Anonabox Accused of Lying About Its Product Being Open-Source On Kickstarter

blottsie writes The "anonabox" has raised more than $550,000 on Kickstarter in only three days. But some believe the company's claims that the router-like device, which is said to automatically route users' Internet traffic through Tor, is entirely open-source are false. Anonabox developer August Germar tells the Daily Dot, however, that the device was commissioned specifically to run their code.

Comments

Not the only problem

[EthanV2]

the problem isn't just the fact that the code and hardware isn't open-source, it's the fact that the developers openly lied on their Kickstarter campaign. Not only is the hardware not open-source but it wasn't even designed by them, it's a cheap Chinese knockoff of a tp-link 3G router! On top of that after looking through the firmware they've found that it's not custom software, but a badly configured OpenWRT build with a standard root password (set to "developer!"), an unsecured wifi ssid and sshd installed and running by default! The scale to which these jokers have deceived their backers is ridiculous, and this Kickstarter needs shutting down.

invention vs. product

[gl4ss]

well.. from the looks of it..

the question should be to ask do they understand the difference between an INVENTION and a product.

clearly they had read about the invention way before and just hashed together a product. they don't seem to have clear understanding of how the product works.

basically they're just selling a 20$ box for 50$. which isn't too bad. but if they don't understand the product, why the fuck trust with them running it, instead of running tor on your laptop? or better yet, running something like tails on the laptop.. the tor wont help if the os on the laptop is the problem - and how they can vouch for the closed source drivers on the board? and if it's not their board, I doubt it's theirs to give away as "open hardware" either. it seems like it's open in the sense that they used whatever was openly available to them...

I think they just saw the project on hackaday, asked around for some boards and smelled money and wanted the money upfront from the customers to negate risks - and then did some bullshit to sell it. now that bullshit could technically be in violation of kickstarter rules, so they might have to move to indiegogo and spin up some more bullshit why they moved("big brother forced us to!" most probably).

Re:Yawn

[JaredOfEuropa]

I've mostly backed stuff that looked like it would not get created by regular companies. Most of this was in the area of Home Automation; a niche market, which means that even for great products the economics may simply not work out. Start-ups as well as existing companies can take some of the gamble out of that equation through crowdsourcing. I've backed 7 projects thus far:
3 delivered more or less on time
1 is on track for timely delivery
1 ran into technical and organisational issues, but they've turned those around and it looks like they will deliver the product after all, if a bit late. Their campaign was overfunded so they didn't run out of cash.
1 underestimated organisational difficulties (such as obtaining product certification in different regions) and ran out of money. A good many backers did receive their goods and they still think they can fulfil all pledges, but I'm not holding my breath.
1 I've given up on.
Not too bad a track record. Of course it's easy enough to let others fund these kickstarter projects and let them take the risk, but where's the fun in that? As long as you understand the risk, I don't see why one shouldn't fund these projects that might otherwise not see the light of day.