Border Check (BC) is a browser extension that illustrates the physical and political realities of the internet's infrastructure using free software tools.
As one surfs the net, data packets are sent from the user's computer to the target server. These data packets go on a journey hopping from server to server, potentially crossing multiple countries, until the packets reach the desired website. In each of the countries that are passed different laws and practices can apply to the data, influencing whether or not authorities can inspect, store or modify that data.
In realtime BC lets you know which countries you surf through as you browse the web. Additionally BC will illustrate this process on a world map and (where available) provide you with contextualizing information on that country's laws and practices regarding your data.
Currently supporting the following browsers on OSX and Unix systems: Firefox, Chromium, Chrome, Safari
NOTE: Browser history has to be enabled.
### Installing BC:
BC v0.2 (2015) provides a "Wizard" installer that makes installing the required libraries and packages for BC easier.
The wizard runs automatically the first time you run BC. It will check if your system has all the dependencies met for BC and if not the wizard will download and install them automagically. During the wizard BC will also install the required maps and databases.
* [biplist](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/biplist/0.5) (if you plan to use Safari)
For **Debian**-based systems (ex: Ubuntu), first run:
`sudo apt-get install python-pip` to install [pip](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip/), python's super usefull package manager.
If you already have pip: `pip install lxml` and `pip install pygeoip`
On **OSX** it's recommended you install [Homebrew](http://brew.sh/) first and use that to get [python + pip](https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/Homebrew-and-Python).
### LFT
BC uses [LFT v3.73 (08/2014)](http://pwhois.org/lft/) for tracerouting.
On **Debian** and **Ubuntu** it needs to be built from source and requires libpcap [`sudo apt-get install python-libpcap`]
To make this process more easy, BC (v0.2 2015) provides you a binary with the source. It is called `lft.linux` and is on folder `bin`.
On **OSX** you can use Homebrew: `brew install lft` which will automatically download and build the package.
#### Note on provided LFT binary
We do provide a static compiled binary of lft in the bin directory.
Please consider that this is for convenience only, you are invited to make your own.
### GeoIP databases and js libraries
BC will automatically unpack the newest geoip databases on the first run.
Javascript mapping libraries are included in the package.
