4 ms·

Those are cool when you live in the CLI. My mom doesn't though, being part of a small cluster of hackers is cool but not what the internet should be. My goal o

by tleb_ 6y ago

Those are cool when you live in the CLI. My mom doesn't though, being part of a small cluster of hackers is cool but not what the internet should be. My goal once I can finance it is to create a virtual island that my family and close friends can rely on for vital services: emails, file hosting, calendar, contacts, a public web space, etc. If every hacker did this for its close circle the impact would be far greater than the current hacker communities we create. Notable mentions: https://chatons.org/en https://chatons.org/en & https://yunohost.org/ https://yunohost.org/

wyre 6y ago
> create a virtual island That sounds like a really cool project. What would the costs be to finance that?
- tleb_ 6y ago
  One or two servers (second one for redundancy, at another location). File storage would be the expensive part. Starting at 10-20TB usable space with slots for more would be nice. The location would either be at my parents', as I move often and they have a rack installed (with nothing in it, the internet link isn't amazing but should be fine) or it could be colocated at a non-profit FAI (https://www.ffdn.org/en https://www.ffdn.org/en). The colocation is probably the most sensible option for the internet link and stability they bring (proper data center context, back-up generators and they have static IPv4). + long-term encrypted backups to some random service like Backblaze even if I have duplicate storage, I don't trust myself enough to do everything properly. The idea isn't new, I have already seen a few online (I remember of two but no links). The focus was more around hacker&friend groups, looking like private tilde clubs. Here the idea is to provide services usable by anyone in my family, with a nice identity (I like seeing it as an island, a village or such).
- npteljes 6y ago
  Cost I think is negligible, or at least affordable, what I wouldn't like in this scenario is the _responsibility_. The part where uptime depends on you, bugs creep into the system and they become your fault, you bork something and lose some data, and you have to keep everything up to date and interoperable and compatible with whatever current tech everyone uses for access.
indigochill 6y ago
Is financing this sort of thing for a small circle expensive? I would (naively) think it's ~$5/month for a DigitalOcean droplet (adjust for your preferred hosting service) and maybe a bit more if you want a domain name (probably, if it's for non-technical family). But I haven't looked into it in much depth myself. Still a great goal, though, and I'd like to do the same at some point.
- thesuitonym 6y ago
  Running email on a DO droplet (or any shared vps) would be pretty terrible. Even if you manage to find one that doesn't have all of its IPs blacklisted from the mainstream email providers, it's only a matter of time before your email just stops being accepted.
- tleb_ 6y ago
  My answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25137787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25137787 The big things to consider are file storage, redundancy and long-term stability (availability for emails).

by tleb_ 6y ago

wyre 6y ago

> create a virtual island That sounds like a really cool project. What would the costs be to finance that?

tleb_ 6y ago
One or two servers (second one for redundancy, at another location). File storage would be the expensive part. Starting at 10-20TB usable space with slots for more would be nice. The location would either be at my parents', as I move often and they have a rack installed (with nothing in it, the internet link isn't amazing but should be fine) or it could be colocated at a non-profit FAI (https://www.ffdn.org/en https://www.ffdn.org/en). The colocation is probably the most sensible option for the internet link and stability they bring (proper data center context, back-up generators and they have static IPv4). + long-term encrypted backups to some random service like Backblaze even if I have duplicate storage, I don't trust myself enough to do everything properly. The idea isn't new, I have already seen a few online (I remember of two but no links). The focus was more around hacker&friend groups, looking like private tilde clubs. Here the idea is to provide services usable by anyone in my family, with a nice identity (I like seeing it as an island, a village or such).
npteljes 6y ago
Cost I think is negligible, or at least affordable, what I wouldn't like in this scenario is the _responsibility_. The part where uptime depends on you, bugs creep into the system and they become your fault, you bork something and lose some data, and you have to keep everything up to date and interoperable and compatible with whatever current tech everyone uses for access.

indigochill 6y ago

Is financing this sort of thing for a small circle expensive? I would (naively) think it's ~$5/month for a DigitalOcean droplet (adjust for your preferred hosting service) and maybe a bit more if you want a domain name (probably, if it's for non-technical family). But I haven't looked into it in much depth myself. Still a great goal, though, and I'd like to do the same at some point.

thesuitonym 6y ago
Running email on a DO droplet (or any shared vps) would be pretty terrible. Even if you manage to find one that doesn't have all of its IPs blacklisted from the mainstream email providers, it's only a matter of time before your email just stops being accepted.
tleb_ 6y ago
My answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25137787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25137787 The big things to consider are file storage, redundancy and long-term stability (availability for emails).