Mofo Linux tears down virtual walls
Crossing Frontiers
Mofo Linux enables secure digital communications, even in places where it is politically or ideologically unwelcome.
Mofo Linux claims to help facilitate global freedom of information. It comes with the tools needed to work around politically motivated firewalls in countries such as China, Iran, Turkey, Thailand, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries with repressive regimes. The toolset includes various VPN flavors and other tools such as I2P, Cjdns, and Lantern along with Tor, Tor Browser, and Tor Messenger. The system also offers Arab and Chinese localization in addition to English.
Mofo Linux [1] was forked from Porteus, the portable distribution based on Slax and thus ultimately on Slackware, in 2011. Meanwhile, the system has matured to a fully fledged distribution and changed its underpinnings to Ubuntu 15.10. The live image with installer is available for downloading from SourceForge [2] and weighs in at about 1.6GB. You can burn the image onto an optical disk or transfer it to a USB stick using Universal Netboot Installer (Unetbootin) and the dd console tool. Alternatively, you can try it out in live mode with virtual machines like VirtualBox. The project took over the installer virtually unchanged from Ubuntu. It offers to set up Logical Volume Manager (LVM) as well as to encrypt the entire system or just the home directory.
Tor or I2P
Mofo Linux uses the well-known Unity 7 Desktop interface (Figure 1); however, there are some fairly obscure icons on the left side of the screen. This is where the project locates applications that serve the specific purpose of the distribution. At the top, below the mandatory search box, is the Tor Browser [3]. It directs outgoing requests by the browser across multiple servers of the Tor anonymization network to conceal the identity of the user.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Kali Linux Waxes Nostalgic with BackTrack Mode
For those who've used Kali Linux since its inception, the changes with the new release are sure to put a smile on your face.
-
Gnome 50 Smooths Out NVIDIA GPU Issues
Gamers rejoice, your favorite pastime just got better with Gnome 50 and NVIDIA GPUs.
-
System76 Retools Thelio Desktop
The new Thelio Mira has landed with improved performance, repairability, and front-facing ports alongside a high-quality tempered glass facade.
-
Some Linux Distros Skirt Age Verification Laws
After California introduced an age verification law recently, open source operating system developers have had to get creative with how they deal with it.
-
UN Creates Open Source Portal
In a quest to strengthen open source collaboration, the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology has created a new portal.
-
Latest Linux Kernel RC Contains Changes Galore
Linux kernel 7.0-rc3 includes more changes than have been made in a single release in recent history.
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.
