I am not affiliated with Verein Enigmabox. I am just a geek into meshnets.

---

Background

I’m an IT Security analyst with a interest in cryptography, cipherpunk, darknets, meshnets, and a lot more geeky things that are not worth mentioning. I only have 15000 characters in this text box!

I run a hyperboria node VPS and a couple of raspberry pis that are peered with my small mesh so when I stumbled across the Enigmabox my interest was piqued.

The Enigmabox is a small embedded PC in red aluminum case with a silkscreen logo and writing. It has three Ethernet ports, and two USB ports, an RS-232 port, and a power connector.

It’s administered via the web. Eth0 has a static IP of 192.168.100.1 and Eth1 has a static IP of 192.168.101.1. Eth2 is your public/ WAN port.

It can either be used as a CJDNS node or can connect up to a CJDNS-based VPN run by the folks at Enigmabox.

It costs €575.00 which includes one-year of VPN access. As of this writing you have a choice of VPN exit nodes in:

• United Stasi of America [sic]
• Germany
• Hungary
• Switzerland
• Sweden

Enigmabox claims 40mbits of throughput, but on my 50/16 Comcast Business Cable connection I am getting 14/10 out the US endpoint.

The box is designed to be set up and used as the gateway for your computer, or for your entire network. I set mine up as the gateway for my entire network.

I had no problems last night watching Netflix or Hulu Plus on my Roku box. This was while several other high-bandwidth activities were also going on from other devices on my network.

This morning however I noticed that the internet connection dropped for the US endpoint so I had to switch to the German one. I’m not sure if that was a problem local to the VPN concentrator or if I actually got flagged and banned for excessive bandwidth usage.

Later on this afternoon I was able to switch back to the US endpoint which is good because my Company geoblocks network activity from pretty much every country’s IP-space other than the US and Canada.

---

The Ordering Process

I found the ordering process to be a bit cumbersome and arcane to be honest. There were issues with the order form, and my only two payment options were bitcoins or wire transfer.

I would have felt much more comfortable spending €575.00 had I could have paid with either a credit card or hell — even PayPal!

On the plus side, I got to learn just how much more arcane and byzantine wiring money from one’s credit union in the United States to a bank in Switzerland and converting the currency from USD to Euros could actually be.

I can’t wait for BitCoin to become the de-factor currency for ecommerce, but I don’t have hundreds of dollars or euros tied up in any online or offline wallet to have made that practical. And if I’m going to spend several (several) hundred dollars for an item call me crazy but I do like the consumer protections that my credit card affords me.

I placed my order on June 19th. I wired the funds on June 19th. My credit union told me the funds would be made available to the Enigmabox guys on July 2nd.

On July 3rd I inquired with the Enigmabox guys and asked them if they had received the funds wired and received a response that my order had already shipped.

On July 18th I inquired with Enigmabox again to inquire if there was a tracking number available and was told there was none and that I should just wait and be patient.

It was at this point that I really started to get a very bad feeling that I had just pissed-away several hundred euros and that I needed to prepare myself for the fact that I had been scammed.

I let the Enigmabox guys know this and also expressed how surprised I was that no tracking number was created and nor was the box insured. I wasn’t only just talking about my protection, but what about the sellers’ protection too?

This is like selling and shipping 101. You get a tracking number. You insure it. If the package had gotten lost in-transit, misdelivered, or if I was a scammer I could have simply said I never received it. There would have been no proof.

The package arrived yesterday and was delivered by my postal carrier.

---

The Contents of the Box

The box arrived with the following contents:

• Enigmabox
• USB Stick with X.509 certificates that I assume are my VPN credentials.
• UK/EU style wall-wart power adapter
• UK/EU wall-wart 220vAC outlet to US 115vAC outlet adapter
• Ethernet Cable
• Single sheet providing quick setup instructions
• Grandstream VoIP Phone
• UK/EU style wall-wart power adapter
• UK/EU wall-wart 220vAC outlet to US 115vAC outlet adapter
• Ethernet Cable
• User Manual for VoIP Phone

---

Initial Setup

The initial setup was straight forward. Plug cablemodem into the Internet port. Plug LAN port into my switch.

DHCP assigned an IP address and local DNS.

Opened a web browser to http://box.enigmabox.net.

---

Thoughts and Issues

I found the Enigmabox to be very well constructed. The inclusion of adapters for US plugs was a welcome surprise.

The inclusion of a VoIP phone I found to be excessive. It would make much more sense to lower the price a bit and let the end-user supply their own phone.

Surfing the net has been painless and everything just works.

No ports are exposed on the Enigmabox to the Internet and the box itself is running a stripped-down version of Linux. The root shell was ash which was nice surprise. I was expecting busybox to be honest.

Pros

The box and project seem pretty mature and well thought out. The VPN service seems solid for the most part, and it has held up to some bandwidth intensive applications.

I’m not a gamer so I can’t describe lag times.

The software comes with an embedded version of Asterisk to facilitate the VoIP communication, a mini- webserver, DokuWiki (which I applaud their choice there!), an Email server, roundcube webmail, and a twitter-like clone.

Cons

The ordering process leaves a LOT to be desired.

Limited payment options could be a deterrent to some customers.

The fact that the device and box was shipped with no insurance and no tracking is ludicrous.

Documentation is non-existent. The online wiki/ FAQ is incomplete.

And there is no support. No forum. No mailing list.

I’ve got some questions about some of the config options and some things I’m seeing and experiencing and I have no idea who to ask for thoughts or suggestions.

---

Conclusion

Is it worth €575? No. But it’s also worth noting that of that €575, about 1/3 of that is for one year of VPN service.

It’s like €132 for the year (or maybe that was $132). Even that is a bit over priced especially when Private Internet Access is $40 for the year.

But I get that there’s economies of scale and that hopefully that price will come down. After all, 132 a year is only 11 a month, and that’s not that unreasonable when you look at things that way.

My suggestion? Get yourself a RaspberryPi or a BananaPi and build your own.

And sign up for the VPN access to help support the project.

It’s a cool project.

Now if only I could figure out how to connect up to some hyperboria sites. I’m peered with a couple of nodes on hyperboria but nothing is loading. Hell, I can’t even load any of the hypesites that are part of the Enigmabox network.

Time to fork the code on github and start reading!

Cheers.

Edit: A word here and there.

source: Reddit
Author: gellenburg