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With the cheapness of CPUs networking and storage I’m still amazed that there isn’t a revolution in hardware offerings for single purpose boxes. If you need pho

With the cheapness of CPUs networking and storage I’m still amazed that there isn’t a revolution in hardware offerings for single purpose boxes. If you need photo storage you should be able to walk into any store and buy something the size of an external hard drive that you can just plug into your router and it just works. Same thing for email, private messaging, social networking, calendars, whatever. Most people don’t use enough data on these things to make it a problem. The biggest challenge would be security but you should be able to buy an off the shelf firewall and have some form of automatic updates. We’d need to all agree to use existing open protocols and there’s a decent amount of code to write to enable federation but it’s not an impossible task.

hkt 6y ago
Actually, alas, the challenge here is the durability of storage. Changing a disc out and synchronising its contents is out of reach for average joe, and nothing is foolproof enough. The cloud is about giving up responsibility, and sadly most people give it up gladly
- zikzak 6y ago
  These devices could be sold with access to an encrypted back up service so you can have you local data and search it and it's encrypted locally before being sent to an off-site back up. But then you get into those businesses going under, people not maintaining thier accounts, companies who do not actually encrypt because users really want cloud access at the end of the day, etc. When I think of something that we should be able to do but can't ("I just want a button to do X" type requirements) it is usually apparent why that doesn't exist if I give it some thought.
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    I don’t think site security is the main concern for the average person when it comes to this use case. They run the same risk with all of their physical possessions and there are existing solutions for this eg firesafes. Making sure that drive failure doesn’t wipe out your photos or files would be more important. Multiple redundant drives are the solution. If each is a small SSD and plug and play it’s something anyone could handle by just buying a new drive and swapping it out. Physical data appliances need to be as simple as a lamp. Plug it in, turn it on and occasionally replace a light bulb.
  - matt-attack 6y ago
    Or use encrypted mutual backups on others like systems (eg you friend buys the same model and you each clone each other’s, transparently, securely). Storage is cheap so you just over provision the space so that it can be both super durable, and have space to backup friends’.
- prepend 6y ago
  I think doing some peer to peer striping should solve this. Selling a 3TB that only uses 2TB with an extra $5 to pay for a matchmaking service for 20 years.
  - matt-attack 6y ago
    This.
Tijdreiziger 6y ago
Aren't you describing a NAS?
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  Yes it turns out I am. I did some googling and found some decent options. I do wish that there were more network appliances in this vein and that they were more widely developed for and used rather than the current cloud infrastructure.

hkt 6y ago

Actually, alas, the challenge here is the durability of storage. Changing a disc out and synchronising its contents is out of reach for average joe, and nothing is foolproof enough. The cloud is about giving up responsibility, and sadly most people give it up gladly

zikzak 6y ago
These devices could be sold with access to an encrypted back up service so you can have you local data and search it and it's encrypted locally before being sent to an off-site back up. But then you get into those businesses going under, people not maintaining thier accounts, companies who do not actually encrypt because users really want cloud access at the end of the day, etc. When I think of something that we should be able to do but can't ("I just want a button to do X" type requirements) it is usually apparent why that doesn't exist if I give it some thought.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  I don’t think site security is the main concern for the average person when it comes to this use case. They run the same risk with all of their physical possessions and there are existing solutions for this eg firesafes. Making sure that drive failure doesn’t wipe out your photos or files would be more important. Multiple redundant drives are the solution. If each is a small SSD and plug and play it’s something anyone could handle by just buying a new drive and swapping it out. Physical data appliances need to be as simple as a lamp. Plug it in, turn it on and occasionally replace a light bulb.
- matt-attack 6y ago
  Or use encrypted mutual backups on others like systems (eg you friend buys the same model and you each clone each other’s, transparently, securely). Storage is cheap so you just over provision the space so that it can be both super durable, and have space to backup friends’.
prepend 6y ago
I think doing some peer to peer striping should solve this. Selling a 3TB that only uses 2TB with an extra $5 to pay for a matchmaking service for 20 years.
- matt-attack 6y ago
  This.

Tijdreiziger 6y ago

Aren't you describing a NAS?

throwaway316943 6y ago
Yes it turns out I am. I did some googling and found some decent options. I do wish that there were more network appliances in this vein and that they were more widely developed for and used rather than the current cloud infrastructure.