The Turris Omnia router wants to increase the safety of users on the Internet
The non-profit association CZ.NIC, the Czech national domain administrator, introduces a unique router based on the open-source philosophy and active user protection.
Prague, November 12, 2015 - The crowdfunding platform Indiegogo.com has just introduced a new project, Turris Omnia from CZ.NIC, the .CZ top-level domain administrator. The ambitious project aims to earn $100,000 (2.5 million Czech crowns) on Indiegogo for the production of the first batch of the revolutionary Internet router for home and office. Turris Omnia is different from common devices on the market, mainly in its open source philosophy and active approach to user protection.
Conventional routers rely on the updates installed by users who usually neglect the process, as they often do not even know about new versions of the firmware. Turris Omnia, in contrast, will take care of the sacurity updates itself. It thus increases user safety, which has become an even more urgent matter with the gradual expansion of the Internet of Things. Visitors can support the project and contribute to greater security of the online world on Indiegogo.com by either making a symbolic contribution, purchasing a motherboard for $99, or directly ordering a complete device for $189.
“A router is the most important element of any network and a gateway through which all devices in the household or office communicate with the Internet. We know how to increase safety of the Internet use, but to achieve this we need the support of like-minded users we decided to reach out to with crowdfunding,” says Ondřej Filip, CEO of CZ.NIC. “In our Association, from the very beginning we have been looking for ways to make the Internet a safer place for everyone and Turris Omnia is our answer. It is a continuation of the Turris research project, which we launched in 2013. As a part of the project, we created a unique system of automatic security updates.”
Turris Omnia offers much more than conventional routers also in terms of functionality, thanks to a powerful hardware and firmware based on OpenWrt. For example, it can serve as a network storage, DLNA or a print server. Turris Omnia is intended for everyone — from ordinary Internet users to advanced programmers who work with the command line.
"Turris Omnia is being built in our research and development department, in which we created other successful projects, such as the BIRD routing daemon, the Knot DNS server or the registry system FRED. All of these projects created as open-source solutions are used worldwide, and we believe that Turris Omnia will follow them. The attractiveness of Turris Omnia is evidenced by the very lively interest it aroused at conferences such as ICANN, IETF, OpenWrt Summit and others,” adds Ondrej Filip.
Focus on technology
The operating system TurrisOS on board of the Omnia Turris router will bring a high level of security that is not offered by any of the commonly available user routers on the market. TurrisOS is built on an open platform OpenWrt and has a special ability to react quickly, using the auto-update feature, to the threats discovered by routers from the original Turris project. Updates come directly from CZ.NIC and the user does not need to worry about anything. For even greater security, the router is equipped with a special chip that handles device encryption and identification.
Thanks to very powerful hardware and advanced, open firmware, the Turris Omnia router can be used for other purposes as well. The most basic ones include NAS, DLNA media server, print server, or FTP. Thanks to the preinstalled virtualization server, Turris Omnia can even handle virtualization, so new projects can be tried out without compromising the main system. Hardware is not limited either; in addition to a standard set of network ports, Turris Omnia also offers SFP connector for connecting various modules (e.g. optical) and USB 3.0 connector for creating a network storage or connecting a DVB-T tuner. Even the set of mini-PCIe slots for installing Wi-Fi cards or a LTE modem as a backup internet connection is user-friendly. In case of the arrival of new Wi-Fi standards, upgrade of the router will pose no problem.
Turris Omnia is the next and necessary step in safety, which also provides a myriad of other options. It is not just a device mediating the communication between the user and the Internet, but the real center of the home network.
More information can be found at https://omnia.turris.cz. You can read about the Turris project, from which Turris Omnia comes, at https://www.turris.cz.
About the CZ.NIC Association
CZ.NIC, an interest association of legal persons, was established by leading Internet service providers in 1998 and now counts 115 members. Main activities of the association include the administration of the .CZ domain name registry, operation of the .CZ top level domain and raising awareness in the field of domain names. Currently, the association is carrying out an intensive work on expanding the DNSSEC technology and mojeID services, development of domain administration system, and support of new technologies and projects beneficial to the Internet infrastructure of the Czech Republic as well as worldwide — the BIRD routing daemon, the Knot DNS server or the registry system FRED. The association also operates an internal security team CZ.NIC-CSIRT, and since 2011 also CSIRT.CZ, the Czech national security team. In 2013, CZ.NIC became responsible for creation of the FENIX security project.