The Turris open router project

https://www.turris.cz/en/

by JoachimS • 11 years ago

37 15 11 years ago

turris.cz

dogma11386• 11 years ago

"When the Turris router detects suspicious traffic, it sends its fingerprint into the project Turris central."

No-profit or not, I'm not sure how many people would like this feature.

yitchelle• 11 years ago

True, but if source code is available and is open, presumably you could configure it send the finger print to any place you want, right?

dogma11386• 11 years ago

It is but it seems that all of the security features of their software rely on their "Distributed Adaptive Firewall" which can collect data and push automatic updates to the router, they also can remotely modify the rule set of the FW which runs on the router trough those updates (works like a signature update for any AV or IPS/IDS appliance)

Neither in their site nor in what documentation they have does it appear to say how can you disable data collection and or updates so it seems that to get the designed functionality of this router you have to use their software which collects data and allows them some level of remote access that can manipulate the configuration of the device.

Now I'm not saying that they have any nefarious intentions this isn't any different than a signature update for your AV, or system updates but it just doesn't sound like it's the best approach for a device that is supposed to be an "open" platform which operates like entry-level enterprise grade edge network appliances.

Automatic updates and collection should be on an explicit opt-in premise and not implicitly enabled on all devices, I understand that they need to collect traffic in order to identify new attacks but as far as threats to SOHO/SMB/SME users go that might use their software and are unlikely to be targeted by an overly sophisticated attack (which most likely will not be detected in the first place) running even a small scale traffic collection operation using local chapters of organizations like OWASP and IEEE, academic institutions and willing participants should be more than sufficient.

simplexion• 11 years ago

I like the look of that DSL modem. It is really hard to find a decent small DSL modem. I use routers (no modem) with OpenWRT on them, so I have to bridge a DSL modem. I could not find a good small cheap DSL modem that offered no extras when I had to replace my modem recently.

dogma11386• 11 years ago

Look at Actiontec modems, they got a small factor single port DSL modem/router (router part cam be disabled, will support PPOE over the "LAN" port), ZyXEL's "Prestige" line has a few tiny modems as well.

mschuster913• 11 years ago

Solid hardware specs. Replace the Wifi card with an ac-compatible one and I'll buy it.

Also, a SIM card slot? Me gusta, if it has LTE support - unfortunately it ain't mentioned in the specs.

dogma11386• 11 years ago

many "enthusiast" home routers have support for cellular USB modems I got a 4G stick plugged into my ASUS AC-97 which provides a WAN fallback if the main WAN connection goes down.

It works pretty damn well and it's seamless as long as you can get a true IPv4 address over your cellular connection and not some piss poor NAT.

mschuster913• 11 years ago

Yeah, of course, but dongles usually have craptennas which cease working once inside a building...

ZenoArrow2• 11 years ago

There are some benefits to what the Turris team is promoting, particularly when it comes to guarding against DDoS attacks, but the approach is totally wrong.

Users should be in control of the data that leaves their router. I'd much rather see a 'Turris app' being built for OpenWRT routers, that would allow users could control what information gets sent through it. OpenWRT is effectively just a specialist Linux distro so from a software perspective it wouldn't be too hard to build a distributed firewall app for it.

federico3• 11 years ago

They are also building a powerful Open Hardware ARM-based router with WiFi and NAS capabilities: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/

The Turris open router project

Related Stories