Update 10/15/14 6:06 p.m. ET by Konrad Krawczyk: The creators of the Anonabox router are generating plenty of heat from the Reddit community.
A significant amount of people on Reddit have questioned Anonabox’s claims that the hardware was custom-made. One user even found a very similar-looking router that’s being sold for under $20 on an Alibaba site dubbed aliexpress.com. That router doesn’t feature any Tor-centric privacy functions. Meanwhile, the Anonbox costs $45.
In a Reddit AMA, Anonabox developer August Germar posted the below comment. In it, he acknowledges that initial claims indicating that the Anonabox consists of custom hardware were not accurate.
“So my understanding is that the main issue is I used the term from ‘scratch’ when the device has many standardized components and resembles closely other hardware that currently exists right,” Germar asked. “The truth is we can make Tor routers out of a lot of existing hardware, but I thought it would be helpful to have a standardized piece of hardware to do it on.”
It will be interesting to see whether the project gets taken down, and/or if backers decide to pull their funding back as a result of this backlash.
To this point, Anonabox has raised over $570,000 via Kickstarter.
Privacy is hard to come by on the Internet, and some folks out there are just not satisfied with that reality.
One firm, dubbed Anonbox, has created a router of the same name that, it claims, is the device you should use if you want the “best and most secure way to access the Internet anonymously,” according to the project’s official Kickstarter page.
The Anonabox allegedly encrypts all Internet activity without requiring you to download software, create any sort of log-in information, or do any configuration. There’s no need to register for any sort of services either. The setup process consists of just plug-and-play.
With this open source router, Anonabox purports that you’ll be able to use popular services like Skype, Safari, and others without having to worry about whether your online activities are anonymous or not.
Anonabox notes that as more and more people start using the Tor network, there are bound to be some folks who are unaware of what steps they should take to make sure that they don’t accidentally leak out any information about themselves while surfing the Web. This problem, the company claims, is one that’s solved by the Anonabox, due to its simplicity, and ease of use.
The router’s creators were inspired to create the Anonabox by reports of Arab Spring protesters being cut off from Twitter by the government there.
“How about if we were to actually build that anti-censorship box we were just talking about and mail it out to people,” Anonabox’s creators wondered when they were thinking of how to create such a device. “Little did we know, it would take over four years, and a lot more tacos and beer, to create a device with the security, speed, functionality and easy-of-use that is the anonabox.”
As an added bonus, the Anonabox is pretty small, allowing you to conceal it just about anywhere.
So far, the Anonabox Kickstarter campaign has been fabulously successful. While the developers set an initial funding target of $7,500, the campaign has received over $85,000 in contributions as of this writing. Plus, that’s with 29 days to go.
If you order an Anonabox now by pledging $45 or more, you should get it sometime in January 2015. However, keep in mind that the page notes this as an “estimated delivery” time-frame.
You can learn more about the Anonabox here.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.