taziden, kload: Internet Cube

intro music

Herald-Angel: So, welcome here on stage

bonsoir taziden and kload

the next talk is on

building a better internet

It all started I think

two years ago at the 30C3

when these two guys were here

inviting us to build our own ISP

and this year they want to invite us to

build something like a better internet

which is a small box I think
they have brought with them.

Yeah, that prevents your ISP from

snooping on your traffic and

enables you to circumvent things like

carrier grade NAT

and all of these oddites

Stage is yours

kload + taziden: Thank you

applause

taziden: Hello everyone, so we are
going to talk to you about

the internet cube, which is this little box
you can see here

maybe you have heard already

about this project with the french name

“La brique Internet”,

but today we are going to stick with

the internet cube.

So let's start with some facts

kload: today we have an Internet
made of big silos

and this is really something

we're incomfortable with

and really something we need to change.

We have… We give information to

a lot of companies, a lot of entities,

governments and stuff that

are having this power to

influence us through this.

So, yeah, it is to say that

we have this princess freedom

we can say that is being held by

some evelish Ganondorf

Like you know that Google, Amazon, Netflix,

Apple, Microsoft, Dropbox, Nasty one, Onclick,

doubleclick.google.ceobase.com
or something like this

and reddit, obviously

and facebook, that's for sure

fact number 2, maybe

t: fact number 2: internet needs diversity

internet is today as kload said

the information is centered in silos

but not only personal information

also the public information

and we can have today

what is your freedom

if the only information you get is from

the top hundread websites

so that's a major problem.

We need more networks,

we need more websites,

we need more information, more sources,

more diversity and obviously

we need more networks.

k: Thankfully we have this

hypertext link to the rescue

of the princess here and

he seems a bit sad with only his shield

so he has to find this artifacts to get

to this old man in the cave and find

I don't know maybe something

maybe an internet cube

applause

Okay, okay, this way is a bit tough.

We have one here and

without further ado,

we'll make a quick demo

so that you have an idea how it works

t: so let's see we have one here
connected on the video

k: we just plugged in just before the conference

so that we can show the [???] at some point

t: let's see what's on there

k: just have to type my domain name,

a very common one

t: yea, it works.

applause

this is where it works,

a device like this

and yeah, I just have my
awesome website on it

I can just have my e-mails,

I mean receive my e-mails.

Yeah, I guess, I hope.

So you can actually send me e-mails on it.

k: let's encrypt is not yet included,

but we're working on it.

t: It is self signed certificates

but propper ciphers and stuff.

Don't worry.

k: You really accept it permanently?

t: I didn't.

So. It is running on the 4G connection here

because I don't know the CCC Network

is kind of spoofing things sometimes

and I will try to receive my e-mails here.

Don't move to much, he's working here.

k: awww, come on

t: Please, Please 4G.

Oh. That's something.

k: The packets are going through

europe and belgium, france also of course

t: That's because HTTPS is slowing up connections

Maybe we won't have e-mails, but I still have

my awesome website on it.

Oh, yes! It works!

Sorry about that.

Yeah!
applause

k: Can you remember the password?

t: I did. Something very strong.

Do you have something funny to say?

k: No. Not after the
talk I gave yesterday, no, sorry.

So, how are you today?

You're doing right?

t: Maybe you can explain that

k: we just plugged it in.

We even put this 4G phone in USB

connected it through USB to the cube

and it worked.

It recognised an internet device on

the USB-device and automatically connected

it to the internet.

This is kind of a plug-and-play thing.

t: Actually we can explain that we switched

to 3G connection because we had issues

during the preperation with the networks here

at the congress. Some people where trying

to spoof certificates.

k: DynDNS or SSL-Certificates, what an idea

t: let's wait a little bit

(whispers) Come on!

chuckles

that was working earlier.

k: of course it was working

Okay, maybe, what we can say about this,

don't try this at home because it's dangerous.

No, it’s … I mean …

Receiving e-mails, actual e-mails
on a 3G connected device.

That can be tricky at some point.

Okay, we can go further now and
just get back to it afterwards.

So, the question is:

How does it actually work?

t: … when it works. chuckles

t: How does it work?
That's the interesting part.

This little box, cube,
what is interesting about this

is that it's the union of three mayor

essential parts: three basic elements that

combine together gives something

very interesting and

the first part is open hardware.

We need to do this to achieve
what we are describing.

We need to have an open hardware that is cheap,

low voltage, that is hackable,

with specifications online and so far

the best match we had only makes Hamboard,

but open hardware is just one element and

you need to have free software
running on top

of this open hardware and that's something

kload has been working on
for a long time now

k: for like 3 years we worked on a software

called YunoHost which is basically

a Debian based distribution that aims

to facilitate or to ease the installation

and the management, the handling

of services on the server

easing the user creation, management,

the backup creation, the domain creation

the extention of the server capabilities

with applications and stuff.

So that's regarding the software part.

You can find further information on the website

YunoHost.org and we had those 2 components

cool hardware, open and

olimex is quite a cool manufacturer

and we had this software which works on

that board but we needed something

in order to solve this network issue

that obviously is a pain in the ass when you

are trying to host yourself.

It's like how can I make my server open

on the internet and that's
how the third component comes up.

We need, actually …

We chose to add to this a VPN connection

to a trustworthy provider.

t: Two years ago I was here at the congress

giving a talk about inviting you to build

your own ISPs and when you are running

such ISPs you should communicate and

help each other in order
for the networks to grow

and this networks to have them
everywhere, actually.

We met with Freifunk and so.

That was really great and we at the time

presented a tool called db.ffdn.org

and you can find on this site a whole bunch

of internet access providers,

non-profit ones, that are enabling us

with this cube to provide VPN access with

public endpoints which means you can have

your personal data or your public data
accessible through the Internet

through trusted connection,

going through a friendly ISP

and that's something that's not possible

with the most of the commercial ISPs

that are blocking port 25,

that are doing silly stuff,

that are doing discrimination on the network

and that do not want us to do self hosting.

That's the 3rd element that I've seen

missing in most of the projects about

this kind of matter.

It's how do you …

You can trust the hardware,

you can work on the hardware,

you can work on the software,

but the missing link is always, I think,

the third is one about the connection
to the Internet.

Combined together this

3 elements give what we think is

kind of only trinity like

and it makes the internet cube.

k: those 3 parts are very legit in the

sense that it now comes as a plug and play

device, something really plug and play

even though it is a bit slow sometimes but…

t: depends on the network

k: depends on the network, but this question

of having friendly ISPs is
really complicated to solve.

Self hosting is becoming
really complicated.

Now having this 3 parts

really makes the cube plug and play

and the cool part is adding a WiFi antenna

on it and you have actually this initial

network broadcasted through all your house,

every place you go you have this wifi,

we have one though, we have a

non-discriminant network being
broadcasted as they all say, they have WiFi.

t: it's overrated

k: We have also this possibilities to

broadcast a virtual network at home

and just by connecting to it

your commercial non-trustworthy ISP

is not able to read what you are doing
off your connection anymore.

There is those very 2 parts

having a virtual network at home

and having a personal cell
working right away

t: that's the very interesting thing
about all this

is that you have two major parts like

connecting to the cube and your data

from everywhere on the internet

and also at your home, or whereever

you are you can connect to the internet

through a trusted channel and

of course this is what we came up with

but I think there are many, many

other things we can do and maybe

you are all wondering how do you get one?

a working one of course

and that's an interesting question

it's easy for French people or

Belgian to have one because there are

non profit local ISPs providing this cubes

nearby that as I say

the local part is very important

what you should do is maybe think about

building your own ISP providing VPN access

such as we do and also all the parts,

all the documentation,
all the software and so on

is online and we really invite people
to build their own.

If you have questions about building your
own ISP and providing

public IPs to friends and
to people around you,

ask us, we can help you

It's really what we want to do.
It's really to have more networks,

to have more projects like this

k: the thing that we often miss here is that

it is not as difficult as we think to build

an actual VPN provider.

We've done it a lot in France,

we've done quite, I don't know

how many members are in the federation?

t: in the federation,
we have a federation of

non-profit internet access providers
and I think

like 2 years ago we where like 21 and now

we have 28 organisations

k: 28 non-profit organisations made by

just passionists over France so

we have knowledges of how we can

build one and if you want to do so just

just ask us

t: We have gathered enough knowledge to

help you bootstrap something.

t: one thing is:
before the internet cube project

came up, we were not so much interested in

building VPN service.
It really came up like this with

people from the YunoHost project

with the Olimex hardware we discovered

with the people involved
in the non-profit ISPs

and this very combination gives something

that I think is very, very cool
and very inspiring.

There are many things to do with it

many hacks to invent or things to …

k: Of course, this hardware is kind of

like a Rasberry Pi, it has potentially …
all of the potential

You can do domadig [?] with it.

We have made pirate boxes quite often,

maybe if you went to camp you
probably have seen me going around

with a big ad sign and this actually on

my head because I was sharing documents.

t: You also did it in Tunisia?

k: Yeah, in Tunisia, too.
We did it quite a few times

The thing is: you can build piratebox,

you can as a router, a wifi router,

you can imagine having some kind of

tor gateway, maybe one day routing all

the traffic instead of VPN
routing it through tor.

This is something we can
imagine with the …

t: with people using it
as a way to stream radio

from the place

k: Yea, as a streaming device...

t: It's one interesting thing
that there is a

battery, so you can just... really

have it on your backpack.
You can recharge it

with a solar panel as it's low voltage and

it's really something interesting and

we came up with this by tinkering.
We hope that

we will ... you will advance
other things to do

over creative, stupid, crazy ideas

and that's why we are here. So...

k: Yeah, if you want to have
more information though

you have this... this is
actually our domain.

That you figured out.

It's like "internetcube.be"

and you have all the information

all the documentation, mailing list, IRC,
every channel of communication

t: Yeah, you can contact us
to share actions

to see what can be improved,

because for us it fits in our use cases,

but it may be that there are other use cases

with when you are in Tunisia or other countries,

there are certainly other things
to do with it.

k: Yeah, anyway. If you want to talk about
this,

we are in CCC until the end, probably.

And so, yeah, we'd be glad to

answer your questions now, or we can look

at my mails. Okay! Questions?

applause

Herald: Okay, Merci beaucoup, taziden et kload

and do we have questions from the stream viewers

or from the audience?

That is not the case,
so thank you for your talk!

t: Thank you! Thank you!

applause

Herald: Okay, there is a question! Where?

Microphone 3!

Question: So thank you for the talk!

I don't have much knowledge about your

technology so far, so excuse if the question

is misplaced.

How does it compare to the Tor network

in terms of
anonymous access and stuff?

k: It actually doesn't compare to the

Tor network. We can not compare that.

t: But in terms of anoynmity: it doesn't

make you anonymous.
it's quite the opposite, actually.

The only thing that this box can do is

when you connect to it in the WiFi

in your house, everything that you do

all your connection, internet connection

is not readable any more for your actual

your commercial ISP.

Your connection becomes readable for

your local friendly organisation that

gives you this access.

Question: So you have to worry about your

end to end connections.

t: yeah! So as always.

Herald: So now I see people lining up.

Microphone 2 please!

Question: Hi, can it
send emails to Gmail

or is it just within your network?

And how does it work because the

filter home ISP usually at large providers?

You have to have a trusted IP to send

email to Gmail and others.

t: Yes, the ISP—the local ISP—gives you an

actual IP address on the this box

and this box can definitely send emails

to Gmail and receive emails from Gmail.

It's just easily …
it is linked to one of your domain.

So it is your domain that you are using.

Here it was various.expert

but you can definitely have
a more standard domain

But yes, with that you can receive emails

to your_nickname@your_domain.

Yes, definitely.

Herald: And there is a question
at microphone 4?

Question: Hi, I am originating for Tunisia,

so I am a little bit interested
in what you did in Tunisia

and during the Tunisian Arab spring revolution

it was that mesh networks, AIDA mesh network,

was that something you did or?

t: No not we! You want to answer maybe...

k: No you...

t: No, I will... sorry. No we didn't make

mesh network but this is really something

we can imagine with those kind of devices

but this is not what we did in Tunisia.

In Tunisia we just had those devices

as pirateboxes to distribute documents

and that's it.

Questioner: Thank you!

Herald: Okay, I don't see anybody
at the mics, right?

Okay then thanks again!

t: Thank you!
k: Thanks!

applause

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