[Cryptography] Using Raspberry Pis

[Tom Mitchell]

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 5:04 PM, Nathan Dorfman <nd at rtfm.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> I really like RPis as a cryptographic tool. The only thing that would make
>> them better is a second Ethernet interface so they could be used as a
>> firewall type device.
>
> Anyone who is interested in a "home server/firewall" device like this may
> want to look at the EdgeRouter Lite from Ubiquiti (~US$90-100). It can run
> FreeBSD 10.0 -- with a full read/write filesystem,


Thanks!  Hardware like that for about $100 is a deal!!!!!
Both the Raspberry Pi and the Beaglebone Black lack the
important second NIC to act as a gateway.

I am a fan of both boards.  Still by the time you find a couple
memory cards a second USB NIC a power supply case etc
you are in the game for about one hundred.  So the Ubiquity
box is a win.

Network performance on the Raspberry Pi suffers because
of the hardware design with networking hanging off a USB bus.

Having said this each of these features need not live on a single
board.   Development and operations can be ported,  tested, developed
on both the Ras-Pi or the BBB.   For development the Rasp-Pi is the winner.

One thought is the BBB is astoundingly portable and
the OS can live on an easy to carry  microSD card.

The BBB Angstrom distro is interesting in that it establishes
a net link over the microUSB port (also power).   This sets
the stage for a very portable firewall gateway, VPN whatever
box.  Incoming can be Ethernet or WiFi.   Neither has a battery
backed time of day clock.

The Ubiquiti box is very interesting both with vendor software
and with a BSD port.

The Rasp-Pi and BBB have the ability to add inexpensive hardware for those
interested in hardware assisted entropy via external sensors.

Time to dust off and see if my older routers have software updates in
light of the recent security disclosures.






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