FreedomBox – the Personal Server that protects your privacy with free open source software


Welcome to The Stack CafeTM — FreedomBox – the Personal Server that protects your privacy with free open source software.  Freedom Box is a project to provide software to help users of the internet regain control over how they interact with the internet.  FreedomBox is brought to you by the Freedom Box Foundation

FreedomBox, a personal server that appears to be built to securely host all of your data and protects against data mining, surveillance, and cyberattacks.  This looks like a very interesting project and we are going to take a deeper look.  As we explore more about FreedomBox, we hope to provide updates as appropriate.

FreedomBox lays it out this way: “FreedomBox is designed to be your own inexpensive server at home. It runs free software and offers an increasing number of services ranging from a calendar or jabber server to a wiki or VPN. Our web interface allows you to easily install and configure your apps. Be your own host!”

FreedomBox

  • free open source software coupled with a single board computer, virtual machines, Debian…)
  • is a collaborative effort 
  • to help regain control and privacy in the digital world
  • the vision is to use free software running on cheap hardware to replace services that are not under our control
  • today’s cost of CPU power and network bandwidth make hosting your own services affordable
  • built on top of Debian GNU/Linux
  • the easy to use administration tool
  • is a simple system that installs onto your single-board computer
    • plug it into your home network
    • A web interface acts as the central hub
      • offering one-click installs and simple configuration of apps and services
      • it functions as a Wi-Fi access point
        • FreedomBox also comes with numerous apps and services built-in
          • an anonymity network (e.g., believe this is the Tor network)
          • encrypted messaging
          • voice calls
          • a privacy-defending VPN
          • an ad-blocker
          • an address book
          • calendering
          • a blogging platform
          • decentralized application for chat

As a private server, FreedomBox securely hosts all of your data and protects against data mining, surveillance, and cyberattacks.

FreedomBox – some highlighted features

FreedomBox video setup

 

FreedomBox Debian and features, system and applications

We have not tried out the FreedomBox but we are going to give it a go.  Perhaps, it might be a complement to some other platforms of the decentralized world e.g, ethereum, ipfs, blockstack or others… Once we have a FreedomBox up and running, we will try and give some more insight about the same.

Caveat: Blockstack Tor integration – It does appear that Blockstack engineer, Mr. Jude Nelson, has done some coding in connection with integrating Tor and Blockstack.  Perhaps this software might be used in connection with FreedomBox (uses an anonymity network (e.g., believe this is the Tor network)).  The best links for these repositories are here and here.  We hope to follow-up with some more information on how this might work with the FreedomBox, if at all.

FreedomBox was brought to us by many open source contributors.  But, the seed for the idea is brought to us by Eben Moglen.  Mr. Moglen is a Professor of Law, Columbia Law School and Founding Director, Software Freedom Law Center.  He is a crusader of open source, privacy and security concerns for activists, journalists, businesses, and even ordinary people worldwide.  Thanks Mr. Moglen.

Resources for FreedomBox


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