FreedomBox-0.2

Mon, 12 May 2014 21:07:40 +0000

FreedomBox version 0.2

For those of you who have not heard through the mailing list or in the project's IRC channel (#freedombox on http://www.oftc.net/), FreedomBox has reached the 0.2 release. This second release is still intended for developers but represents a significant maturation of the components we have discussed here in the past and a big step forward for the project as a whole.

0.2 features

Plinth, our user interface tool, is now connected to a number of running systems on the box including PageKite, an XMPP chat server, local network administration if you want to use the FreedomBox as a home router, and some diagnostic and general system configuration tools. Plinth also has support for downloading and installing ownCloud.

Additionally, the 0.2 release installs Tor and configures it as a bridge. This default configuration does not actually send any of your traffic through Tor or allow those sending traffic over Tor to enter the public net using your connection. Acting as a bridge simply moves data around within the Tor network, much like adding an additional participant to a game of telephone. The more bridges there are in the Tor network, the harder it is to track where that traffic actually comes from.

Availability and reach

As discussed previously, one of the ways we are working to improve privacy and security for computer users is by making the tools we include in FreedomBox available outside of particular FreedomBox images or hardware. We are working towards that goal by adding the software we use to the Debian community Linux distribution upon which the FreedomBox is built. I am happy to say that Plinth, PageKite, ownCloud, as well as our internal box configuration tool freedombox-setup are now all available in the Jessie version of Debian.

In addition to expanding the list of tools available in Debian we have also expanded the range of Freedom-maker, the tool that builds full images of FreedomBox to deploy directly onto machines like our initial hardware target the DreamPlug. Freedom-maker can now build images for DreamPlug, the VirtualBox blend of virtual machines, and the RaspberryPi. Now developers can test and contribute to FreedomBox using anything from a virtual machine to one of the more than two million RaspberryPis out there in the world.

The future

Work has really been speeding up on the FreedomBox in 2014 and significant work has been done on new cryptographic security tools for a 0.3 release. As always, the best places to find out more are the wiki, the mailing list and the IRC channel.