Kickstarter Pulls Tor-Enabled Router That Raised $585K

[HardOCP News]

The crowd giveth and Kickstarter taketh away.

The Anonabox, which was created by August Germar, of Chico, California, aimed to be an “open source embedded networking device designed specifically to run Tor.” Its fundraising goal was $7,500, and in five days, it raised $585,549 from nearly 9,000 backers—including three Ars editors.

 

[sfsuphysics]

All because he basically rebranded an existing product... and more importantly, because he actually talked about it. If he simply said nothing, he could have done like any number of other kickstarters and cashed his check then release (or not) a mediocre product.

 

[Ashbringer]

Mostly because anyone could do the same thing to their router with Open-WRT.

 

[Warrior]

And now all the backers are on the NSA list.

 

[MCRAYGSX]

And now all the backers are on the NSA list.

Didn't you know, it was a trap to begin with ?!?!

 

[Kibagami]

Admiral Ackbar didn't tell them in time.

 

[natos]

http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/screen-shot-2014-09-26-at-9-57-06-am.png?w=659


Umm......yea!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Kind of a bad idea to use TOR anyway, NSA and FBI have been targeting it by monitoring inputs and outputs for years.

All it will accomplish these days is to get some unwanted attantion...

 

[Retronym]

And now all the backers are on the NSA list.

What's a router? *whistles*

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

If the FBI can compromise TOR in order to catch kiddie-pornographers, you bet the DCMA/MPAA, or whomever the hell you are trying to hide shit from can too.

All it does these days is draw attention.

 

[Tak Ne]

If people want a device like this (not as neat & compact) its easy with a Raspberry Pi

https://learn.adafruit.com/onion-pi TOR
https://www.adafruit.com/blog/2014/04/25/how-to-bulid-a-raspberry-pi-vpn-part-two-creating-an-encrypted-client-side-piday-raspberrypi-raspberry_pi/ VPN

I used a USB-Ethernet as security & wifi are incompatible.

 

[rat]

All because he basically rebranded an existing product... and more importantly, because he actually talked about it. If he simply said nothing, he could have done like any number of other kickstarters and cashed his check then release (or not) a mediocre product.

He didn't rebrand an existing product. He LIED ABOUT IT and claimed he designed/manufactured the entire thing himself.

Read. The. Fucking. Article.

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/17/anonabox-how-to-fail-horribly-at-kickstarter/

http://www.reddit.com/r/anonabox/comments/2ja22g/hi_im_august_germar_a_developer_for_the_anonabox/

The whole thing was a scam.

 

[daglesj]

The high end hi-fi industry does this all the time.

Take a standard $5 product, slap a nice label on it, put it in a wooden box and charge $500 for it.

 

[Arbit3r]

The high end hi-fi industry does this all the time.

Take a standard $5 product, slap a nice label on it, put it in a wooden box and charge $500 for it.

there is A Certain Fruit company that does that already.

 

[poconopc]

It was a crappy chinese knockoff , exact same picture as one they were selling.