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John McAfee's Latest Project: Shielding Against Surveillance

Posted by samzenpus on from the man-with-a-plan dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Now that he's finished dodging law enforcement and experimenting with chemicals, software designer John McAfee (founder of his eponymous antivirus company) has been building something that, if it actually works, could appeal to the paranoid: a device that blocks the government's ability to spy on PCs and mobile devices. The device, known as 'Dcentral,' will reportedly cost around $100 and fit into a pants pocket. In a speech at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center over the weekend, McAfee suggested that the hardware would create private device networks impenetrable to outsiders, even those with the most sophisticated technology. The network's range would be roughly three blocks; McAfee believes that he can have a prototype up and running within six months. Whether or not McAfee manages to get that prototype working on schedule, he's already ramping up to the release of something, having set up a 'Future Tense Central' Website with a countdown clock, a sleek logo, and a set of social-media buttons. McAfee is such an outsized figure ('I've always wandered close to the edge,' he once confessed to an audience) that it's sometimes tempting to take his latest claims with a moon-sized grain of salt—this is the same man, after all, who says he avoided a police manhunt in Belize by dressing up as a drunk German tourist. (And he's unafraid to parody his own Wild Man reputation online.) That aside, he's also an executive with a record of starting a financially successful company, which means that—no matter what else he's done in the intervening years—it's likely that he'll attract a little bit of attention, if not some funding, with his latest endeavor."

6 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Is it this? by stewsters · · Score: 4, Informative

    Onion Pi

    1. Re:Is it this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      If so it is cute to think that this is enough to stop the NSA from spying on you. The exit nodes from TOR are well-known by design. And the traffic is not encrypted whenever it leaves an exit node. And the things they are most interested in, such as your g-mail and such they already have access to.

      Since you're repeating what we all already know, I can tell you've missed the point. These devices aren't to stop the NSA from spying on just you, they're to stop the NSA from spying on everyone. As more people log on to the Tor network and more websites offer a hidden service, automated mass surveillance becomes much more difficult. An advanced persistent threat can break through pretty much any n00b's best efforts, but they can't focus that much time on all of us.

  2. John McAfee Media Whoring again by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't news. You can already do this by buying the kit from adafruit.com or by buying one already built at PAPARouter.com(It's in the .sig). In short, Raspberry Pi + Debian + Tor. If you're browsing, make sure to use https everywhere.

    He must be really tired from trying to stay relevant.

    1. Re:John McAfee Media Whoring again by LoRdTAW · · Score: 3, Informative

      McAfee is talking about creating an encrypted, personal, portable mesh network device. The devices you linked are nothing more than TOR exit nodes which aren't as secure as most would like.

      The idea behind a mesh network is there is no single point of control for the network, its literally a hodgepodge of nodes interacting with each other. So no ISP or internet connection needed, it is a separate network. If one node goes out the rest keep on talking to each other, you may lose contact with some clients though. Of course you won't be browsing the web with this device. Its main use would be for people in a meeting or conference who wish to share information without it going over any public networks. Sounds trivial but a plug and play solution isn't really available off the shelf unless you are talking about ad-hoc wifi which suffers from poor performance as the number of clients increases. I am sure it uses more modern wireless tech and has routing built in to balance the network traffic between nodes.

    2. Re:John McAfee Media Whoring again by nullchar · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you also use Certificate Patrol, at least you'll know when you've been MITM'd.

  3. Just in case you think of using Tor. by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 4, Informative

    EFF.org has a great page about why https is so important to use with Tor. Also don't use Windows......ever