I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward.
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@brahms @mttaggart you can do more than you think with old desktop hardware and 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM. It is also much more energy efficient than server hardware (and much quieter too)
@ithoughtisawa2
An old desktop is a great place to start but if you're buying, don't rule out old servers. They're much better at thermal management very important if you're gonna stuff a few drives into it.They're surprisingly power efficient. And many of them are whisper quiet with the right config.
I'm running an old Dell T430 and all I hear is the hard drives. It's pulling about 70w with 6 hard drives in it (plus an SSD).
No GPU though.
@brahms @mttaggart -
I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart any examples?
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart A throwback to the 1990's/early 00's when you'd share a box running FreeBSD or Solaris colo-ed where we knew somebody and kick in what amounted to beer money.
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But then there’s the small problem of the global means of transmission (satcoms and telecoms).
Need redundant, independent amateur radio-like terrestrial data repeater stations.
@jumpingjackrussell Don't try to solve every problem at once.
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@falk_ That's true, but indefinite support may be an unreasonable expectation. A reasonable expectation may be an exit agreement.
@mttaggart Yes, you need some easy migration for the not so technically inclined. Because those are the ones that would use those services.
And you‘d need to standardize on absent of services to make migration viable. And of course you have to be at least as good as the „free“ services, so that a large number of people would use those services.
I‘m all for self-hosting but not everyone has the time or ability to run their own services. Just running your own mail service is complex enough.
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@philcowans @mttaggart @ireneista
I think the dilemma is accountability/liability - what happens when one of your users does something that results in cops/feds demanding user data (or even seizing an entire server?)
Here in England it seems possible to get nicked for harmless protests and now there's the paranoia about "keeping kids safe"
How many people with a good career and salary in tech are going to risk it for the sake of someone /elses/ freedom, if they aren't making money from the venture?
This could maybe limit involvement to folk who are retired with good savings and less to lose (its already happening with the demographics of protesters)
(that goes for all the current VPN and hosting companies too and is their Achilles Heel).
@vfrmedia @philcowans @mttaggart @ireneista Yeah there's UK #indymedia folks who remember the time the police seized their server.
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@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans so just to get a little more pointed about it
when that happens, if you're operating as a corporation there are only three options:
- tell the marginalized people bye, can't help you
- attempt to defend them on the legal front
- shut down
corporations exist at the pleasure of the state. there is no fourth choice.
@ireneista @mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans not an expert but my thought is that "community hosting" (my thoughts are the neocities codeberg git.gay space) would need to coordinate with bulletproof hardened shit, and spaces subject to legal/copyright takedowns (bypass paywall extension on Russian git hosting, self-hosted Switch emulator forks) are an example of this spectrum
i did feel a lot of Nintendo fan projects were developed too openly with not enough opsec and bulletproof hosting, like they had no plans to keep Nintendo from finding the project, sending the C&D like countless times before, and finding their home address
i did wonder how homebrew estrogen managed to be hosted on the clearnet for so long
it *is* sad how most of the game piracy and libgen/scihub mirrors are scammy or CAPTCHA hell -
@delta_vee I don't think that's correct at all. You can be much smaller than that, at least to start.
@mttaggart I think email especially, without that level of resiliency, is basically malpractice
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart with vpn specifically, the problem is that half the point of a vpn is that many people share the same set of IPs. also managing ip reputation is hard, and you can't really use datacenter IPs for everyday browsing.. -
@vfrmedia @philcowans @mttaggart @ireneista Yeah there's UK #indymedia folks who remember the time the police seized their server.
@onepict @philcowans @mttaggart @ireneista
I remember that happening- and also that Indymedia (albeit not unlike many other independent websites of the era with user commenting/forums) was notoriously slow and reluctant with moderating in the interests of "free speech", which allowed bad actors to flood the spaces and turn them into hostile environments (where you could never really trust anybody)
OTOH I think something like community hosting for a local eco-gardening project or support groups for young people, LGBT+ etc *could* work, but as it wouldn't be able to provide much more legal protection than using MS365 or IONOS would at least have to be less pricey *and* provide the same (or better) level of customer service (especially if its supporting any kind of online commerce)
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
I keep telling people to get a pair of YubiKeys ( or equivalent ) and just get right with the future.
Proof of presence
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I'm against the idea of hosting some one else's stuff. I'd prefer to just host my own. BUT... Doing that and making it safe, resilient and dummy proof is difficult. Knowing your customer is also impossible because you may uncover someone's illegal hobby now hosted on your tech. I think we are better off making a system that is stupid proof to set up, self patching, and offers the user a way to back up their data.
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A fair number of the open source ones too, but at least money isn't changing hands.
I guess I need to clarify that this model does not solve every ill of the current state of technology in society. It is an exit from reliance on corporate services that don't align with one's principles. What you're willing to pay for that is a decision for each community to make.
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@mttaggart I'm against the idea of hosting some one else's stuff. I'd prefer to just host my own. BUT... Doing that and making it safe, resilient and dummy proof is difficult. Knowing your customer is also impossible because you may uncover someone's illegal hobby now hosted on your tech. I think we are better off making a system that is stupid proof to set up, self patching, and offers the user a way to back up their data.
@T2R That sounds pretty good as well, although I suspect some level of community support makes that a lot smoother.
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@T2R That sounds pretty good as well, although I suspect some level of community support makes that a lot smoother.
@mttaggart right but only as supporters and maintainers. Not hosts. Probably some sort of containerized system. That way it can run on NAS devices or full on servers.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I don't know if you've seen this thread but it discusses some of the challenges involved, you might find it helpful.
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@mttaggart I don't know if you've seen this thread but it discusses some of the challenges involved, you might find it helpful.
@ShaulaEvans Yes, it's been shared elsewhere in here! I think it's important to think about the issues of scale and what staying small might change about the calculus—both good and bad.
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I guess I need to clarify that this model does not solve every ill of the current state of technology in society. It is an exit from reliance on corporate services that don't align with one's principles. What you're willing to pay for that is a decision for each community to make.
I guess I should also note I think private VPN is a solution unfit for the problems for which it is mostly used. But I do want people to have options to exit the corporate internet that don't require years of IT experience.
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I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
@mttaggart I have heard of this model being used in Barcelona. I think that @brunovianna might be able to provide further information.
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@mttaggart @philcowans @vfrmedia it's not scale that we're concerned about. scale is not the blocker we are identifying.
@ireneista @philcowans @vfrmedia I understand. That was more in response to the DEF CON conversation. I think and hope I understand your concerns.
