The AnonyBox - a Cheap and Easy Network Device to Manage Anonymity Online

With the return of CISPA, the growing likelihood of future SOPA-like laws, and the drastic hardware advances that have made Eschelon and Carnivore believable possiilities, anonymizing internet activity has become very important to maintaining the free flow of information.

To this end, I recently purchased a subscription to an anonymous VPN service called PrivateInternetAccess.  It's relatively cheap, and reasonably secure, but, like all VPNs, configuration is very frustrating.  I have seven devices on my network.  Some of them need to be remotely accessible, which is very difficult over an annonymous VPN.  Others need anonymity for some services, and direct connection for others.  Unfortunately, VPNs make this complicated.  I could manage seperate iptables on each machine, to route specific traffic through 7 separate VPN connections, but the management would get really complicated.

So, instead, I bought an inexpensive Linux device called a PogoPlug, and set it up as a stand-alone VPN client that serves an HTTP proxy and a SOCKS proxy.  It has several safeguards to guarantee anonymous access, and only draws 5W of power.  I call the device The AnonyBox.

Now, all I have to do is point the devices and services that need anonymity to the AnonyBox, and I'm done.  It's a cheap and easy way to manage VPN between multiple devices.

I also wrote a how to guide, for others to set up a similar device:
http://gschoppe.com/blog/the-anonybox-squid-socks-and-openvpn-all-for-15/

Comments

[VanessaL2]

I like another vpn (aslo cheap and fast) - boxpn.com

[Computothought]

That would be interesting to try on the rpi also.

[gschoppe]

it's worth a shot, but given the Raspberry Pi's limited processing power and software network stack implemented on the usb bus, I would expect serious latency issues.

also, Adorama has the PogoPlug on sale for $15 with free shipping, so I'd use that for this semi-permanent use, and save the $35 Raspberry Pi for a situation that needs video output or GPIO pins.

[Computothought]

Think I got one from Amazon for about that price. Since yours seems to be the one I have, I may set up a limix bos using the pogoplug. Everything I have tried on the rpi seems to work well.

[gschoppe]

also, if you use Chome, there is an addon called Proxy Switchy! that makes it easy to switch from anonymous to public mode.. by enabling it in incognito mode and using it with the SOCKS proxy (remember that Squid caches content locally), you are effectively untrackable. Just remember not to out yourself by accessing anonymously created accounts in public mode, or linking them to any information that tracks back to your public identity.