[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox/Unhosted/PageKite for Access Innovation Prize 2012

[Nick M. Daly]

Thanks for discussing this, you both raise a lot of good points, and I
have a couple questions.

On Tue, 3 Jul 2012 16:25:16 +0200, Markus Sabadello wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:59 AM, Michiel de Jong wrote:
> >
> > So even though ownCloud has a nicer interface than pyUnhosted,
> > getting apache, sqlite, GD, php5 and ownCloud 4.0.4 all on a device
> > with basically the power of a smartphone might be a bit ambitious...
> >
> > So let me think about what steps we would need:
> >
> > - add pagekite and pyUnhosted to the image.

Easy, given this week's weekly-image changes.  See:

    freedom-maker/bin/projects

> > - pyUnhosted ... piped somehow to plinth

Wordpress on Debian has actually solved this for us.  See:

    /usr/share/doc/wordpress/examples/setup-mysql

They dump the credentials to a file with the right permissions and
ownership and use that as the permanent data store.

> > - become the default proxy for all devices on the wifi...?
>
> My understanding is that it would be a transparent proxy... they get
> privoxyfied automatically if they use the FreedomBox wifi.

I haven't actually given a lot of thought to the box as a wireless host.
Most of my thinking has been using it as a host through the wild
intertubes.

On Tue, 3 Jul 2012 16:45:43 +0200, Markus Sabadello wrote:
> Of course then people would have 2 wifis, not sure if that's good or bad.
> Good, because I think it would easily work with the setup that most people
> have at home.
> Good also, because you can always choose to NOT use the FreedomBox.
> Bad, because it might be a more complex setup than it needs to be.

There are a couple ways we could go here.

1. Replace your router with a FreedomBox.  Technically, always possible,
   though ISPs might get irritated.

2. Co-mingle your FBX and router.  If people understand wifi, they'll
   also understand multiple signals.  As long as the FBX is an effective
   proxy, I'm not worried about it, technically.  Socially, though, it's
   a weird thing: "You mean I have to click that wifi button *every
   time* I want privacy?!"

   Ideally, people would just move away from their router's networks
   altogether and push all their client devices' communications through
   the FBX.

> > on first use, you would have to opt-in to setting up the public
> > interface to your remoteStorage...  we would have to set up said
> > service, with for instance a 5-year plan included in the purchase of
> > the off-the-shelf device...  if we can resolve the first-use/wifi
> > question then i think putting a box with privoxy +
> > remoteStorage-through-pagekite on the market should be achievable.

I'm a little leery of asking users to sign up for a service on a device
that's designed to let them host their own services.  It seems
internally inconsistent.  I don't think I have anything against offering
it as an option, but it shouldn't be the only one.  We should also
listen to Zooko's advice and allow the folks who want to attach a GB -
TB scale device to host their own storage provider and contribute to a
(self-encrypted) shared FBX storage grid.  I guess it's mostly a
question of which one gets done when.

> We should also have some updating mechanism...
> 1. When the FreedomBox boots, it checks if a certain file (together with a
> signature) is present on an attached USB drive.
> 2. If yes, and if the user enters their password, that file is executed and
> can update the box.

Why reinvent the wheel when we already have Debian's updating system?
Apt seems to work pretty well for the rest of the distribution.  Any
reasons it won't work here?

Nick
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