HOPE X: Wireless Tor Proxies And Sharing TrueCrypt Volumes

When you’re at HOPE, of course you’re going to see a few Tor proxies, but [Jose]’s is top-notch. It’s a completely portable Tor proxy (.br, Google translation), battery-powered, with a connection for 4G networks.

[Jose]’s OnionPi setup is based on the Adafruit version, but adds a few interesting features that make it even more useful. It’s battery-powered with about a day of charge time, has a built-in battery charger, Ethernet pass through, external 4G and WiFi antennas, all in a sealed case that makes the entire build impervious to the elements.

While this isn’t much of a hack per se, the amount of integration is impressive. There are switches to turn off each individual networking port, and all the relevant plugs are broken out to the front panel, with the AC input and USB serial connection using screw connectors that are supposedly very popular in Brazil.

[Jose] also brought along a new device that isn’t documented anywhere else on the web. It’s called NNCFA, or Nothing New Crypto For All. Using a Cubieboard, an interesting ARM single board computer with a SATA connector, [Jose] created a device that will mount TrueCrypt volumes on a hard drive and share them via Samba.

Easy-phi: An Open Source Platform For Experimenters

As a few of Hackaday readers may already know, my day job involves working with high speed electronics. For the last few months, my team at [Université de Genève] in Switzerland has been working on an open source platform (mostly) targeted for experimenters: the easy-phi project. The main idea is to build a simple, cheap but intelligent open hardware/software platform consisting of a 19″ frame (or smaller), which can house a big variety of electronic modules. Hobbyist would therefore only make/buy the modules that would suit their needs and control them through a web page / standalone application / Labview module.

I detailed in more depth on my website the technical aspects of the project. To give you a quick and simple overview, the rack is essentially a USB hub that connects all the modules to a Cubieboard. It also integrates a few synchronization signals, a clock and a monitoring system for voltages, temperatures, power consumption. The modules are made of template + module specific electronics. The template electronics are part of the ‘easy-phi standard’, they consist of the Arduino compatible SAM3X8E microcontroller and of a few other power related components. This ensures electrical and firmware compatibility between the rack and modules that you guys may develop. It is important to note that the modules are enumerated on the USB bus as composite CDC (communication device) and MSC (mass storage). The CDC is used to configure the module while the MSC allows you to grab its documentation, resources, and standalone application in case you use the module without the rack.

The chosen schematics / layout software is Kicad, and all current files can be found on our github. Others will be uploaded once we have tested the other modules currently in the pipe. As the ones we’re developing are physics oriented, we hope that enthusiasts will bring easy-phi to other domains. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any question or if you’d like to contribute.