Kickstarter 'fraudster' finds second home on Indiegogo, as per usual

What do you do when you've been outed as a fraud and your Kickstarter was pulled? You go to Indiegogo, of course. Anonabox was a $45 device that promised to route your home's internet connection through (privacy-focused network) Tor without any fiddling in the same way that PORTAL works. In the current climate, it was no surprise to see the project earn $600,000 in pledges in just the first few days. Slowly, however, people began to ask questions about creator August Germar after the hardware was found to be an off-the-shelf unit made by a Chinese OEM and the software turned out to be about as secure as a slice of Emmental.

Now the project has been re-born on Indiegogo, with claims that the mistakes of the previous project (and subsequent outcry) has helped the device get better. That'd be fine, and we'd be applauding Germar's efforts, except for the fact that his claims of involvement with the Tor community have already been debunked. When ITSecurityGuru asked former Tor lead Runa Sandvik, she said that Germar "is making false claims, again."

Naturally, Indiegogo is more than happy to turn a blind eye to such controversies, given that it happily waved through notorious projects like the HealBe and Tellspec. More recently, the website allowed the Arubixs to re-list the Portal, even though the company's claims surrounding its bendable smartphone are bordering on the ridiculous. This is probably a very good time to remind everyone that just because they've got a professional-looking pitch doesn't mean that you can trust them with your money.