Anonymizing Wi-Fi device with 2.5 mi range just mysteriously disappeared

[RichCor]

From an article linked below:

The sale and distribution of the Proxyham anonymous Internet browsing device, source code and blueprints has been stopped in its tracks a month before launch.

At the beginning of this month, security researcher Benjamin Caudill from Rhino Security Labs unveiled Proxyham, a device small enough to be slotted into a book and squirrelled away in a separate location from the user in order to confuse Internet traffic tracking systems.

Proxyham is a $200 device made up of a Raspberry Pi PC and antennas. The product uses low-frequency radio channels to connect to public Wi-Fi hotspots up to 2.5 miles away, and if a user's signature is traced, the only IP address which appears is from the Proxyham box which can be planted far away from the user.

Caudill was quoted as saying, "You can have it all the way across town, and worst case scenario the police go barge into the library across town." This, in itself, may be an indication as to why the device's launch, meant to take place at the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas next month, has met a sudden and abrupt end.

Launch of $200 device to access Wi-Fi anonymously mysteriously stopped in its tracks

ZDNET | By Charlie Osborne | July 14, 2015

Anonymizing Wi-Fi device with 2.5 mile range just mysteriously disappeared from Def Con

BGR | By Yoni Heisler | Jul 14, 2015

Wouldn't you have look a little conspicuous plugging a cardboard box into an AC outlet, then walking away?

[Chicog]

Not if you walk in dressed in overalls and tell them you've been sent to do some routine maintenance....

It's called social engineering.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10322536/Barclays-hacking-attack-gang-stole-1.3-million-police-say.html

Edited July 14, 2015 by Chicog

[avander]

Maybe one of them U.S. Homeland Security issues?

[Phaeton]

I wonder if them shutting this down gives us any indication of how NOT worried the authorities are about the other supposed anonymizing services. I know some of those servers etc. are difficult for the authorities to access, but still.

Thanks for the article. I had read about this device and it seemed interesting.

[h90]

NSA won't like it.....or the developer committed suicide by shooting himself 3 times in the back.

[IMHO]

I reckon it's disappeared because it was a hoax..

How do you connect to Wi-FI, which has a very narrow range of channels in what can only be described as "high frequencies" (2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz), using low frequency transmissions?

[RichCor]

^^^ Yep. I questioned the 'low frequencies' too, as neither leg of the hop could use them.

I can see the advantage basing it on pure WiFi, there isn't built-in precision geo-location or direction finding equipment like there are for 3G/LTE signals, so the portable anonymizing WiFi proxy wouldn't be easy to initially locate, then once found identifying it's connected clients and direction finding / triangulating them ... not a quick task.

So why pull it? Unless some claim was falsified or completely outrageous.

But I doubt this thing is difficult to design and build. I would bet it already exists many times over, just not highly publicized.