FreePN

FreePN is “the only completely free, fast, secure, anonymous, unlimited-bandwidth VPN. It’s also open-source.”

Still in beta, FreePN is an attempt to build an anonymous peer-to-peer VPN.

In short, FreePN is functionally a peer-to-peer VPN network. The FreePN organization itself only runs a coordinating server to help make connections between peers possible. Each user on our network also functions as a VPN server themselves for someone else on the network.

FreePN uses special ‘leaky-bucket’ algorithms so that you should never notice a negative impact on your own Internet speed while using FreePN. Using FreePN is just as fast (if not faster) than using any other paid VPN service available today.

PrivateBin–A Self-Hosted, Zero Knowledge Encrypted Pastebin

PrivateBin is a self-hosted pastebin where the hosting server has zero knowledge about the contents of any pasted data. PrivateBin encrypts and decrypts the pasted data in the browser using AES 256.

What PrivateBin provides

* As a server administrator you don’t have to worry if your users post content that is considered illegal in your country. You have no knowledge of any of the pastes content. If requested or enforced, you can delete any paste from your system.

* Pastebin-like system to store text documents, code samples, etc.

* Encryption of data sent to server.

* Possibility to set a password which is required to read the paste. It further protects a paste and prevents people stumbling upon your paste’s link from being able to read it without the password.

PrivateBin has a fairly well thought-out set of features, including the ability to set expiration dates, and even a burn-after-reading option so that the paste is deleted from the server after it is accessed.

Syncthing–Open Source File Syncing

Syncthing is an open source alternative to things like Dropbox or Google Drive for syncing files to multiple devices (including mobile…well, at least Android) across the Internet.

Syncthing replaces proprietary sync and cloud services with something open, trustworthy and decentralized. Your data is your data alone and you deserve to choose where it is stored, if it is shared with some third party and how it’s transmitted over the Internet.

. . .

  • Private. None of your data is ever stored anywhere else other than on your computers. There is no central server that might be compromised, legally or illegally.
  • Encrypted. All communication is secured using TLS. The encryption used includes perfect forward secrecy to prevent any eavesdropper from ever gaining access to your data.
  • Authenticated. Every node is identified by a strong cryptographic certificate. Only nodes you have explicitly allowed can connect to your cluster.

Rhythos – Open Source RPG Builder Inspired by RPGMaker

David Maletz’s attempt to Kickstart Rhythos–an open source RPGMaker-like tool–failed, but apparently Maletz is not letting that stop him, telling IndieRPGs.com,

Right now, my plan is to continue expanding the community and keeping the current backers interested, and continue working on Rhythos on the side until I have a runnable demo people can try (hopefully by early next year). Then, my plan is to start another campaign next year, and hope with the expanded community, the demo, and more interesting backer rewards, it’ll have a higher chance of success.

I hope he succeeds–the more tools like this that allow people to make their own games, the better.

Here’s the video that Maletz put together for his Kickstarter.

Gallery 3.0 Reaches RC1

It looks like it a final release is still a ways off, but open source online photo gallery software Gallery recently released its first release candidate for version 3.0.

I use Gallery 2.x to run my personal photo gallery and manage the 27,000+ personal photos I’ve taken over the past few years, and am really looking forward for Gallery 3.0 to finally be released.