We live in a world where going on the Internet also means bringing the whole wild, wild west into your living room. Every week the media publishes another story about a data breach, privacy invasions, or an Internet service provider spying on your downloads and streaming video. While this is not a fear (or even a concern) for the everyday Facebook user, many users have started to turn to encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs) to help hide their online activity from prying eyes.

As it turns out, setting up and running a VPN is no mean feat for most non-technical users. While there is a huge multitude of extremely competent VPN services available online, free software, and even anonymizing services such as TOR available, the barrier to entry is still quite high.

The solution: get a ninja.

In this case get the NetNinja. This device a small black box with a network port on it that forwards your connection through a VPN automatically—the box even comes with a subscription to a VPN service or allows more technical users to subscribe to their own. The Netninja also supports The Onion Router (TOR) which anonymizes your traffic even further. And, for people who want to avoid having their phone hijacked at the local Starbucks hotspot, the NetNinja can also provide an encrypted WPA2-secured WiFi network.

Tony Gaitatzis, inventor and developer of the NetNinja, says that he developed the device for the less-technical audience who currently miss out on this sort of privacy.

“I believe that everyone deserves safety and privacy,” says Gaitatzis. “That is why NetNinja is designed to be customer-friendly. Most routers are hardware focused but have poorly designed user interfaces, requiring users to understand networking and security terminology to operate their router. NetNinja makes that process much easier.”

The device currently sells from the NetNinja website for $198.96 for the box and $8.99/mo. if you want to subscribe to the NetNinja monthly VPN subscription.

Privacy in a small form factor

From the looks of it, the Netninja is basically Internet privacy that fits in your pocket.

The profile of the device is very small. Weighing in at 1.59oz, 3.4in long, 2.1in wide, and around half-an-inch high, the NetNinja is a small, matte black device that’s barely visible while it protects your privacy. The casing itself is designed to be low profile, easy to connect, and stay out of your way while it’s in operation.

Fully open-source

Gaitatzis says that he’s proud to announce that the device is open-source from the ground up. A factor which he believes should help establish trust in this privacy-enabling box because when it comes to protecting security trust is tantamount.

To keep it small and open-source, the NetNinja is built on a Raspberry Pi B+ board. The operating system is the open-source Raspbian Debian Wheezy 1.3.10. To provide a good user experience, the NetNinja uses a bespoke web front end for configuration.

In order to support TOR and VPN, the NetNinja loads open-source software for connecting to either. TOR has its own anonymizing connectivity software that runs on Debian; and for VPN the NetNinja uses OpenVPN to create encrypted tunnels across the Internet to any VPN service that supports that protocol.

Privacy and trust in the wake of Anonabox

In October of this year another simple-privacy box sought funding on Kickstarter. The Anonabox promised much of what Gaitatzis’s NetNinja should also do. However, the story of Anonabox is a checkered and grim story of false claims and poor security. In the end, Kickstarter booted the Anonabox project from its website and ultimately the device concept failed.

Gaitatzis remarked that the major difference from Anonabox for NetNinja revolves around being straightforward with capabilities and using software vetted and well known in the community.

“I believe that security can only be built with trust, and that trust comes from honesty and communication,” says Gaitatzis. “That is why NetNinja is open-source from the ground up.  The hardware is built on Raspberry Pi running Linux.  The software is available on GitHub.  Even the company’s journey is documented for others to learn from.”

As a former consultant for Apple, Gaitatzis says he uses that experience to understand how to best balance ease of use and powerful configurability. This means that the NetNinja takes into account that most users will not have a very technical background, but should allow them the same powerful encryption that is available to power users via connecting via VPN or TOR which provide this.

NetNinja has not yet been put through the ringer by the security community, but Gaitatzis sounds excited and cheerful when talking about its capabilities. By using well-known and constantly updated software from the open-source community he hopes to that the device will benefit from the ongoing maintenance built into that ecology.

The NetNinja may not be a panacea that makes all Internet browsing instantly safe but it does provide a much-needed link to help increase security for users who otherwise would find VPNs and TOR inaccessible.

Image credit: (c) NetNinja https://getnetninja.com/