Remote cabin security

[rreidnauer]

Speaker is for playing banjo music.

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[mudflap]

Speaker is for playing banjo music.

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ahh yes.....perfect!

[rreidnauer]

Emmmmm, I was thinking more like: https://youtu.be/pDlZLsJJkVA

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[rreidnauer]

How does that Freedombox work? Does it require some sort of subscription to maintain a server on he net?

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[mudflap]

How does that Freedombox work? Does it require some sort of subscription to maintain a server on he net?

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it's basically a server for dummies like me. No subscription needed - it uses all opensource and free software. You can use it as a VPN - so when you're away from home, you can login to your home VPN through this freedombox and surf the web.

I'm very interested in it because I could self-host all my photos (instead of using google / flicker / photoB&*Ket), and my blog (can do really cool things with a self-hosted blog - like set up a store and accept payments. Plus, if you have a lot of family scattered all over, you can host a secure chat server, email server, even make encrypted phone calls with this thing. Its limit is the size of the hard drive and the processor you have. I have an old laptop I'm thinking of turning into a freedombox, but for $69, one that is already preloaded and ready to go is pretty tempting.

I have a friend who writes a blog about cheap ways to self-host on the internet - it seems like he told me one time he keeps his server online for $2 per year, or some crazy cheap amount like that. He hunted through all the deals and found that one. not very high-speed, but he runs his whole server on it. Has a real domain name that is registered. Here's his website: http://cheapskatesguide.org/ . Like I said, I know him personally. He's quirky and has some very interesting views on life. He is a real minimalist. When I go to his house, his only furniture is 2 folding chairs. sleeps on an inflatable mattress.

He posted this link a while ago about self-hosting: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkb4...rver-at-a-time

there's a whole world of online folks like this, hidden away from us because we all enjoy the flashy web.

Here's another guy - I think he used to run his server on solar only: https://joeyh.name/ .

[rreidnauer]

I do like the idea of, for a one time cost, having my own VPN, instead of paying monthly for a service to have one.
Internet security has become a recent concern of mine. Two events have occurred that concern me. My internet service comes in on a 5 GHz wifi. I don't know what level of security is used, as it is the ISP's equipment. To which then, I rebroadcast across my property on a 2.4 GHz wifi, secured with WPA2 encryption. The first odd event, was a printer (that I don't have) attempting to set up on my laptop. Second event, next day, I began receiving warnings from my Norton protection app on my phone, that my wifi network is compromised. I ran a Norton scan on the laptop, and it did not find an issue with the wifi. The phone continued to report this for about a week, but has since stopped, and says it's secure now. But the two events occurring back to back seems like more than coincidence. I think there was some sort of attack, but I don't know from where. Being remote as I am, it almost would have had to of come in through my ISP's service, to which an attempt to hack into my local wifi from the back side?
So I'm trying to wrap my head around how I can utilize the freedombox to add additional security to my network.

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[donjuedo]

It sounds like the Freedombox VPN server is only useful to those who are away from home. They can connect (via VPN) to your home internet connection, and then either communicate securely with others who are also connected at the same time, or use your non-secure connection to the outside world. Servers like Amazon would see the remote user as being at your home.

None of that seems to apply to the problem you are facing, though.

Your WiFi routers probably have settings for port forwarding, and I bet they are too open. If a remote PC tries to connect to your home PC, the router has to forward that request. This would be useful, for example, if you wanted to host a web server at your home. A blog is a specific reason for that. A remote user would initiate the connection and it would depend on your router forwarding that request to your PC. I'd shut that down and serve nothing on any port (I say that, but have not tried it before).

Your use from home would be unimpeded. So if you are in your home and try to load a web page, the router will pass the packets out to the "interwebs" just fine.

In short, I would look into "port forwarding" settings of your router(s).

[rreidnauer]

Thanks. I'll take a look.

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[mudflap]

I think the freedombox was invented for home use. It's only recently they've added VPN and remote access software. A lot of people use them has home media servers.

[dchurch]

I do like the idea of, for a one time cost, having my own VPN, instead of paying monthly for a service to have one.
Internet security has become a recent concern of mine. Two events have occurred that concern me. My internet service comes in on a 5 GHz wifi. I don't know what level of security is used, as it is the ISP's equipment. To which then, I rebroadcast across my property on a 2.4 GHz wifi, secured with WPA2 encryption. The first odd event, was a printer (that I don't have) attempting to set up on my laptop. Second event, next day, I began receiving warnings from my Norton protection app on my phone, that my wifi network is compromised. I ran a Norton scan on the laptop, and it did not find an issue with the wifi. The phone continued to report this for about a week, but has since stopped, and says it's secure now. But the two events occurring back to back seems like more than coincidence. I think there was some sort of attack, but I don't know from where. Being remote as I am, it almost would have had to of come in through my ISP's service, to which an attempt to hack into my local wifi from the back side?
So I'm trying to wrap my head around how I can utilize the freedombox to add additional security to my network.

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

I use Raspberry Pi's for these types of projects. There are lots of these type projects, they're very inexpensive, and the use very little energy. I have a VPN at home. I'm a big fan of OpenVPN with Wireguard, very easy to setup, very secure. I also use Wyze for security cams. It does send your feed to wyze hosted on Amazon and is managed on iphone. They have really nice cameras, very inexpensive. I use Starlink internet, no static ip currently, so I have my remote wireguard pi open a tunnel back to the home pi.