Interesting point. It's been a long while since I've met someone who shied away from Facebook, (at least for that reason), but refusing to be tracked by Google seems more common. I don't suppose you are one of these people?
As someone in that demographic, I must agree. My problem isn't paying for services, it's finding services that do what I want in a way I can trust. If someone came up with a way to do many of the things I need, with a "privacy circuit breaker " that they can't revoke, I'd shovel money at them.
I'm also looking to self-host and have some questions. My too biggest concerns are:
1) In my area a static IP is extremely expensive and outside of my budget. This leaves Dynamic DNS.
2) From what I can tell, Dynamic DNS providers only map 1 domain to your account. I would like the ability point more than 1 domain to my personal server. Can I do this without paying through the nose?
Sure, just register a domain normally (e.g. at www.domain.com use code HAK5 for 15% off if you like). Then point its CNAME record to your dynamic domain name. That way, whoever goes to your new domain will be forwarded (at the DNS level) to your other domain name, which will then be resolved by your dynamic DNS provider to your dynamic IP.
Sorry for the vagueness, but I do not want multiple domains to point to the same site. I would like multiple domains pointing to the same server which servers different sites. What I need is the server component that knows which site to serve (or which mail account to route to, etc.)
You host a box via DynDNS and its canonical hostname is, say, "mystatichost.example.com".
You decide you want to run a www and an ftp on that domain: CNAME www.example.com and ftp.example.com to mystatichost.example.com. 'www.example.com' is your default host on that server.
You decide that you want several entirely different domains, say, example.net, example.edu, and example.org, all running from the same host. You'd again point CNAMES to 'mystatichost.example.com', and on your httpd config, create named virtual hosts for those domains. So long as the http request is for 'example.org' and not 'example.com', the surfer won't know the difference.
That's been a part of basic webservers (apache, nginx, etc.) for, oh, well over a decade.
Mail/MX can be handled similarly. Your domains' MX records point to 'mystatichost.example.com' as their mailserver. That's how every mail hosting provider in existance does this (say: googlemail.com for anyone using GMail hosted domains). There's absolutely no reason the end-user would know the difference.
Dropbox, Github, Google Apps for your domain, blogging, financial services and bill pay, photo + music + text + media storage and playback. Just off the top of my head.
I don't want fully self-hosted services, any more than I want fully online services. I want a sandboxed, personal subset of the service that I can add to a physical box I own or a virtual box I rent from a provider. I don't expect a company to give me everything to run on my own hardware, but I want a solution that can take the provider going under, being bought, etc. without tanking the service and having to worry about my stuff ending up auctioned off to the highest bidder.
I guess the question is can we come up with a system that defines sort of a DMZ between a person and a service, something more than the current all or nothing model.
EDIT: Note that I'm not disparaging Dropbox, Github, etc. They've been quite good so far, and I'm happy to pay. I trust them, to a certain extent, it's just that I shouldn't have to trust them. Isn't there some way that we can meet in the middle?
I would love something like this. Ideally, I would want something that stores all of the content in a single file/folder/partition (I don't care which) and will not render my data inaccessible if I simply copy/mirror it somewhere else.
From that point, I imagine a company having an open protocol for accessing my music/pictures/blog posts, and then selling the best client using this protocol.
Really, the key for me is less about absolute privacy, but more about the ability to extremely easily take my data and run.
I'm not sure data portability is enough these days. I also need some minimum functionality to remain in the event of a dispute or service shutdown.
In the real world, escrow (sort of) fills this need. Perhaps a hybrid Amazon/Heroku that also acted as an escrow agent? Enforcing that apps/services followed the data access rules and made sure that the service would keep running on that instance, even if the company went under? I'd pay extra (up front) for that.
It seems like a whole family of ideas have been evolving around the personal cloud. I've been thinking about it for a long time, but many of the necessary parts didn't exist until recently. Not sure if it's ready even now, but it's sure a space I'm watching closely.
A consortium or whatnot of startup(or existing) companies might be an interesting way to both announce/broadcast their services/products and also create a standard privacy/user-data policy. Any ideas? Work towards common goals:
-Privacy by default, sharing only by opt-in.
-Advertising (if necessary)is done in a manner that demographics are shared with advertisers in some standard structure/tiering of individual data that is entirely up to the user to decide comfort level(e.g. complete privacy - higher SAAS prices or give up a high amount of privacy - lower priced or almost free SAAS).
-No externally hosted services(js-based offerings such as analytics, customer support, surveys, etc.) or if using a third party offering disclose who it is and only work those who also are members of the consortium.
-Disclose infrastructure and back-end(non-visible)/external processing companies that are used to operate the service.
-Agree that you won't pull a "Spotify" where user's data might be handed over to another company "after the fact." Announce changes like acquisitions or partnerships such that a change in access to user-data requires 30/60 days notice.
-Allow permanent deletion of accounts and information, not toggling columns in a database to hide visibility.
-Announce what details are captured regarding the user and make the entirety of that available for download in a common format.
Re-reading this I must sound paranoid but I've always considered myself moderate compared to Stallman. Am I the only one concerned with "acceptable" privacy these days?
Absolutely agree. There is definitely a market for anonymity based products. I'm paying each month the same amount of money that I shill out for my internet access to services that increase anonymity (cascaded VPNs, etc.).
Is it a niche though? Like the old Tolstoy quote "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" - are happy consumers alike in the same way, but are the disconnected all unhappy in their own way?
There are plenty of techniques and products for the disconnected, but few of them ever gain wide traction - possibly because if a problem gets large enough, the market changes to reflect mainstream needs (eg. Facebook pulling Beacon when outrage became widespread).
Mangling Robin Hanson's http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/08/reliability-theory.htm... post, happy users have features they use which do what they want well enough and possibly features they ignore, wheras unhappy people have one or more feature which aren't doing what they want, or are missing. But which specific features aren't doing what they want will differ from person to person.
Ironically(?) this site uses the following tracking cookies according to Ghostery: Facebook Connect, Google Analytics, MixPanel, Quancast, Twitter Button.
As you might tell by the fact that I've got Ghostery installed, I am sort of in this niche, but I would consider myself wishy-washy. I don't like Facebook tracking my logins all over the web, but I use Google Analytics myself so I don't have a big problem with another site using it.
Yeah, well, it’s a Posterous blog. That’s the deal: You get a free blog, but they track you, blur your text, and overlay a shitty semi-transparent ad over the bottom 16 pixels.
I wish there was an anonymous-browsing/app fork of Android for smart phones and tablets; kind of a full private mode. this way i would be able to navigate without fear of any tracking.
I haven't suffered, I guess. I noticed last time I made kick-ass progress on LoseThos, I got punished! Damn! Next, time, I'll go dig a ditch or something. If you get a reward without suffering, it's probably gonna turn into punishment!
God says...
C:\TEXT\QUIX.TXT
is seldom wrong in matters of literature or history.
In this instance, however, he is in error. It has everything to do with
the author of "Don Quixote," for it is in fact these old walls that have
given to Spain the name she is proudest of to-day. Gonzalo, above
mentioned, it may be readily conceived, did not relish the appropriation
by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for
though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from
the ancient territorial po
------------------------------
Yeah, them Mexican prolly spooge long time. Meh. Lovely, dig a ditch, enjoy your food?
The reason, I'm sure the world is just is... eat your favorite food every day and soon it won't pleasure you. Thus, highs and lows balance.
-------------------------------
God says...
ehheh_thats_all_folks NOT wrath African Oh_really energy
32 comments
[ 1.0 ms ] story [ 79.7 ms ] thread- a self hosted dropbox
- a phone that does not send data to google or apple without my consent, and where I can be absolutely sure it does not
- a self hosted sync server for my phone (contacts and calendar)
- a very fast internet connection to my home (I self host almost everything...)
that's it. I am sure once I have those I will need more :)
For bandwidth, would you consider hosting stuff on a VPS with better upstream bandwidth, or is that not enough control for you?
1) In my area a static IP is extremely expensive and outside of my budget. This leaves Dynamic DNS.
2) From what I can tell, Dynamic DNS providers only map 1 domain to your account. I would like the ability point more than 1 domain to my personal server. Can I do this without paying through the nose?
You host a box via DynDNS and its canonical hostname is, say, "mystatichost.example.com".
You decide you want to run a www and an ftp on that domain: CNAME www.example.com and ftp.example.com to mystatichost.example.com. 'www.example.com' is your default host on that server.
You decide that you want several entirely different domains, say, example.net, example.edu, and example.org, all running from the same host. You'd again point CNAMES to 'mystatichost.example.com', and on your httpd config, create named virtual hosts for those domains. So long as the http request is for 'example.org' and not 'example.com', the surfer won't know the difference.
That's been a part of basic webservers (apache, nginx, etc.) for, oh, well over a decade.
Mail/MX can be handled similarly. Your domains' MX records point to 'mystatichost.example.com' as their mailserver. That's how every mail hosting provider in existance does this (say: googlemail.com for anyone using GMail hosted domains). There's absolutely no reason the end-user would know the difference.
Again: all very basic Internet plumbing basics.
I don't want fully self-hosted services, any more than I want fully online services. I want a sandboxed, personal subset of the service that I can add to a physical box I own or a virtual box I rent from a provider. I don't expect a company to give me everything to run on my own hardware, but I want a solution that can take the provider going under, being bought, etc. without tanking the service and having to worry about my stuff ending up auctioned off to the highest bidder.
The N2N project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N2n is an interesting place to start. I started work of some code to do something like what I'm talking about, but that was before my day job ate my life. https://github.com/jwhitlark/unum
I guess the question is can we come up with a system that defines sort of a DMZ between a person and a service, something more than the current all or nothing model.
EDIT: Note that I'm not disparaging Dropbox, Github, etc. They've been quite good so far, and I'm happy to pay. I trust them, to a certain extent, it's just that I shouldn't have to trust them. Isn't there some way that we can meet in the middle?
From that point, I imagine a company having an open protocol for accessing my music/pictures/blog posts, and then selling the best client using this protocol.
Really, the key for me is less about absolute privacy, but more about the ability to extremely easily take my data and run.
In the real world, escrow (sort of) fills this need. Perhaps a hybrid Amazon/Heroku that also acted as an escrow agent? Enforcing that apps/services followed the data access rules and made sure that the service would keep running on that instance, even if the company went under? I'd pay extra (up front) for that.
And some earlier HN discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3040047
It seems like a whole family of ideas have been evolving around the personal cloud. I've been thinking about it for a long time, but many of the necessary parts didn't exist until recently. Not sure if it's ready even now, but it's sure a space I'm watching closely.
And, to the DDG example, I would add Funambol¹, one of a very few Italian startups.
¹https://www.forge.funambol.org/
-Privacy by default, sharing only by opt-in.
-Advertising (if necessary)is done in a manner that demographics are shared with advertisers in some standard structure/tiering of individual data that is entirely up to the user to decide comfort level(e.g. complete privacy - higher SAAS prices or give up a high amount of privacy - lower priced or almost free SAAS).
-No externally hosted services(js-based offerings such as analytics, customer support, surveys, etc.) or if using a third party offering disclose who it is and only work those who also are members of the consortium.
-Disclose infrastructure and back-end(non-visible)/external processing companies that are used to operate the service.
-Agree that you won't pull a "Spotify" where user's data might be handed over to another company "after the fact." Announce changes like acquisitions or partnerships such that a change in access to user-data requires 30/60 days notice.
-Allow permanent deletion of accounts and information, not toggling columns in a database to hide visibility.
-Announce what details are captured regarding the user and make the entirety of that available for download in a common format.
Re-reading this I must sound paranoid but I've always considered myself moderate compared to Stallman. Am I the only one concerned with "acceptable" privacy these days?
I don't think an agreement is enough to safeguard the user, though. I think it would have to be a formal protocol or some sort of third party escrow.
But for an money-free service, part of the price you pay ought to be the data you provide the service.
jeez.
There are plenty of techniques and products for the disconnected, but few of them ever gain wide traction - possibly because if a problem gets large enough, the market changes to reflect mainstream needs (eg. Facebook pulling Beacon when outrage became widespread).
As you might tell by the fact that I've got Ghostery installed, I am sort of in this niche, but I would consider myself wishy-washy. I don't like Facebook tracking my logins all over the web, but I use Google Analytics myself so I don't have a big problem with another site using it.
God says... C:\TEXT\QUIX.TXT
is seldom wrong in matters of literature or history. In this instance, however, he is in error. It has everything to do with the author of "Don Quixote," for it is in fact these old walls that have given to Spain the name she is proudest of to-day. Gonzalo, above mentioned, it may be readily conceived, did not relish the appropriation by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial po
------------------------------
Yeah, them Mexican prolly spooge long time. Meh. Lovely, dig a ditch, enjoy your food?
The reason, I'm sure the world is just is... eat your favorite food every day and soon it won't pleasure you. Thus, highs and lows balance.
-------------------------------
God says... ehheh_thats_all_folks NOT wrath African Oh_really energy