[Freedombox-discuss] FreedomBox/Unhosted/PageKite for Access Innovation Prize 2012
On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:59 AM, Michiel de Jong <michiel at unhosted.org>wrote:
> This is great stuff!
>
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 5:29 AM, Nick M. Daly <nick.m.daly at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I'd *love* to see Tor and PageKite in the default image. I don't know
> > if there'll be time/expertise to get Tor into the image before EOY, but
> > we should be able to include PageKite, if nothing else. Bjarni's two
> > line install instructions are confounding! :)
> >
> > Nick
> >
> > 0: http://github.com/nickdaly/freedom-maker
> >
> > 1: http://github.com/nickdaly/plinth
> >
> > 2: http://github.com/nickdaly/freedombox-privoxy
>
> 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. Also,
> the whole point of the remoteStorage web architecture is that the
> storage is just dumb storage and that all functionality and actual
> niceness is in unhosted web apps to which you connect your
> remoteStorage dynamically, instead of doing server-side webpage
> generation.
>
> So let me think about what steps we would need:
>
> - add pagekite and pyUnhosted to the image.
>
> - right now pyUnhosted outputs information (including the password you
> need) to the console. that should be piped somehow to plinth, so that
> the user can actually see it.
>
> - IIUC, for privoxy to work out of the box, we still need a way for
> the freedombox to become the default proxy for all devices on the
> wifi. how does that work?
My understanding is that it would be a transparent proxy, i.e. it captures
all connections.
So you don't have to configure anything on the client devices, they get
privoxyfied automatically if they use the FreedomBox wifi.
The easiest UI for this would be if the
> freedombox emits a wifi signal. people will understand that. If the
> freedombox only lets through https and ssh traffic, then this wifi
> signal can be unencrypted, like for instance the wifi signal at fosdem
> or other big conferences, so we help with the open wifi movement
> http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/EFF-Pushes-For-Open-WiFi-Movement-114016
> by default (of course if the user is opposed to bandwidth altruism for
> some reason then they should be able to switch it off in plinth). If
> the freedombox does not emit its own wifi single, then i cannot see an
> easy first-use experience, but maybe i'm missing something.
>
Idealistic as it may be, I don't think the open WiFi movement is appealing
to the mainstream of Internet users. I think we'll get into all sorts of
troubles and liabilities if we ship FreedomBox'es with open WiFi. Of course
it could be optional, but I don't think it should be the default.
- on first use, you would have to opt-in to setting up the public
> interface to your remoteStorage. so plinth would need a screen that
> say "choose your username and password at freedomstorage.org (or
> whatever we call it)", and from that moment on, it would be dialled in
> there, and ready for connecting your freedombox to unhosted web apps
> as remoteStorage.
>
Sounds good to me, yeah the user will have to choose their PageKite name
(and maybe be allowed to later change it? or add multiple names?)
> - 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. i know this
> proposal is only for creating the disk image, but we should also set
> up a pre-order production chain. As soon as 100 orders are in, we just
> organize a flashing-weekend, flash 100 devices in an afternoon, and
> ship them.
>
Sounds great.
- 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.
>
We should also have some updating mechanism.
Ideally, we would have a FreedomAppStore where you can download additional
functionality, but that may be too hard for now, and a bit risky from a
security perspective.
A simple future-ready updating mechanism could be:
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.
So we could start shipping simple Privoxy+remoteStorage+PageKite boxes now,
and in a year or so we could tell people to download the update file and
stick it into their box.
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