Without fail in the weeks leading up to Black Hat and DEF CON, there are inevitably talks that are either pulled by organizers, cancelled by presenters, or strong suggestions are made that the talks don’t happen. This year’s first casualty, Ben Caudill’s scheduled DEF CON demonstration of ProxyHam, has already fanned some seriously speculative flames from the research and anti-surveillance camps about exactly why the talk isn’t happening.

Devices such as ProxyHam, a hardware proxy ideal for whistleblowers and others concerned about online privacy, apparently make some people nervous. On July 10, through his company Rhino Security Labs’ Twitter feed, Caudill announced that not only was his talk canceled, but source code for ProxyHam would not be released, all development was at a standstill, and existing devices were being disposed of. Early speculation on why Caudill’s talk drifted from a run-in with law enforcement, to the delivery of a National Security Letter, or concerns over possible violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

ProxyGambit is a simple anonymization device that allows you to access the Internet from anywhere in the world without revealing your true location or IP, fracturing your traffic from the Internet/IP through either a long distance radio link or a reverse tunneled GSM bridge that ultimately drops back onto the Internet and exits through a wireless network you're no where near.

While a point to point link is supported, the reverse GSM-to-TCP bridge allows you to proxy from thousands of miles away with nothing other than a computer and Internet with no direct link back to your originating machine.

ProxyGambit Directional Antenna to Laptop

A high speed (150Mbps+) link is available with direct line of sight from 10km+ away, or if further away, a 2G GSM connection produces a reverse TCP tunnel serializing a shell into the device accessible from anywhere in the world via the Internet or GSM. Either method proxies your connection through local wifi networks near the device, shielding and making it more difficult to determine your true location, IP and identity.