We’re honored to be working with NASA, Second Muse, and other lovely organizations to make the Space Apps Challenge happen this April! You can find out more on their site, but here are some problem definitions to get your brain juices flowing.

1. Interplanetary IT Simulator
Develop a way to simulate the user experience of common IT services (phone, email, video conferencing, IRC chat, web browsing, etc) while en route to an interplanetary destination, focusing on the time delay experienced during the trip. Such a tool could help analog mission participants more realistically engage in their mission scenario, and also apply to new and innovative ways to deal with connectivity issues of computing devices in remote areas on Earth.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tor is a worldwide network of proxies run by volunteers. They donate a chunk of their bandwidth to disguise the origin of others.

How it works

Tor establishes random encrypted tunnels between nodes in the network. The connections themselves are mixed to obfuscate the relation between incoming and outgoing ones. This way a passive observer only sees connections going into the network and coming out of the network, but is unable to correlate them. This way a Chinese Tor user may look like coming from Spain.

Look at the following diagrams for a more detailed explanation:

Using it

Downloading and installing the software easy, the configuration needs some attention. If you follow the given guides, you shouldn’t encounter any problems. Any software able to handle SOCKS-proxies now can talk to Tor. Firefox has an Addon called “Torbutton” to provide a one click interface.

You can not only relay your traffic over Tor, you can even run your very own hidden services.That means you can only access them by using Tor, there exist only inside the network. If you want, you can run any service you want: blogs, forums and do on. If you really need to, you can interface them with the non-Tor world, but that’s not needed usually.

The wide variety of users make the Tor network quite resilient (compared
to other proxy solutions). Since a lot of different people form a diverse group, you can’t single them out easily. Besides that you don’t have a single point of failure (or censorship). While Tor obfuscates your traffic, there are things you have to be aware of.

1. Tor is not fast
Tor nodes are run by volunteers and they donate some of their bandwidth. This greatly reduces what’s available to you compared to a non-Tor connection. Remember: your traffic will be relayed through several countries all over the world. Email works, but websites take longer to load (or may even time out) and instant messaging has noticeable delays. Running bittorrent over Tor is plain rude, since it eats a lot of traffic. There are users who’s life depend on Tor, so don’t litter it. You may speed up your browsing by using text-only (or console) browsers like w3m or links2.

2. Tor nodes can be rogue
Since everyone can join the network, bad guys will do so. Tor does not provide so-called end-to-end encryption, so you have to take care of it. Remember: everyone running a node could sniff passwords. If you use protocols, look for a secure counterpart (https instead of http, imaps instead of imap … look into SSL) or try to establish secure channels (look into ssh and VPNs data transmission, GnuPG and OTR for messaging).

3. Tor obfuscates where you’re from, not who you are
There are many things which make you recognizable, not only your IP. These are nicknames, particular browser configurations, even the choice of words to name a few. Be aware of that.

4. You can actively support Tor
Consider running an exit node. Every additional node makes Tor better (more bandwidth, more anonymity). Since you are an active participant it becomes even harder to do traffic analysis on what you do. If you can’t run an open exit node, consider running a bridge or at least relay traffic for the network. All these things improve the network and protect you more than plain hitchhiking. Please check your local law concerning regulations for providing proxy services and internet access. It’s quite different and nuanced under several legislation. If you can not or do not want to become an active supporter, you can always donate money.

If you want a quick portable solution, consider using the Tor Browser bundle, tails or Privatix.

References

documentation

do good

other

The last time I came across Alex Peake, he was walking down Mission Street in San Francisco with a plunger in hand on his way to save the world from a clogged toilet.  I first met Alex at Maker Faire in San Mateo last year where he showed me an early version of Code Hero.

One of the things I love about Code Hero is that in order to play the game, you actually have to learn how to code, and in doing so you affect the game. Instead of shooting digital bullets or grenades, you shoot lines of JavaScript code. Pretty cool, huh?

This is a leap beyond the concept of simple “gamification”, because it’s actually teaching you how to build a game, while playing a game.   It was featured last summer as part of the Geeks without Bounds GameSave hackathon, Random Hacks of Kindness and many more other awards than I can list.

Code Hero is currently running a Kickstarter campaign with 5 days to go.   Go check it out!