3 ms·

One of the many reasons to host your own stuff. It costs about 0.75CAD per day to run my server and PoE switch. For my 20 bucks a month I get cameras, a media s

by nik282000 1y ago

One of the many reasons to host your own stuff. It costs about 0.75CAD per day to run my server and PoE switch. For my 20 bucks a month I get cameras, a media server, password manager, push notifications, file sharing, and a dozen other services, all without handing my data over to business or governments. Is it as secure as a cloud service? Depends on what you consider secure. I closely monitor access logs and use strong passwords, Amazon has billions to spend on encryption, apps, and datacenters but they also have thousands of employees that can access your data at any time for any reason. I would love it if some commercial host-it-yourself product were released but that goes against the pay to play model that has been chosen for all modern tech.

rogerrogerr 1y ago
I fear ISPs have made a commercial host-it-yourself product near impossible. Imagine selling a product, getting no ongoing revenue, and then being on the hook - forever - to support average people trying to connect to something inside their home network from their phone. Nightmare material. If anyone is having trouble understanding the support load, start by traveling to your local assisted living home and explaining to everyone static vs. dynamic IP address assignment. You can do it fairly easily by bouncing off a server you control... aaaand we're right back where we started.
- nerdsniper 1y ago
  Tailscale
- Liftyee 1y ago
  I think something like Tailscale's technology could resolve this and many other self hosting access cases. Already, I don't open any ports - just use Tailscale to connect to my PC at home. If this was integrated into the "camera app", it could be seamless - only authentication required. Since the traffic goes directly point to point, the cost of hosting this service isn't too large either.
  - nik282000 1y ago
    Tailscale solves the access/NAT issue and keeps your services off of your WAN, but it relies on a 3rd party to let you use your own equipment. I understand why it is useful and a necessary service but I'll never touch it.
    - Spooky23 1y ago
      There’s a bunch of ways to achieve a similar goal. Especially if the scenario is you and your family to home or a server. I use it with a few friends and we do stuff like host backups for each other. It makes it easy to securely allow that one server to be available to my hosts.
    - ta1243 1y ago
      What worries me is how the HN groupthink mentions it at every possibility. If people on HN aren't capable/willing to run their own kit there's no hope. In the slashdot days you'd never get such worship of tailscale and cloudflare. Even in the early days of HN you'd have people suggesting a bit of rsync rather than using dropbox. It feels like the modern tech zeitgest is either dripping in far-right memes, or it's "tech enthusiasts" from https://thecatholicdev.substack.com/p/tech-enthusiasts-vs-tech-workers https://thecatholicdev.substack.com/p/tech-enthusiasts-vs-te... It was probably ever so -- slashdot 20 year ago was full of Atlas Shrugged, Firefly, etc, I was just too young and naieve to understand it
      - nik282000 1y ago
        It's everywhere, reddit and the fediverse also seem to have drank the cloudflare coolaid. Someone's been pushing the idea that it's impossible to host on 80/443 safely, only big brother can keep you safe.
- nik282000 1y ago
  I understand why it's not feasible. I admin a server at home and one for a small business, and most people do not really understand "why doesn't it just work like a normal app." For the foreseeable future self hosting is an ideological choice rather than one of practicality :/
vkou 1y ago
> One of the many reasons to host your own stuff. This doesn't solve the primary problem of your neighbours turning your country into a surveillance state.
charcircuit 1y ago
>they also have thousands of employees that can access your data at any time for any reason. They have 0 employees who can do that.
- gilfoy 1y ago
  > In 2023, the FTC ordered the company to pay $5.8 million over claims that employees and contractors had unrestricted access to customers’ videos for years. It’s right in the article
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Firstly, I doubt that this behavior was not against policy, meaning that employees were not able to do so, but did so anyways. Secondly, the article didn't include they were ordered to create a "comprehensive privacy and data security program" which would lockdown such access further.
    - The_President 1y ago
      [dead]
e40 1y ago
> For my 20 bucks a month I get cameras, a media server, password manager Ok, I’m stumped, what service is this?
- nik282000 1y ago
  Im running Zoneminder for cameras, Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf and lightmusicserver for media, keepass + webdav for a pw manager, file browser for fast file sharing. Takes a week to setup from scratch but from there on it's like 10min of maintenance a week.
  - Ancapistani 1y ago
    How is the motion detection and identification these days? Ring and Blink are both very poor in that regard, and I've not had a chance to play with custom/open source stuff yet.

rogerrogerr 1y ago

I fear ISPs have made a commercial host-it-yourself product near impossible. Imagine selling a product, getting no ongoing revenue, and then being on the hook - forever - to support average people trying to connect to something inside their home network from their phone. Nightmare material. If anyone is having trouble understanding the support load, start by traveling to your local assisted living home and explaining to everyone static vs. dynamic IP address assignment. You can do it fairly easily by bouncing off a server you control... aaaand we're right back where we started.

nerdsniper 1y ago
Tailscale
Liftyee 1y ago
I think something like Tailscale's technology could resolve this and many other self hosting access cases. Already, I don't open any ports - just use Tailscale to connect to my PC at home. If this was integrated into the "camera app", it could be seamless - only authentication required. Since the traffic goes directly point to point, the cost of hosting this service isn't too large either.
- nik282000 1y ago
  Tailscale solves the access/NAT issue and keeps your services off of your WAN, but it relies on a 3rd party to let you use your own equipment. I understand why it is useful and a necessary service but I'll never touch it.
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    There’s a bunch of ways to achieve a similar goal. Especially if the scenario is you and your family to home or a server. I use it with a few friends and we do stuff like host backups for each other. It makes it easy to securely allow that one server to be available to my hosts.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    What worries me is how the HN groupthink mentions it at every possibility. If people on HN aren't capable/willing to run their own kit there's no hope. In the slashdot days you'd never get such worship of tailscale and cloudflare. Even in the early days of HN you'd have people suggesting a bit of rsync rather than using dropbox. It feels like the modern tech zeitgest is either dripping in far-right memes, or it's "tech enthusiasts" from https://thecatholicdev.substack.com/p/tech-enthusiasts-vs-tech-workers https://thecatholicdev.substack.com/p/tech-enthusiasts-vs-te... It was probably ever so -- slashdot 20 year ago was full of Atlas Shrugged, Firefly, etc, I was just too young and naieve to understand it
    - nik282000 1y ago
      It's everywhere, reddit and the fediverse also seem to have drank the cloudflare coolaid. Someone's been pushing the idea that it's impossible to host on 80/443 safely, only big brother can keep you safe.
nik282000 1y ago
I understand why it's not feasible. I admin a server at home and one for a small business, and most people do not really understand "why doesn't it just work like a normal app." For the foreseeable future self hosting is an ideological choice rather than one of practicality :/

vkou 1y ago

> One of the many reasons to host your own stuff. This doesn't solve the primary problem of your neighbours turning your country into a surveillance state.

charcircuit 1y ago

>they also have thousands of employees that can access your data at any time for any reason. They have 0 employees who can do that.

gilfoy 1y ago
> In 2023, the FTC ordered the company to pay $5.8 million over claims that employees and contractors had unrestricted access to customers’ videos for years. It’s right in the article
- charcircuit 1y ago
  Firstly, I doubt that this behavior was not against policy, meaning that employees were not able to do so, but did so anyways. Secondly, the article didn't include they were ordered to create a "comprehensive privacy and data security program" which would lockdown such access further.
  - The_President 1y ago
    [dead]

e40 1y ago

> For my 20 bucks a month I get cameras, a media server, password manager Ok, I’m stumped, what service is this?

nik282000 1y ago
Im running Zoneminder for cameras, Jellyfin, Audiobookshelf and lightmusicserver for media, keepass + webdav for a pw manager, file browser for fast file sharing. Takes a week to setup from scratch but from there on it's like 10min of maintenance a week.
- Ancapistani 1y ago
  How is the motion detection and identification these days? Ring and Blink are both very poor in that regard, and I've not had a chance to play with custom/open source stuff yet.