Minimal configuration and high tech privacy, anonymity, security on a small low-watt computer for non-expert end users.

What is FreedomBox?

Email and telecommunications that protects privacy and resists eavesdropping

A publishing platform that resists oppression and censorship.

An organizing tool for democratic activists in hostile regimes.

An emergency communication network in times of crisis.

FreedomBox will put in people's own hands and under their own control encrypted voice and text communication, anonymous publishing, social networking, media sharing, and (micro)blogging.

Much of the software already exists: onion routing, encryption, virtual private networks, etc. There are tiny, low-watt computers known as "plug servers" to run this software. The hard parts is integrating that technology, distributing it, and making it easy to use without expertise. The harder part is to decentralize it so users have no need to rely on and trust centralized infrastructure.

That's what FreedomBox is: we integrate privacy protection on a cheap plug server so everybody can have privacy. Data stays in your home and can't be mined by governments, billionaires, thugs or even gossipy neighbors.

With FreedomBoxes in their homes, anybody, regardless of technical skill, can easily enjoy secure, private, even anonymous communication!

Problem

Inherently, there is an assumption that the Internet can instantly facilitate cohesive communities, however, we have seen that this has not been the case. In many places, the network is frail. Access is ad-hoc, unreliable or incompatible. Crises render the network unreliable (Egypt or Syria), absent (Sendai) or even treacherous (China). Elsewhere, censorship, privacy invasion and lack of security restrict direct personal communication. A few web sites carry most internet communication. They steer interaction toward monetizable channels and toll-taking gatekeepers. They give your private communication to hostile governments. Social networking sites sell you, your personal data, and your social graph to advertisers in the guise of creating infrastructure that fosters community. Digital infrastructure is everywhere inadequate for safe, unmediated direct interpersonal communication. This inhibits cooperation and community organization. It prevents the kind of communities that make momentous social change in the face of powerful opposition and daunting obstacles.

Solution

FreedomBox will put in people's own hands and under their own control encrypted voice and text communication, anonymous publishing, social networking, media sharing, and (micro)blogging. We need a robust, open network architecture to serve popular needs from the pipes up to the user. The solution is decentralized infrastructure so all the people on the network can communicate free of external or artificial barriers. Much of the software already exists: onion routing, encryption, virtual private networks, etc. There are tiny, low-watt computers known as plug servers to run this software. The hard parts is integrating that technology, distributing it, and making it easy to use without expertise. The harder part is to decentralize it so users have no need to rely on and trust centralized infrastructure. That's what FreedomBox is: we integrate privacy protection on a cheap plug server so everybody can have privacy. Data stays in your home and can't be mined by governments, billionaires, thugs or even gossipy neighbors. FreedomBox assembles robust software, makes that software work well together, and configures it to be as easy as possible to use. We provide that software for free under open source licenses to hardware vendors who install the software on low-cost plug servers, which they sell. Other people will download our software for free and install it themselves on their existing hardware (a spare netbook, perhaps). With FreedomBoxes in their homes, anybody, regardless of technical skill, can easily enjoy secure, private, even anonymous communication!

Example

* Egyptian Democracy activists had trouble talking to demonstrators in the streets because the Mubarak regime shutdown parts of the internet as well as many cellular networks. If your internet plug is pulled, the box will use mesh routing to talk to other boxes like it. If any of them can get a packet across the border, they all can. * The US government famously sought information about internal WikiLeaks communications from Twitter and other social websites. By moving our communication from centralized monoliths to decentralized servers in our homes, we protect our data from government prying. * Many whistleblowers and dissidents need to anonymously talk to media and the public. With the FreedomBox, they can use VOIP to encrypt telephone calls and can create anonymous web servers over TOR to publish documents. Anonymous instant messaging or microblogging are also possible. * FreedomBoxes are encrypted web proxies. Boxes in uncensored countries can bounce signals for users stuck behind censorship walls---each one is a tiny crack in the Great Firewall. Chinese users could surf the entire net free from government eavesdropping. * FreedomBoxes are useful on a daily personal level too. That same proxy technology can scrub web sites of ads and tracking technology as you use them, thus protecting your privacy. FreedomBoxes help you encrypt your email. They also know who your friends are and can back up your data in encrypted form to their FreedomBoxes. You can get your data back even if you don't know your password. Even absent a crisis, privacy matters.

Marketplace

FreedomBox has no competitors. Projects exist to make individual parts of the FreedomBox, but nobody seeks an integrated solution to address a broad range of privacy, anonymity and security needs. Those individual projects are our partners, not our competitors. Their success is vital to our mission, because the open source technology they create powers the FreedomBox. Peers include Tor, PageKite, Mesh Potato, Identi.ca, Diaspora, Tahoe, Friendika, and Commotion. All these projects have interoperability as their goal, and when they are deployed on computers that are not FreedomBoxes, our users benefit from the network effects. Projects exist to deploy meshes to disaster sites. This is difficult. Our approach is daily utility so the mesh is present when disaster strikes. Additional mesh capability deployed by such projects would of course improve the network. There are also entrenched social networking websites that people use despite their lack of respect for privacy. We won't move recalcitrant users off those websites but will instead empower those who want a more secure alternative. FreedomBox will have to interoperate with established services like Facebook and Twitter.