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Just like people shouldn't just buy industrial welding machines, SCUBA equipment or a parachute and "wing it" I think the same can be said here. As a society w

Just like people shouldn't just buy industrial welding machines, SCUBA equipment or a parachute and "wing it" I think the same can be said here. As a society we already have the structures setup: The author had been more than welcome to attend a course or a study programme in server administration that would prepare them to run their own server. I myself even wouldn't venture into exposing a server to the internet to maintain it in my freetime, and that is with a post graduate degree in an engineering field and more than 20 years of experience.

WaxProlix 2y ago
You can't just click a few buttons and have industrial machinery - and when you DO get it there's a ton of safety warnings on and around it. And I don't agree with your fundamental premise; self owned computing should be for everyone. It shouldn't be - at least for some subset of basics - arcane or onerous.
- fullspectrumdev 2y ago
  You absolutely can. Have you a credit card and a web browser? You can buy all sorts of heavy machinery and have it shipped to your door!
  - WaxProlix 2y ago
    You've introduced a new element here - the credit card. And if you did have the money and whimsy it'd still show up with (regulated, mandatory, industry-standardized) safety documentation.
    - fullspectrumdev 2y ago
      I guess that depends where you order from. You can get some crazy machines from Alibaba/Aliexpress and the “documentation” they come with is usually… well it leaves a lot to be desired.
    - oarsinsync 2y ago
      The credit card (or rather, money) was required to purchase the computer, much like it’s required to purchase other power tools or industrial machinery
- bennythomsson 2y ago
  Most computing people habe at home is some locked down cloud crap which neither you nor an attacker can do anything with. It's not hackable though in the original sense of the word, so not interesting the crowd at HN. Docker is, for everybody, good and bad.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  Like you sibling I think you also misunderstand my statement: I do run local servers, but none a connected to the internet. I definitely believe it is for all to have a NAS server, a home assistant, or a NUC setup to run some docker containers. Just don't let them accept connections from the internet. For most normal home setups it is actually super hard to make them accept incoming requests as you need to setup port forwarding or put the server in front of your router. The default is that the server is not reachable from the internet.
10729287 2y ago
And yet, OP here seems very comfortable with computer stuff. Can’t imagine about the regular joe buying a nas from synology and all the promesses made by the company.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  These are not, per default, exposed to the internet.
kibwen 2y ago
> Just like people shouldn't just buy industrial welding machines, SCUBA equipment or a parachute and "wing it" I think the same can be said here. I find this to be extremely sad. Unlike welding or diving, there is no inherent physical risk to life and limb to running a server. I should be able to stand up a server and leaving it running, unattended and unadministered, and then come back to it 20 years later to find it happily humming along unpwned. The fact that this isn't true isn't due to any sort of physical inevitability, it's just because we, the collective technologists, are shit at what we do.
- darkwater 2y ago
  No. It's not so easy because in most cases you have to choose between security, flexibility and usability. Obviously it's not a 100% accurate example but generally speaking, it tends to be true. Sum it up over several decades of development and you get why we cannot have something that it's really really easy to use, flexible and secure by default.
  - Gud 2y ago
    We do, it's called FreeBSD. In my experience, many Linux distributions also qualify. To keep a modern *nix secure and up to date is simple.
    - darkwater 2y ago
      Which would help exactly 0 in this scenario, where someone is exposing a port directly on the Internet. Also, FreeBSD is even more niche than Linux, I doubt it would stand the average user stress test.
      - Gud 2y ago
        Absolutely it would because jails doesn't do weird shit like this from the get go. With FreeBSD, you have to deliberately open ports, not the other away around. I don't understand your second sentence. "average user stress test"??
fullspectrumdev 2y ago
I guess we have different risk tolerances. The best way to learn is to do. Sure, you might make some mistakes along the way, but fuck it. That’s how you learn.

WaxProlix 2y ago

You can't just click a few buttons and have industrial machinery - and when you DO get it there's a ton of safety warnings on and around it. And I don't agree with your fundamental premise; self owned computing should be for everyone. It shouldn't be - at least for some subset of basics - arcane or onerous.

fullspectrumdev 2y ago
You absolutely can. Have you a credit card and a web browser? You can buy all sorts of heavy machinery and have it shipped to your door!
- WaxProlix 2y ago
  You've introduced a new element here - the credit card. And if you did have the money and whimsy it'd still show up with (regulated, mandatory, industry-standardized) safety documentation.
  - fullspectrumdev 2y ago
    I guess that depends where you order from. You can get some crazy machines from Alibaba/Aliexpress and the “documentation” they come with is usually… well it leaves a lot to be desired.
  - oarsinsync 2y ago
    The credit card (or rather, money) was required to purchase the computer, much like it’s required to purchase other power tools or industrial machinery
bennythomsson 2y ago
Most computing people habe at home is some locked down cloud crap which neither you nor an attacker can do anything with. It's not hackable though in the original sense of the word, so not interesting the crowd at HN. Docker is, for everybody, good and bad.
tossandthrow 2y ago
Like you sibling I think you also misunderstand my statement: I do run local servers, but none a connected to the internet. I definitely believe it is for all to have a NAS server, a home assistant, or a NUC setup to run some docker containers. Just don't let them accept connections from the internet. For most normal home setups it is actually super hard to make them accept incoming requests as you need to setup port forwarding or put the server in front of your router. The default is that the server is not reachable from the internet.

10729287 2y ago

And yet, OP here seems very comfortable with computer stuff. Can’t imagine about the regular joe buying a nas from synology and all the promesses made by the company.

tossandthrow 2y ago
These are not, per default, exposed to the internet.

kibwen 2y ago

> Just like people shouldn't just buy industrial welding machines, SCUBA equipment or a parachute and "wing it" I think the same can be said here. I find this to be extremely sad. Unlike welding or diving, there is no inherent physical risk to life and limb to running a server. I should be able to stand up a server and leaving it running, unattended and unadministered, and then come back to it 20 years later to find it happily humming along unpwned. The fact that this isn't true isn't due to any sort of physical inevitability, it's just because we, the collective technologists, are shit at what we do.

darkwater 2y ago
No. It's not so easy because in most cases you have to choose between security, flexibility and usability. Obviously it's not a 100% accurate example but generally speaking, it tends to be true. Sum it up over several decades of development and you get why we cannot have something that it's really really easy to use, flexible and secure by default.
- Gud 2y ago
  We do, it's called FreeBSD. In my experience, many Linux distributions also qualify. To keep a modern *nix secure and up to date is simple.
  - darkwater 2y ago
    Which would help exactly 0 in this scenario, where someone is exposing a port directly on the Internet. Also, FreeBSD is even more niche than Linux, I doubt it would stand the average user stress test.
    - Gud 2y ago
      Absolutely it would because jails doesn't do weird shit like this from the get go. With FreeBSD, you have to deliberately open ports, not the other away around. I don't understand your second sentence. "average user stress test"??

fullspectrumdev 2y ago

I guess we have different risk tolerances. The best way to learn is to do. Sure, you might make some mistakes along the way, but fuck it. That’s how you learn.