Enclaves

What is an Enclave?

Ethan S avatar
Written by Ethan S
Updated over a week ago


An enclave is a secure RRN (Recon-Resistant-Network). But what does that mean? It means that anyone connecting to an enclave can now obscure their location and their connection that flows through the enclave has all the personally identifiable parts encrypted or removed before it moves through and accesses the internet. This will make you look like an anonymous robot online, which means (1) you are safe from surveillance but also (2) you will be asked to fill out more captchas. Sorry about that!

Some find it easier to understand when I say it is kind of like a VPN (virtual private network) service, but with heavier security and you have control over the different parts. It's like a DIY VPN on steroids.

But an enclave can actually do so much more! Once you have a secure enclave booted any resources you put inside of it are only accessible by users who are connected to the enclave, and you control who has access.

Example

Suppose you boot up an enclave for your team of people. You need to maintain secure face-to-face collaboration, so you add a video server to the enclave. You then invite your team to the enclave. Now everyone on that team sees the enclave in their clients and you can all connect to the enclave and have secure video conferences. The base functionality of the enclave for changing your geographic location and securing your connection also works in the background.

Choosing the right enclave for you

An enclave can be tailored to the users needs. One of the things that a lot of people care about is speed. Piping your internet connection through extra nodes and applying extra encryption will always slow things down a little bit, since you are doing more work, but this can be mitigated by choosing geographical locations near where you are. From a security perspective there really isn't all that much of a reason not too. At the very least, for a smooth experience, we would recommend putting the core close to where you are and then choosing exits (places where your internet connection will end up) wherever you want. But at least one close by, for speed.

Interface

The main page is a list of enclaves. You can see where they are located (choosing) and what their names are.  Clicking on an enclaves name will take you to the enclaves page. You can also find your Enclaves in the main navigation to the left on Desktop.

On the enclave page you can see which resources you have, where they are located and manage which users are capable of connecting to this enclave.

We strive to write these articles in plain english that anyone can understand. Hopefully you found this article helpful, if you did, or didn't, please let us know by scheduling a call, shooting us an email, or message us on Intercom!  

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