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This is how we probably should proceed with decentralization. The problem that I see currently with this approach is not many are willing to host there own ser

This is how we probably should proceed with decentralization. The problem that I see currently with this approach is not many are willing to host there own servers. Even people who are fairly tech savy won't host any server because of the costs involved. I am not going to host a server unless I get benefit out of it or its dirt cheap to host them. The solution I think is instead of hosting it on cloud we host it at home. This way we have control over the cost. Again, if I can choose the kind of content that I am hosting then that would be great. I like to save images on certain topics. I don't mind serving them from my home since I already have unlimited data connection. Running a server on Raspberry PI would be ideal. There are already millions of PIs out there and they can be used for decentralization of apps. In the end, we might even be able to convince general population to host there own content. We will have to provide them tools and utilities to make hosting as easy as possible. The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. Solve that and you most probably have solved decentralization.

olah_1 7y ago
That's exactly what FreedomBox is trying to do. https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ They have a lot of work to do on user friendliness and design though. I'd rather see something like YUNOHOST partner with a hardware provider.
ashleyn 7y ago
A major obstacle to your proposal is the near-universal blocking of port 80 inbound on residential ISPs.
- rohan1024 7y ago
  I haven't seen this happening with Indian ISPs so far but have read quite a few responses here on HN which mention the same issue that you did. I think if we have enough momentum with self hosting sooner or later one provider will unblock ports and incoming connection and soon others will follow the same practice out of competition. Maybe I am being too optimistic here.
stronglikedan 7y ago
Another major problem is the agreement you sign with your ISP that says you won't host a server on your home internet account.
- Lunatic666 7y ago
  Are you living in the US? I live in Singapore and my ISP encourages me to host my own stuff. With a static IP and 1GBit/500MBit there's enough bandwidth available.
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    Yes. You can get all that when you sign up for a business account here, but usually not on residential accounts.
  - mxuribe 7y ago
    In the U.S. unfortunately the vast majority of ISPs make hosting your own services a direct violation of their terms of service. And worse yet, the U.S. - at least in many, many of its regions - lacks competition to jump to any ISP who would allow "at home" services. It really sucks here in the U.S. - at least for this kind of stuff.
MadWombat 7y ago
> The major problem I think is NAT NAT is not a problem. All you have to do is configure port forwarding on your router correctly. Dynamic IP assignment is a bit more of a problem, but it can be overcome by using dynamic DNS services. All of this is fairly trivial. > I don't mind serving them from my home I do. And I think it goes for a lot of people. My connection is residential, so somewhere in the ToS it says that I cannot run public servers off of it. Besides, there is no guaranteed uptime, I would need to deal with things like backups, hardware replacements and whatever other maintenance myself. Whereas with a service like Instagram, I just take pictures on my phone and upload. There is no overhead, my stuff is always available and I don't have to worry about backups.
- kitotik 7y ago
  > All you have to do is configure port forwarding on your router correctly. Dynamic IP assignment is a bit more of a problem, but it can be overcome by using dynamic DNS services. But most people don’t even know what a ‘port’ is, let alone do they know that their router may let them change some settings. > there is no guaranteed uptime, I would need to deal with things like backups Are these important criteria for a federated system? > my stuff is always available Until it’s not because the centralized provider went out of business/censored you/was acquired/killed the product for strategic reasons EDIT: typo
  - rohan1024 7y ago
    I agree with the other two points. The first one is not just something that you can change in router configuration. I am talking about CG-NAT. It's implemented by ISP and is not something that you can bypass.
  - pmlnr 7y ago
    > But most people don’t even know what a ‘port’ is, let alone do they know that their router may let them change some settings. upnp was made for them.
  - MadWombat 7y ago
    > Are these important criteria for a federated system? As long as I am storing data on my node and/or use my node to access the system, yes, it is. Also, the comment I was replying to just said "The solution I think is instead of hosting it on cloud we host it at home" and suggested running a server on a Raspberry Pi. Nothing about federation. > Until it’s not because the centralized provider went out of business/censored you/was acquired... What do you think is more likely, that Instagram goes out of business or that a Raspberry Pi sitting under my bed dies and takes my photos with it?
wongarsu 7y ago
> The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. There's UPnP to attempt to automatically configure routers, and failing that there's UDP hole punching to establish a connection beween two NATed peers with a few packets from a third host (STUN or similar). You can use the hosts where UPnP worked to coordinate the connection between NATed hosts. It's not trivial to implement, but it doesn't look impossible, and for example WebRTC seems to do a decent job.
redm 7y ago
The true cost IMHO is time, time to learn it, to deploy, configure, update, manage, etc. Even if the hosting was dirt cheap, I don't want to spend my time doing it.
cr0sh 7y ago
> The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. Solve that and you most probably have solved decentralization. That's mostly solved via dynamic DNS. But there's still a bigger issue: The ISP. It always comes down to the pipe. If the provider of the pipe doesn't want your traffic flowing over them, they can cancel your service, throttle you down, whatever. Also - at least for most people's home service ISP - the TOS usually is explicit about "no servers" - that's the rub. Some will look the other way about a server, if it isn't popular, or is only used privately - but whether they do or don't, they hold that axe right above your neck, and can bring it down any time they want. This even applies to business class pipes; ie, most home ISPs provide business service (some restrict it to non-residential addresses, but many or most understand SOHO and allow it - just pay the $$$) - but they can restrict what you do with that pipe (ie - no porn, etc). In the case of bigger pipes - like say you colo your own server at a major datacenter - even the guys providing the "big pipes" in theory could cut you (or the datacenter!) off if they wanted to, depending on the content flowing over their pipes. If we're ever going to do decentralized right - we need to fix that part. And that so far hasn't proved to be easy to do. The main problem has been that the pipes still are in a limbo of "are they a common carrier" - and how far does that extend. If they are a common carrier, then everyone should be able to flow over the pipes - but cable ISPs block that (and then you have the lovely ALEC based legislation in conservative areas that work to block public ISPs, city-owned broadband, or even other companies, like Google Fiber, from expanding against entrenched interests).
mjevans 7y ago
No, the major issue is DDoS attacks. What's going to HAVE to happen is enough competition among providers that you can issue a request to your local provider to filter out traffic, which you will NOT be billed for in any way. That will actually start pushing pressure upwards to do the same, eventually reaching the backbone and/or across it to other providers, and killing 'spam' traffic will actually work. As a side bonus this might help ISPs identify infected customers and get some help to them.

olah_1 7y ago

That's exactly what FreedomBox is trying to do. https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ They have a lot of work to do on user friendliness and design though. I'd rather see something like YUNOHOST partner with a hardware provider.

ashleyn 7y ago

A major obstacle to your proposal is the near-universal blocking of port 80 inbound on residential ISPs.

rohan1024 7y ago
I haven't seen this happening with Indian ISPs so far but have read quite a few responses here on HN which mention the same issue that you did. I think if we have enough momentum with self hosting sooner or later one provider will unblock ports and incoming connection and soon others will follow the same practice out of competition. Maybe I am being too optimistic here.

stronglikedan 7y ago

Another major problem is the agreement you sign with your ISP that says you won't host a server on your home internet account.

Lunatic666 7y ago
Are you living in the US? I live in Singapore and my ISP encourages me to host my own stuff. With a static IP and 1GBit/500MBit there's enough bandwidth available.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Yes. You can get all that when you sign up for a business account here, but usually not on residential accounts.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  In the U.S. unfortunately the vast majority of ISPs make hosting your own services a direct violation of their terms of service. And worse yet, the U.S. - at least in many, many of its regions - lacks competition to jump to any ISP who would allow "at home" services. It really sucks here in the U.S. - at least for this kind of stuff.

MadWombat 7y ago

> The major problem I think is NAT NAT is not a problem. All you have to do is configure port forwarding on your router correctly. Dynamic IP assignment is a bit more of a problem, but it can be overcome by using dynamic DNS services. All of this is fairly trivial. > I don't mind serving them from my home I do. And I think it goes for a lot of people. My connection is residential, so somewhere in the ToS it says that I cannot run public servers off of it. Besides, there is no guaranteed uptime, I would need to deal with things like backups, hardware replacements and whatever other maintenance myself. Whereas with a service like Instagram, I just take pictures on my phone and upload. There is no overhead, my stuff is always available and I don't have to worry about backups.

kitotik 7y ago
> All you have to do is configure port forwarding on your router correctly. Dynamic IP assignment is a bit more of a problem, but it can be overcome by using dynamic DNS services. But most people don’t even know what a ‘port’ is, let alone do they know that their router may let them change some settings. > there is no guaranteed uptime, I would need to deal with things like backups Are these important criteria for a federated system? > my stuff is always available Until it’s not because the centralized provider went out of business/censored you/was acquired/killed the product for strategic reasons EDIT: typo
- rohan1024 7y ago
  I agree with the other two points. The first one is not just something that you can change in router configuration. I am talking about CG-NAT. It's implemented by ISP and is not something that you can bypass.
- pmlnr 7y ago
  > But most people don’t even know what a ‘port’ is, let alone do they know that their router may let them change some settings. upnp was made for them.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  > Are these important criteria for a federated system? As long as I am storing data on my node and/or use my node to access the system, yes, it is. Also, the comment I was replying to just said "The solution I think is instead of hosting it on cloud we host it at home" and suggested running a server on a Raspberry Pi. Nothing about federation. > Until it’s not because the centralized provider went out of business/censored you/was acquired... What do you think is more likely, that Instagram goes out of business or that a Raspberry Pi sitting under my bed dies and takes my photos with it?

wongarsu 7y ago

> The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. There's UPnP to attempt to automatically configure routers, and failing that there's UDP hole punching to establish a connection beween two NATed peers with a few packets from a third host (STUN or similar). You can use the hosts where UPnP worked to coordinate the connection between NATed hosts. It's not trivial to implement, but it doesn't look impossible, and for example WebRTC seems to do a decent job.

redm 7y ago

The true cost IMHO is time, time to learn it, to deploy, configure, update, manage, etc. Even if the hosting was dirt cheap, I don't want to spend my time doing it.

cr0sh 7y ago

> The major problem I think is NAT which is preventing direct hosting of content from home. Solve that and you most probably have solved decentralization. That's mostly solved via dynamic DNS. But there's still a bigger issue: The ISP. It always comes down to the pipe. If the provider of the pipe doesn't want your traffic flowing over them, they can cancel your service, throttle you down, whatever. Also - at least for most people's home service ISP - the TOS usually is explicit about "no servers" - that's the rub. Some will look the other way about a server, if it isn't popular, or is only used privately - but whether they do or don't, they hold that axe right above your neck, and can bring it down any time they want. This even applies to business class pipes; ie, most home ISPs provide business service (some restrict it to non-residential addresses, but many or most understand SOHO and allow it - just pay the $$$) - but they can restrict what you do with that pipe (ie - no porn, etc). In the case of bigger pipes - like say you colo your own server at a major datacenter - even the guys providing the "big pipes" in theory could cut you (or the datacenter!) off if they wanted to, depending on the content flowing over their pipes. If we're ever going to do decentralized right - we need to fix that part. And that so far hasn't proved to be easy to do. The main problem has been that the pipes still are in a limbo of "are they a common carrier" - and how far does that extend. If they are a common carrier, then everyone should be able to flow over the pipes - but cable ISPs block that (and then you have the lovely ALEC based legislation in conservative areas that work to block public ISPs, city-owned broadband, or even other companies, like Google Fiber, from expanding against entrenched interests).

mjevans 7y ago

No, the major issue is DDoS attacks. What's going to HAVE to happen is enough competition among providers that you can issue a request to your local provider to filter out traffic, which you will NOT be billed for in any way. That will actually start pushing pressure upwards to do the same, eventually reaching the backbone and/or across it to other providers, and killing 'spam' traffic will actually work. As a side bonus this might help ISPs identify infected customers and get some help to them.