[Discuss] iGuardian "enterprise-grade" home router

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Tom Metro wrote:
> The same episode also covers the iGuardian Kickstarter project that aims
> to produce a $150 enterprise-grade home router that includes deep packet
> inspection and regular updates:
> http://www.itusnetworks.com/home

The host of "This Week in Enterprise Tech" seems to be pushing this
product, as he has covered it on another show, and had the creators of
the router on "This Week in Enterprise Tech" for the 2nd or 3rd time. In
their latest appearance in episode 108:

http://twit.tv/show/this-week-in-enterprise-tech/108
http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UU0KrqQ-3pCob4piS1wVC5dQ&feature=player_detailpage&v=luT-Nl3u5W0#t=2328
(segment starts about 39 minutes in)

They mention they met their Kickstarter goal, that they're going to
follow-on with an Indegogo campaign, and they clarified an important
point abut why they call it "enterprise-grade." Apparently they didn't
simply load up a commodity consumer router with Linux and some packet
inspection code. The hardware they built uses the same router-optimized
processor (Cavium Networks OCTEON Network Services Processor[1]) as used
in enterprizy routers, like the Sonicwall line. Their claim is that the
typical home router appliance doesn't have the CPU or memory to run deep
packet inspection code.

(The show page above features a picture of the PC board for the router,
which looks much like what you'd expect for a consumer router, except a
large heat sink on the CPU. [This is actually not their design, but a
development board supplied by Cavium.])

That aside, the software stack is just Linux (OpenWRT) + SNORT + a GUI,
presumably, and an update service. And they admit that their filtering
is signature based, and thus it won't help you for a zero day, but they
said "protect the herd, not the individual."

It could be interesting even you you don't buy-in to their ecosystem and
just look at it as a low-cost, low-power platform capable of running
SNORT. I'd be curious to know how a competing device like the Ubiquiti
Edgemax handles running SNORT.

 -Tom

1. http://www.cavium.com/Table.html#Octeon (they didn't specify which of
these CPUs they used; the product line ranges from 1 to 48 cores; safe
to say this $100 ($175 regular retail) product uses a 1 or 2 core
version, but they still get hardware accelerated TCP, regular
expression, and encryption, depending on the model.)

-- 
Tom Metro
The Perl Shop, Newton, MA, USA
"Predictable On-demand Perl Consulting."
http://www.theperlshop.com/