, the
most oft-used case will be putting the FreedomBox in place of or just
upstream of your router.

> 
> Does the computer need configured to proxy through freedombox or can we
> force that?

I think we have to config that.

> 
> > Bob is like Alice, but has a USB-only ADSL modem his ISP gave him. How is
> > > Linux USB modem driver coverage looking these days?
> > >
> > > Carol wants fine-grained control of her privacy. Following instructions
> > on
> > > the sticker, she types "freedombox" into the address bar of her browser
> > ( do
> > > we have control of DNS at this point?) This takes her to a top-level
> > page.
> > > She clicks the "Privacy" button and is presented with a simple interface
> > for
> > > controlling privoxy etc. An "Advanced" button allows her to access more
> > > complicated features when needed.
> >
> > If Carol's network topology is the same as Alice, I would say
> > freedombox could answer DNS requests in most cases. But for having
> > properly configured DNS resolution, Alice's computer may get network
> > parameters from freedombox DHCP, meaning she may have to (re)boot her
> > computer after plugging it.
> >
> > Anyway, having to configure privoxy is a pain. Configuring freedombox
> > shouldn't be more complicated than creating an account on any service
> > provider. I think Carol just wants to tell her box who she is, get her
> > data back from service providers and enjoy.
> >
> > Personnaly, I know lot of people having access to the Internet through
> > « a box », but no one except computer engineers having tried to
> > configure anything on it. Most people never heard about IP address or
> > domain name, while using it every day. Maybe freedombox could teach
> > them, I don't know, but it can't ask them anything about network or
> > security if we truly aim to rule the world.
> >
> 
> Progessive disclosure :) For example, if I click the wireless icon on my
> PC, I see a very simple list of networks to connect to. If I click on the
> network configuration option, I see a list of devices, and if I click to
> configure one I can force an IP or DNS server if I really want to. But the
> proverbial non-technical user never sees that in ordinary circumstances,
> and a modem-router their ISP gave them handles it all.
> 
> I completely agree that our routing functions should Just Work (tm) with as
> close to zero configuration as possible.

Yes.  Maybe it just tries dhcp and hopes for the best.  Indeed, we can
make that a requirement of the early release with a todo of something
more complex down the line.