5 ms·

How can we get the layperson to run a "homeserver" to host all their data locally and have a strong pki infra. 30 years ago, people would've said the same thin

How can we get the layperson to run a "homeserver" to host all their data locally and have a strong pki infra. 30 years ago, people would've said the same things about routers, so I think it's possible with the right ui/incentives

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The first problem to solve would be getting a symmetric fiber connection to their home so they can actually upload at more than a highly volatile 5Mbps that is probably split amongst whole neighborhood. Second would be ipv6 address to not have to deal with CGNAT and make the ISP as dumb of a pipe as possible.
frickinLasers 5y ago
What about Helm? https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/
- samatman 5y ago
  I want to like Helm (mine is temporarily in storage), but there doesn't seem to be any way to run the rest of Nextcloud on it. It's great that you don't have to start rolling your own cloud, but it would be a better offering for me if you could decide to tinker with it.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>I think it's possible with the right ui/incentives I want that, but for the masses of tech-illiterate Average Joes out there, it's tough to compete against the sheer convenience of "tap next to trust big tech with all your private data and sync it all in the cloud" that you get when you unbox your iPhone/Android. And for most people their phone is their primary computing device now so their lives are tied to those ecosystems and we've been conditioned for over a decade now to just give our private data to the phones' ecosystems without asking questions because everting is so convenient and ignorance is bliss. Trying to get average consumers off the big-tech ecosystems at this point is like trying to unplug people from the matrix. It's nearly impossible, unless some new EU-style regulations break up these monopolies first so that third party alternatives can compete on feature parity.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  > tap next to trust big tech with all your private data and sync it all in the cloud Consumer NAS management should be way easier. Why can't I tap my phone to my NAS to pair and then go anywhere in the world with a network connection?
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Because 1) most consumers have no idea what a NAS is, and even when they do, consumers have been conditioned that all their data is automagically beamed to the Apple/Google cloud at any and all time there's an internet connection without any user involvement beyond entering their ID when they unbox their phone for the first time, so it's impossible for a third party device or service to compete with this level of out of the box integration and convenience 2) NAS devices aren't made by Apple and Google so NAS integration into these ecosystems is a second class experience at best, and Apple and Google will never make NAS devices as they're incentivized to get you to pay for their cloud storage subscriptions for your data. Plus, as a a cherry on top, this way they can silently data-mine you as well. Basically the industry is moving, or we can argue that it has moved already, towards subscriptions, where you never really own your music/movies/data but have access to it as long as you pay your monthly/yearly fee, because this is so much more lucrative for big-tech than getting you to buy commodity HW like a NAS and physically owning your data.
- adventured 5y ago
  EU-style regulations will decrease, dramatically, the likelihood of Average Joe doing it themselves: those regulations will improve privacy, data control, et al. requirements for big tech. Average Joe will feel even safer in using big tech.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
Pray that Apple makes one. I'm only half joking. I was just fantasizing about this the other day. I'd love this to become reality but I'm worried reality diverges from this idea further with each passing day. People produce more and more data that's useless outside of a closed platform. Nobody owns media to host.
jmrm 5y ago
Probably some ISPs will sell NAS or similar device and, with a monthly fee, you would have external access via a custom domain name (like john_doe.verizon.com, for example). A lot of non-techy people already have NAS, external hard drives, and things like that. I don't know how ISPs haven't done already this.
- discardedrefuse 5y ago
  That's a DOA product. ISP's are notoriously terrible at everything; especially firmware. They can't be trusted with something like this.
HNHatesUsers 5y ago
richardw 5y ago
Why? Honest question. I fully appreciate owning your own data and hosting it somewhere, but no idea why we need to host anywhere but hyper-connected data centers. I’d like to own my social graph, my profile, my permissions for who can contact me and read my data. But no reason for that to execute on my phone or home server. Have service providers do it, compete, scale and specialise. Let me host at home if I want to, but that doesn’t feel like the default we need. But prove me wrong. I like learning!
- water-your-self 5y ago
  Apple is now policing the images you own. They intend to observe everything you upload to ensure it aligns with local legislation. Some good, a lot of bad. Beyond that, if someone owns your data they can simply decide what you pay tomorrow and its burn it or pay.
- imiric 5y ago
  Because it's my data. I should decide who can access it, when and on what terms. Relying on someone else to do it for me is an unnecessary middle man that exists for the only reason web developers haven't made a good technical solution that would be simple, secure and reliable enough for everyone to use. For goodness sake, we've had to come up with laws for how companies can use our data instead of solid technical solutions that address the problem. The focus for the past 30 years has been on simplifying web content consumption. Everyone knows how to use a web browser. Why hasn't there been a similar push to make serving web content easier? There have been some attempts (Opera Unite, Sandstorm, Docker... web3?), but none have prevailed. A possible answer could be because it has created a huge market for 3rd party services to step in and make things easier for web users. And now it's probably too late to stop the train. But there's no reason this couldn't work while empowering the user.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    * Most home connections are asymmetric and lack upload bandwidth. * Most personal devices are battery powered and intermittently operated. * Many are mobile in terms of physical location and logical network (home WiFi, work/school WiFi, cellular). Having a third, highly available, high upload capacity location to stage data between production and consumption wins because it is a genuinely effective solution to problems inherent in sharing data between end users.
layer8 5y ago
Routers work because ISPs require them. ISPs however aren’t fond of supporting the home server use case. I wish for a world where battery tech wasn’t so limited. Imagine if everyone could just run a full-fledged server 24/7 on their phone, as a simple app, with a reasonable data plan.
- discardedrefuse 5y ago
  > Routers work because ISPs require them. ISPs however aren’t fond of supporting the home server use case. This is the obvious and simplest solution. A built-in self-hosting platform right in the router, extensible with an external USB drive if the user needs it. But ISP's are notoriously terrible at everything and certainly can't be trusted with something like this.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Why not ? Free (for instance) went pretty far in this direction 11 years ago (v6) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox
    - discardedrefuse 5y ago
      ISP's can't be trusted with the firmware on their current routers. Do you really want them in charge of your internet facing services in your home?
      - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
        O RLY? https://floss.freebox.fr/ https://floss.freebox.fr/ Edité: Liberté, égalité, cyberité!
        discardedrefuse 5y ago
        Yes, really. https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-fiber-equipment/possible-vulnerability-pace-5268ac-leaves-wifi-radio-on-with-no-security-even-when-is-set-to-off/5defd50fbad5f2f6062df285 https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-fiber-equipment/pos...

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The first problem to solve would be getting a symmetric fiber connection to their home so they can actually upload at more than a highly volatile 5Mbps that is probably split amongst whole neighborhood. Second would be ipv6 address to not have to deal with CGNAT and make the ISP as dumb of a pipe as possible.

frickinLasers 5y ago

What about Helm? https://thehelm.com/ https://thehelm.com/

samatman 5y ago
I want to like Helm (mine is temporarily in storage), but there doesn't seem to be any way to run the rest of Nextcloud on it. It's great that you don't have to start rolling your own cloud, but it would be a better offering for me if you could decide to tinker with it.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago

>I think it's possible with the right ui/incentives I want that, but for the masses of tech-illiterate Average Joes out there, it's tough to compete against the sheer convenience of "tap next to trust big tech with all your private data and sync it all in the cloud" that you get when you unbox your iPhone/Android. And for most people their phone is their primary computing device now so their lives are tied to those ecosystems and we've been conditioned for over a decade now to just give our private data to the phones' ecosystems without asking questions because everting is so convenient and ignorance is bliss. Trying to get average consumers off the big-tech ecosystems at this point is like trying to unplug people from the matrix. It's nearly impossible, unless some new EU-style regulations break up these monopolies first so that third party alternatives can compete on feature parity.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
> tap next to trust big tech with all your private data and sync it all in the cloud Consumer NAS management should be way easier. Why can't I tap my phone to my NAS to pair and then go anywhere in the world with a network connection?
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Because 1) most consumers have no idea what a NAS is, and even when they do, consumers have been conditioned that all their data is automagically beamed to the Apple/Google cloud at any and all time there's an internet connection without any user involvement beyond entering their ID when they unbox their phone for the first time, so it's impossible for a third party device or service to compete with this level of out of the box integration and convenience 2) NAS devices aren't made by Apple and Google so NAS integration into these ecosystems is a second class experience at best, and Apple and Google will never make NAS devices as they're incentivized to get you to pay for their cloud storage subscriptions for your data. Plus, as a a cherry on top, this way they can silently data-mine you as well. Basically the industry is moving, or we can argue that it has moved already, towards subscriptions, where you never really own your music/movies/data but have access to it as long as you pay your monthly/yearly fee, because this is so much more lucrative for big-tech than getting you to buy commodity HW like a NAS and physically owning your data.
adventured 5y ago
EU-style regulations will decrease, dramatically, the likelihood of Average Joe doing it themselves: those regulations will improve privacy, data control, et al. requirements for big tech. Average Joe will feel even safer in using big tech.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

Pray that Apple makes one. I'm only half joking. I was just fantasizing about this the other day. I'd love this to become reality but I'm worried reality diverges from this idea further with each passing day. People produce more and more data that's useless outside of a closed platform. Nobody owns media to host.

jmrm 5y ago

Probably some ISPs will sell NAS or similar device and, with a monthly fee, you would have external access via a custom domain name (like john_doe.verizon.com, for example). A lot of non-techy people already have NAS, external hard drives, and things like that. I don't know how ISPs haven't done already this.

discardedrefuse 5y ago
That's a DOA product. ISP's are notoriously terrible at everything; especially firmware. They can't be trusted with something like this.

HNHatesUsers 5y ago

richardw 5y ago

Why? Honest question. I fully appreciate owning your own data and hosting it somewhere, but no idea why we need to host anywhere but hyper-connected data centers. I’d like to own my social graph, my profile, my permissions for who can contact me and read my data. But no reason for that to execute on my phone or home server. Have service providers do it, compete, scale and specialise. Let me host at home if I want to, but that doesn’t feel like the default we need. But prove me wrong. I like learning!

water-your-self 5y ago
Apple is now policing the images you own. They intend to observe everything you upload to ensure it aligns with local legislation. Some good, a lot of bad. Beyond that, if someone owns your data they can simply decide what you pay tomorrow and its burn it or pay.
imiric 5y ago
Because it's my data. I should decide who can access it, when and on what terms. Relying on someone else to do it for me is an unnecessary middle man that exists for the only reason web developers haven't made a good technical solution that would be simple, secure and reliable enough for everyone to use. For goodness sake, we've had to come up with laws for how companies can use our data instead of solid technical solutions that address the problem. The focus for the past 30 years has been on simplifying web content consumption. Everyone knows how to use a web browser. Why hasn't there been a similar push to make serving web content easier? There have been some attempts (Opera Unite, Sandstorm, Docker... web3?), but none have prevailed. A possible answer could be because it has created a huge market for 3rd party services to step in and make things easier for web users. And now it's probably too late to stop the train. But there's no reason this couldn't work while empowering the user.
- closeparen 5y ago
  * Most home connections are asymmetric and lack upload bandwidth. * Most personal devices are battery powered and intermittently operated. * Many are mobile in terms of physical location and logical network (home WiFi, work/school WiFi, cellular). Having a third, highly available, high upload capacity location to stage data between production and consumption wins because it is a genuinely effective solution to problems inherent in sharing data between end users.

layer8 5y ago

Routers work because ISPs require them. ISPs however aren’t fond of supporting the home server use case. I wish for a world where battery tech wasn’t so limited. Imagine if everyone could just run a full-fledged server 24/7 on their phone, as a simple app, with a reasonable data plan.

discardedrefuse 5y ago
> Routers work because ISPs require them. ISPs however aren’t fond of supporting the home server use case. This is the obvious and simplest solution. A built-in self-hosting platform right in the router, extensible with an external USB drive if the user needs it. But ISP's are notoriously terrible at everything and certainly can't be trusted with something like this.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Why not ? Free (for instance) went pretty far in this direction 11 years ago (v6) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox
  - discardedrefuse 5y ago
    ISP's can't be trusted with the firmware on their current routers. Do you really want them in charge of your internet facing services in your home?
    - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
      O RLY? https://floss.freebox.fr/ https://floss.freebox.fr/ Edité: Liberté, égalité, cyberité!
      - discardedrefuse 5y ago
        Yes, really. https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-fiber-equipment/possible-vulnerability-pace-5268ac-leaves-wifi-radio-on-with-no-security-even-when-is-set-to-off/5defd50fbad5f2f6062df285 https://forums.att.com/conversations/att-fiber-equipment/pos...