13 ms·

Not your server, not your data. Host your own mission critical services, and don’t commit too much to (especially free) third party services.

onion2k 4y ago
In the case of the user who started this thread, there's no option to 'host it yourself'. They're trying to be part of the community that Discord hosts. Discord is stopping them. You can't just fire up an IRC server and ask everyone on the Discord to move because you can't join in. That's not how life works.
JonathanBeuys 4y ago
You cannot self-host identity. You cannot self-host a social graph. If people would host "abc liked my tweet" and "xyz follows me" on their own server, then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets and Joe Biden is their best friend. People go on social media for the social graph. You can do that via a central authority (and live in fear that everything is taken from you) or you can do it via cryptographic proof. Self hosting is not a solution. You also cannot host identity. If your domain gets stolen from you (search for the horror stories on Google or HN search), your identity is gone. Nothing you can do against it, since you are at the mercy of authorities again: The registrars.
- devmor 4y ago
  >If people would host "xyz liked my tweet" on their own server, then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets. This problem is what public key verification is literally made to solve. If Billie Eilish likes your tweet, her client signs the like with her private key and sends the result to your server. Other clients can verify the like is real by looking at the result you send back with the "like" and verifying it against her public key. Edit: The person I'm replying to has edited their post at least 3 separate times in the past couple minutes, adding multiple new lines to say different things, so if this disagreement to it ends up making no sense, you know why.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mavhc 4y ago
  only if you rely on a domain name for identity, instead of private/public keypairs
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  Sure you can self-host identity. Why would it be tied to a domain name? It is tied to a public key already, in e-ID systems, S/MIME, or GPG, Tor, blockchain, etc.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  have you not heard of the fediverse?
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  >then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets and Joe Biden is their best friend Twitter bots already do that.
leephillips 4y ago
Exactly right. People choose to give these companies power over them; they choose to submit to tyranny. Nobody can ban me from email, or from my own website.
- bombcar 4y ago
  They can, it just takes extra steps and so probably won’t happen as nobody is likely to run a coordinated campaign to do it.
  - leephillips 4y ago
    How would it work? I mean, I can imagine framing me for a felony and getting me banned from internet access as part of my sentence, but are there less extreme procedures? EDIT: Maybe breaking into my email server and sending out spam to poison my IP. That’s conceivable, and would partially ban me from sending out email.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      DDOS, reporting your server/domain for TOS violations, etc. As long as nobody cares enough to do it, it probably won’t happen. Just never piss off the wrong person.
      - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
        That said, how much costs ddos?
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  That's not entirely accurate. For email see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 For website see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32706673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32706673
  - leephillips 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago

In the case of the user who started this thread, there's no option to 'host it yourself'. They're trying to be part of the community that Discord hosts. Discord is stopping them. You can't just fire up an IRC server and ask everyone on the Discord to move because you can't join in. That's not how life works.

JonathanBeuys 4y ago

You cannot self-host identity. You cannot self-host a social graph. If people would host "abc liked my tweet" and "xyz follows me" on their own server, then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets and Joe Biden is their best friend. People go on social media for the social graph. You can do that via a central authority (and live in fear that everything is taken from you) or you can do it via cryptographic proof. Self hosting is not a solution. You also cannot host identity. If your domain gets stolen from you (search for the horror stories on Google or HN search), your identity is gone. Nothing you can do against it, since you are at the mercy of authorities again: The registrars.

devmor 4y ago
>If people would host "xyz liked my tweet" on their own server, then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets. This problem is what public key verification is literally made to solve. If Billie Eilish likes your tweet, her client signs the like with her private key and sends the result to your server. Other clients can verify the like is real by looking at the result you send back with the "like" and verifying it against her public key. Edit: The person I'm replying to has edited their post at least 3 separate times in the past couple minutes, adding multiple new lines to say different things, so if this disagreement to it ends up making no sense, you know why.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mavhc 4y ago
only if you rely on a domain name for identity, instead of private/public keypairs
rhn_mk1 4y ago
Sure you can self-host identity. Why would it be tied to a domain name? It is tied to a public key already, in e-ID systems, S/MIME, or GPG, Tor, blockchain, etc.
ranger_danger 4y ago
have you not heard of the fediverse?
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
>then everybody would claim that Billie Eilish liked all their tweets and Joe Biden is their best friend Twitter bots already do that.

leephillips 4y ago

Exactly right. People choose to give these companies power over them; they choose to submit to tyranny. Nobody can ban me from email, or from my own website.

bombcar 4y ago
They can, it just takes extra steps and so probably won’t happen as nobody is likely to run a coordinated campaign to do it.
- leephillips 4y ago
  How would it work? I mean, I can imagine framing me for a felony and getting me banned from internet access as part of my sentence, but are there less extreme procedures? EDIT: Maybe breaking into my email server and sending out spam to poison my IP. That’s conceivable, and would partially ban me from sending out email.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    DDOS, reporting your server/domain for TOS violations, etc. As long as nobody cares enough to do it, it probably won’t happen. Just never piss off the wrong person.
    - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
      That said, how much costs ddos?
ranger_danger 4y ago
That's not entirely accurate. For email see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 For website see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32706673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32706673
- leephillips 4y ago