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Yup, this is the kind of thing I'm working on at the moment and I'm finding that other folks are thinking along similar lines (but taking different approaches).

by amirmc 13y ago

Yup, this is the kind of thing I'm working on at the moment and I'm finding that other folks are thinking along similar lines (but taking different approaches). The first application we want to build on top of the underlying 'private cloud' is email. My viewpoint is that to do this properly, we need to think through things from the ground up with privacy and security built in, otherwise I don't see it as that much better than current systems (you'd just be getting the illusion of security/ownership/etc). It's really not the kind of system that lends itself to the mantra of 'move fast and break things'. Such software would also have to be open-source (to a large extent) so that others can verify security or people can deploy it to their own machines (I'd personally prefer a hosted version, knowing that I can migrate off if I want to). The question is what kinds of business model can one build around such a product. Would you be willing to pay for such a service? If so, how much and what features would you expect from an early version? Would an app-store model make sense to you? In any case, if you or anyone else is interested in finding out more about the work (esp alpha releases), feel free to drop me an email (in my profile).

chipsy 13y ago
As a customer, the thing that is most pressing and problematic is only incidentially also a security issue - it's that I have too many accounts and I don't want to have to manage all of those accounts and set them up individually every time I get a new gadget. A dream package would have a single sign-on that includes all of these things: Email File sync Identity provision (e.g. BrowserID) Quassel IRC (or equivalent or better two-tier chat/IM) Bitcoin wallet And of those, I think the most pressing is the identity provision, because it's a "too many accounts" solution that doesn't necessarily disrupt existing workflows. But adding more of those quickly turns it into a compelling offering. Initially, this could look like any other cloud-based service and even be freemium, while keeping the code open; Wordpress got the model for this pretty much exactly right(albeit the code itself was never very secure).
metabren 13y ago
> from the ground up with privacy and security built in Couldn't agree more! > I'm finding that other folks are thinking along similar lines > (but taking different approaches) Not sure if this is the right place for it but does anyone have a list of all these similar projects? I know of: * ArkOS [https://arkos.io https://arkos.io] * FreedomBox [https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/ https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/] Seems to me that something like this can be built faster if resources were combined in some way. I guess the tough thing here is that people seem to have different visions as to what the end product would look like. Perhaps effort would be best expended by collaborating on a solid, secure "base" image which could then be forked as needed. --- My ideal system would: * Be open source. * Be built with a security mindset from the ground up. * Have some sort of full system/drive encryption. * Run on something like a Raspberry Pi with local storage attached. * Have one identity per-person for social use (public/private blog, private chat, private audio/video calling, private email, private sharing of photos, videos, private VRM [1]) * Have the ability to spawn off anonymous identities that would not be traceable back to your IP/device for anonymous publishing/chat/email where required. * Be easy enough that I can give one to my parents, create accounts for them, show them once how to use it and then forget about it. * Have all of this backed up through some distributed, encrypted system like SpaceMonkey [2]. * A possible late addition for mass adoption - the software could "trick" users into doing things they shouldn't (in a controlled way) and then after they've done this, tell them that what could have happened would have been quite serious (such as giving some . This would lead to more careful behaviour in general by all that use the software, which could only be a good thing. Anyone know of such a system in the works? I'd love to contribute. [1] VRM - Vendor Relationship Management. Keeps track of who you've shared your personal details with, generates a unique email for each "connection" (where connections can be you telling someone to flick you an email or you signing up to a site) in order to cut off communication at your convenience, not theirs. Sharing of personal details (such as name, birthday etc.) for sites that require it would initially be done directly, eventually moving to a system where this software IS the proxy by which third parties communicate with you (physical mail, messages, phone calls etc.). No more spam! [2] http://www.spacemonkey.com/ http://www.spacemonkey.com/
- huntaub 13y ago
  Looking over your list of things in your "ideal system", I know that we are attempting to build something like that at Airdispatch (http://airdispat.ch http://airdispat.ch) - feel free to give it a look, and let me know what you think (my email is in my profile).

by amirmc 13y ago

chipsy 13y ago

As a customer, the thing that is most pressing and problematic is only incidentially also a security issue - it's that I have too many accounts and I don't want to have to manage all of those accounts and set them up individually every time I get a new gadget. A dream package would have a single sign-on that includes all of these things: Email File sync Identity provision (e.g. BrowserID) Quassel IRC (or equivalent or better two-tier chat/IM) Bitcoin wallet And of those, I think the most pressing is the identity provision, because it's a "too many accounts" solution that doesn't necessarily disrupt existing workflows. But adding more of those quickly turns it into a compelling offering. Initially, this could look like any other cloud-based service and even be freemium, while keeping the code open; Wordpress got the model for this pretty much exactly right(albeit the code itself was never very secure).

metabren 13y ago

> from the ground up with privacy and security built in Couldn't agree more! > I'm finding that other folks are thinking along similar lines > (but taking different approaches) Not sure if this is the right place for it but does anyone have a list of all these similar projects? I know of: * ArkOS [https://arkos.io https://arkos.io] * FreedomBox [https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/ https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/] Seems to me that something like this can be built faster if resources were combined in some way. I guess the tough thing here is that people seem to have different visions as to what the end product would look like. Perhaps effort would be best expended by collaborating on a solid, secure "base" image which could then be forked as needed. --- My ideal system would: * Be open source. * Be built with a security mindset from the ground up. * Have some sort of full system/drive encryption. * Run on something like a Raspberry Pi with local storage attached. * Have one identity per-person for social use (public/private blog, private chat, private audio/video calling, private email, private sharing of photos, videos, private VRM [1]) * Have the ability to spawn off anonymous identities that would not be traceable back to your IP/device for anonymous publishing/chat/email where required. * Be easy enough that I can give one to my parents, create accounts for them, show them once how to use it and then forget about it. * Have all of this backed up through some distributed, encrypted system like SpaceMonkey [2]. * A possible late addition for mass adoption - the software could "trick" users into doing things they shouldn't (in a controlled way) and then after they've done this, tell them that what could have happened would have been quite serious (such as giving some . This would lead to more careful behaviour in general by all that use the software, which could only be a good thing. Anyone know of such a system in the works? I'd love to contribute. [1] VRM - Vendor Relationship Management. Keeps track of who you've shared your personal details with, generates a unique email for each "connection" (where connections can be you telling someone to flick you an email or you signing up to a site) in order to cut off communication at your convenience, not theirs. Sharing of personal details (such as name, birthday etc.) for sites that require it would initially be done directly, eventually moving to a system where this software IS the proxy by which third parties communicate with you (physical mail, messages, phone calls etc.). No more spam! [2] http://www.spacemonkey.com/ http://www.spacemonkey.com/

huntaub 13y ago
Looking over your list of things in your "ideal system", I know that we are attempting to build something like that at Airdispatch (http://airdispat.ch http://airdispat.ch) - feel free to give it a look, and let me know what you think (my email is in my profile).