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My brief experience with Freedom's software - I attempted to run their first version, on Windows. It didn't work on my machine, and totally killed networking when I uninstalled it.

Fine, I said. I'll wait, because the concept here is great, and obviously what they're doing is pretty technically challenging.

So when version 2 came out I tried again, this time on my Debian GNU/Linux system. (I had defenestrated myself in the meantime.) They only offered support and downloads for Red Hat systems. However, if I compiled from source, including a "kernel shim" and some modules and a half-dozen other knick-knacks inserted into the system at various places, it should theoretically work, they said. (Zero Knowledge described the process as "non-trivial", hah-hah.) I tried. I think I almost got it working. I asked for help. Couldn't get any. I gave up.

Oh, and while I'm at it, they never made it easy for broadband users to use their system either - it was (I'm not entirely sure this is still true, so I'm hedging a bit) geared entirely toward dial-up users. Hmmm, they have a product which is attractive to technically-inclined people, and they're limiting it to inferior operating systems and slow internet connections. What is wrong with this picture?

So, that's my story of attempting to use Freedom. The Zero Knowledge people badgered Slashdot for a while, asking if we would do a review of their software. See above for why we never did. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that the population of Red Hat Linux users is much smaller than the number of Windows users using their service. Linux users probably would have been a bigger chunk if they had ever reached out to people not using Red Hat. I suppose it's a pretty good thing that I didn't end up actually using their system, because they would be cutting me off with this decision - I'm obviously not going to "upgrade" to Windows.

Cryptobox has been in the news recently. They're another project trying to do roughly what Zero Knowledge is trying. Secure, anonymous communications over the internet is obviously a nice target, but just as obviously a very hard one to hit. I'm still waiting. I'm willing to pay. Here's my optimum criteria:

• Easy installation packages for both client and server (apt-get install foo)
• Must not fsck up the the machine upon installation or removal
• Both client and server source available
• Reasonably low service fee, if there's a fee (ideally, the server cloud would be provided by volunteers, I'd be happy to be one)
• Best possible anonymity and security

These are in rough order of priority. A system which offers a significant improvement in anonymity but perhaps has various attacks which could be made against it, BUT is easy to install and meets all the other criteria, is far far better than a system which is theoretically invulnerable but impossible to install, or worse, not deployed at all. Everyone building these types of systems keeps attempting to get it perfect on the first try, and as a result, there is nothing.

My brief experience with Freedom's software - I attempted to run their first version, on Windows. It didn't work on my machine, and totally killed networking when I uninstalled it.

Fine, I said. I'll wait, because the concept here is great, and obviously what they're doing is pretty technically challenging.

So when version 2 came out I tried again, this time on my Debian GNU/Linux system. (I had defenestrated myself in the meantime.) They only offered support and downloads for Red Hat systems. However, if I compiled from source, including a "kernel shim" and some modules and a half-dozen other knick-knacks inserted into the system at various places, it should theoretically work, they said. (Zero Knowledge described the process as "non-trivial", hah-hah.) I tried. I think I almost got it working. I asked for help. Couldn't get any. I gave up.

Oh, and while I'm at it, they never made it easy for broadband users to use their system either - it was (I'm not entirely sure this is still true, so I'm hedging a bit) geared entirely toward dial-up users. Hmmm, they have a product which is attractive to technically-inclined people, and they're limiting it to inferior operating systems and slow internet connections. What is wrong with this picture?

So, that's my story of attempting to use Freedom. The Zero Knowledge people badgered Slashdot for a while, asking if we would do a review of their software. See above for why we never did. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that the population of Red Hat Linux users is much smaller than the number of Windows users using their service. Linux users probably would have been a bigger chunk if they had ever reached out to people not using Red Hat. I suppose it's a pretty good thing that I didn't end up actually using their system, because they would be cutting me off with this decision - I'm obviously not going to "upgrade" to Windows.

Cryptobox has been in the news recently. They're another project trying to do roughly what Zero Knowledge is trying. Secure, anonymous communications over the internet is obviously a nice target, but just as obviously a very hard one to hit. I'm still waiting. I'm willing to pay. Here's my optimum criteria:

• Easy installation packages for both client and server (apt-get install foo)
• Must not fsck up the the machine upon installation or removal
• Both client and server source available
• Reasonably low service fee, if there's a fee (ideally, the server cloud would be provided by volunteers, I'd be happy to be one)
• Best possible anonymity and security

These are in rough order of priority. A system which offers a significant improvement in anonymity but perhaps has various attacks which could be made against it, BUT is easy to install and meets all the other criteria, is far far better than a system which is theoretically invulnerable but impossible to install, or worse, not deployed at all. Everyone building these types of systems keeps attempting to get it perfect on the first try, and as a result, there is nothing.

My brief experience with Freedom's software - I attempted to run their first version, on Windows. It didn't work on my machine, and totally killed networking when I uninstalled it.

Fine, I said. I'll wait, because the concept here is great, and obviously what they're doing is pretty technically challenging.

So when version 2 came out I tried again, this time on my Debian GNU/Linux system. (I had defenestrated myself in the meantime.) They only offered support and downloads for Red Hat systems. However, if I compiled from source, including a "kernel shim" and some modules and a half-dozen other knick-knacks inserted into the system at various places, it should theoretically work, they said. (Zero Knowledge described the process as "non-trivial", hah-hah.) I tried. I think I almost got it working. I asked for help. Couldn't get any. I gave up.

Oh, and while I'm at it, they never made it easy for broadband users to use their system either - it was (I'm not entirely sure this is still true, so I'm hedging a bit) geared entirely toward dial-up users. Hmmm, they have a product which is attractive to technically-inclined people, and they're limiting it to inferior operating systems and slow internet connections. What is wrong with this picture?

So, that's my story of attempting to use Freedom. The Zero Knowledge people badgered Slashdot for a while, asking if we would do a review of their software. See above for why we never did. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that the population of Red Hat Linux users is much smaller than the number of Windows users using their service. Linux users probably would have been a bigger chunk if they had ever reached out to people not using Red Hat. I suppose it's a pretty good thing that I didn't end up actually using their system, because they would be cutting me off with this decision - I'm obviously not going to "upgrade" to Windows.

Cryptobox has been in the news recently. They're another project trying to do roughly what Zero Knowledge is trying. Secure, anonymous communications over the internet is obviously a nice target, but just as obviously a very hard one to hit. I'm still waiting. I'm willing to pay. Here's my optimum criteria:

• Easy installation packages for both client and server (apt-get install foo)
• Must not fsck up the the machine upon installation or removal
• Both client and server source available
• Reasonably low service fee, if there's a fee (ideally, the server cloud would be provided by volunteers, I'd be happy to be one)
• Best possible anonymity and security

These are in rough order of priority. A system which offers a significant improvement in anonymity but perhaps has various attacks which could be made against it, BUT is easy to install and meets all the other criteria, is far far better than a system which is theoretically invulnerable but impossible to install, or worse, not deployed at all. Everyone building these types of systems keeps attempting to get it perfect on the first try, and as a result, there is nothing.