ProxyHam, which we wrote about here, is a hardware proxy that would allow long distance connections to a Wi-Fi network over an unidentifiable radio channel. The news story about the device was picked up by many tech news outlet, as physical distance from the source of an IP address would create a significant shift in internet privacy – while VPN and Tor mask their user’s IP address, there are always new methodologies in place to extract the original IP and track the user location. ProxyHam would have provided both significant physical distance between a user and the source of their IP address, as well as potential surveillance on the original router point, allowing its users to discover any attempts at surveillance or capture.

Benjamin Caudill, its inventor, was scheduled to reveal the hardware at the Def Con conference next month where he intended to sell the device and provide hardware schematics and source code to the public. On Friday, his talk at the conference was cancelled without additional comment from the organizers. Rhino Security Labs, of which Caudill is the founder, tweeted the following on Friday: 

Neither Caudill nor Rhino Security Labs have provided additional comment on the events. In addition to all existing ProxyHam units being destroyed, they also announced that all existing research into the project has been stopped and that they cannot provided any additional details about the cancellation, indicating possible legal repercussions for providing additional comments. 

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