Useful Ideas Dump

[DoomVoyager]

I will use this thread to dump useful ideas from no particular ideological orientation, in no particular order, with no particular connecting thread between them.

[DoomVoyager]

I am slowly forming a theory that the way to re-decentralize the internet is to simply go back to the technologies we all used back when the internet was naturally decentralized.

In my conception, that is vBulletin forums, blogs, and lists of links to other places. Others advocate adding mailing lists.

A friend who knows better than I estimates for me that it would cost <$30/mo (updated estimate: $10) to self host an internet walled garden such as that. According to him it pretty much would cost what it costs to idle a windows 10 PC without a monitor.

This would create what I think of as a node in a decentralized mesh of communications and info dissemination.

I believe that in order to slay the dragon of modern hyper centralized leftist controlled society, we need workable and simple solutions, and I believe a shitload of vBulletin forums linking to each other in circuits is that way. It's simple, fast, cheap, and the bugs have been worked out of the technology for ten years. It's just a matter of doing it.

There could be 2895923840139503 undeplatformable websites hosting content and linking to each other in circles, at a cost of $10/mo per node.

[Xan]

I am slowly forming a theory that the way to re-decentralize the internet is to simply go back to the technologies we all used back when the internet was naturally decentralized.

In my conception, that is vBulletin forums, blogs, and lists of links to other places. Others advocate adding mailing lists.

A friend who knows better than I estimates for me that it would cost <$30/mo (updated estimate: $10) to self host an internet walled garden such as that. According to him it pretty much would cost what it costs to idle a windows 10 PC without a monitor.

This would create what I think of as a node in a decentralized mesh of communications and info dissemination.

I believe that in order to slay the dragon of modern hyper centralized leftist controlled society, we need workable and simple solutions, and I believe a shitload of vBulletin forums linking to each other in circuits is that way. It's simple, fast, cheap, and the bugs have been worked out of the technology for ten years. It's just a matter of doing it.

There could be 2895923840139503 undeplatformable websites hosting content and linking to each other in circles, at a cost of $10/mo per node.

What about Diaspora?

[Tortoise]

I am slowly forming a theory that the way to re-decentralize the internet is to simply go back to the technologies we all used back when the internet was naturally decentralized.

In my conception, that is vBulletin forums, blogs, and lists of links to other places. Others advocate adding mailing lists.

[...]

A more decentralized internet sounds great, but even under that model, internet traffic still has to flow through ISPs, right? What if ISPs start canceling certain users/services and policing the internet traffic flowing through them?

Isn't that what the ISPs in China currently do?

So to truly decentralize the internet, don't we need decentralized ISPs?

[DoomVoyager]

What about Diaspora?

I am still researching Diaspora as a project, but I am critical of any centralized service claiming to be everybody's one stop shop for decentralized solutions.

One of the benefits of my advocated solution is that the self hosted nodes do not even need to use the same software, just link to each other.

As for the ISP issue, there are small ISP and meshnet ISP solutions people are working on. Apparently hamnet has reached new levels of viability. I do not have the technical background to understand, but I was sent this - http://www.broadband-hamnet.org/

Of course, things happen by degrees. To start building a decentralized internet, I think it starts with everyone building little internet walled gardens and defending them in parallel, linking them to each other, and slowly acquiring more of their own infrastructure to protect from deplatforming efforts. I can't see it taking place any other way.

I'd argue that with the advent of alt social media, chan clones, parler, gab, and the .win site family, we are starting to see the beginning of what I might call "the self hosting revolution."

[Kriegsspiel]

I am slowly forming a theory that the way to re-decentralize the internet is to simply go back to the technologies we all used back when the internet was naturally decentralized.

In my conception, that is vBulletin forums, blogs, and lists of links to other places. Others advocate adding mailing lists.

Man, I absolutely agree. IMO the internet was much better prior to the social media onslaught. To be honest, I still pretty much use the internet like I did back then. I only see social media when other people are talking about it/mentioning it. Or someone links to a twitter link instead of just linking to the link directly. But I like the old stuff. Throw RSS feeds in there too.

A friend who knows better than I estimates for me that it would cost <$30/mo (updated estimate: $10) to self host an internet walled garden such as that. According to him it pretty much would cost what it costs to idle a windows 10 PC without a monitor.

This would create what I think of as a node in a decentralized mesh of communications and info dissemination.

I believe that in order to slay the dragon of modern hyper centralized leftist controlled society, we need workable and simple solutions, and I believe a shitload of vBulletin forums linking to each other in circuits is that way. It's simple, fast, cheap, and the bugs have been worked out of the technology for ten years. It's just a matter of doing it.

There could be 2895923840139503 undeplatformable websites hosting content and linking to each other in circles, at a cost of $10/mo per node.

Funny, I was just looking up how to start a basic website today. I don't know about having my own server (what if my power goes out or something), but I like the idea of making a really simple html site, having it host my email and files, etc.

[Xan]

Funny, I was just looking up how to start a basic website today. I don't know about having my own server (what if my power goes out or something), but I like the idea of making a really simple html site, having it host my email and files, etc.

I had a similar idea a few years back. Only to realize that performing required security updates for Wordpress, Apache, email server, and ensuring SQL injection protection, spam blocking, etc would effectively be a full time job for me and 4 other people. Regardless of how small my website and email server was.

I also lack the skill to do most of those things. But even if I had the skill, it would be a full time job to host my own server even if all it had was a homepage and one animated GIF since the server maintenance has a base fixed cost component that’s enormous even for the smallest website.

Far better to pay tutanota or ProtonMail $5 a month for email and then a few bucks for a Wordpress site that someone else maintains the servers.

I would just advise that whatever service you buy, you make sure it's transferable. So if you're buying email hosting, make sure your address uses a domain you own, not one your email host owns. If you're buying web hosting, make sure you could take your whole site and have it hosted elsewhere, rather than being something that's married to one host.

[DoomVoyager]

I would just advise that whatever service you buy, you make sure it's transferable. So if you're buying email hosting, make sure your address uses a domain you own, not one your email host owns. If you're buying web hosting, make sure you could take your whole site and have it hosted elsewhere, rather than being something that's married to one host.

Oh crap, admin!

Any thought of writing a kind of "how to start your own decentralized internet node for dummies" guide? People like me who do not understand the details would find it useful, and it may lower the barrier to entry. I'm trying to encourage other people actively involved in running websites to make and disseminate guides, so we can get this show on the road and start the Great Decentralization.

[vnatale]

I'd recommend taking baby steps to get yourself out of the control of others.

in 2007 I was told by my internet provider that that they'd sold their domain and that they were now giving me a new email address.

They made it seem like that was so simple to have a new email address.

I'd had that same email address for 12 years and it was ALL over the place (by my choice). Plus, I'd had 100 eBay ads running with that email address in each one of them 4 times. That alone was going to require me to do 400 changes just in those ads.

I said, Never again for the rest of my life is someone going to ever make me change my email address.

I bought my own domain.

Secured my own web site.

The only thing I use that web site for is to host my email.

In the 13+ years I only had one problem with email.

All my email continues to go into my ancient Eudora email program which resides on this computer (and backed up many places).

As long as I keep renewing my domain it is mine forever and I have a number registrars to use to renew it. Several years ago as a backup I bought another domain. Have never used it but renew it every year. Just in case.

Something goes wrong with who is hosting my web site...I move it somewhere else.

I was thinking again last night how so many worry, worry, worry about intrusion from the outside. Not something I worry much about. What I do worry, worry, worry about is losing any of my own information or someone forcing me to change something I do not want to change.

[dualstow]

or you could have just used yahoo or gmail for free.

[InsuranceGuy]

[deleted]

[Xan]

or you could have just used yahoo or gmail for free.

I believe Google stopped in 2017, but many free emails have been on the record as reading your emails for advertising or other third party sharing.

Having your own email/hosting is pretty cheap. I believe my domain is $9/year at https://www.namecheap.com/ and I have lifetime email hosting from https://mxroute.com/pricing/ which was $99 which includes 10GB of email storage.

Not only do they read your mail, but you are 100% owned by them (as far as email) unless you change your email address, which as Vinny points out, is a huge pain.

[vnatale]

or you could have just used yahoo or gmail for free.

Until one of them went out of business, which would have required me to change my address. Or, until they mandated something else which would have required me to change my address. Or, to have no email when they were having a global problem. Or, relying upon them to maintain my GB's and GB's of archives of emails? Or, relying upon them to allow me to have GB's and GB's of email? Or, having to access my existing sent and received email via the internet (slower) rather than accessing it on my own computer (faster).

No. For what I most value highly I do want to fully control and be the least susceptible to the needs of others or the mandates / dictates of others.

[vnatale]

or you could have just used yahoo or gmail for free.

I believe Google stopped in 2017, but many free emails have been on the record as reading your emails for advertising or other third party sharing.

Having your own email/hosting is pretty cheap. I believe my domain is $9/year at https://www.namecheap.com/ and I have lifetime email hosting from https://mxroute.com/pricing/ which was $99 which includes 10GB of email storage.

Would not come close to meeting my needs. My current email folder is nearly 200 GBs.

It is a product of two things.

I've been using the same ancient Eudora email program for 25+ years so it is an accumulation of all the email during a quarter of a century.

The program has not even been updated since around 2006 but it just keeps working through all the Windows operating system upgrades.

But the thing I really love about it is that as opposed to Outlook being one fat folder / file which means you really cannot do anything to it....Eudora is just a conglomeration of files and folders. That allows me to put all kinds of other Windows folders inside that main Eudora folder.

My email and those data folders are all unique to me and, therefore, irreplaceable. Having it all in one folder allows me to easily back it up, which I do on many, many external drives and in dropbox.

Again, I am not worried (relatively) of outside attacks / intrusions. What I am scared to death of is ever losing any of my own information - emails and all else.

It's totally under my control to protect the above. And, I do so in many different ways.

[vnatale]

I said, Never again for the rest of my life is someone going to ever make me change my email address.

I bought my own domain.

It’s possible to hijack a domain registration. Not something I hear about but it’s possible to convince your ISP that they are you and hand over control to the domain to a hacker who can then get all future email until you can sort it out.

I’d only worry about this if you were a political dissenter or had a lot of Bitcoin in a wallet attached to an email on a custom domain.

Just not something that concerns me. What are the possibilities that the above would ever happen to me? That someone would target me? Exert the effort to successfully do so?

I will bet that far more people have lost their own information - pictures, files, and so on - because they were not properly backing up than have lost the same due to outside intrusions.

[I Shrugged]

It seems to me that this would not be a thing to cheap out on. The lifetime email deal mentioned earlier sets off alarms for me.

[dualstow]

or you could have just used yahoo or gmail for free.

I believe Google stopped in 2017, but many free emails have been on the record as reading your emails for advertising or other third party sharing.

Having your own email/hosting is pretty cheap. I believe my domain is $9/year at https://www.namecheap.com/ and I have lifetime email hosting from https://mxroute.com/pricing/ which was $99 which includes 10GB of email storage.

That's an important point about the email reading. Even though it's supposedly anonymized, I like some degree of privacy and have moved to protonmail (paid version) for much of my personal comms. I still have gmail and yahoo and use them. Vinny's right of course- they could go out of business. But I've had these for a very long time, and I don't have 400 ads on ebay.

I looked into buying a domain and a friend does it. Maybe if I were younger.

[vnatale]

I've been using the same ancient Eudora email program

I'm glad this solution works for you, but most of the people I know use multiple devices, and not having webmail would be a deal breaker. I use gmail on my home and work PCs, 2 tablets and my phone. That's 5 devices.

I also hope you back up that Eudora folder frequently, bc if your hard drive ever dies, you will lose all of your accumulated archive.

Because I host my own email my email is available via webmail is available on any device - phone, iPod, iPad, other tablets. Therefore, I probably have email available on well more than 5 devices given how many I own. Actually, since I own between 5-10 working computers....It's probably in the 20 to 25 range of devices I could use to access my email.

I back up all my files several times a day. Some files gets backed up every 20 minutes if I do not want to risk repeating that 20 minutes of work.

I must own 30 to 40 external hard drives?

Plus, I have Busienss Dropbox where that Eudora folder is backed up in its entirety.

Therefore, I think I am well backed up.

I used to also have excellent geographical diversity by having 10 external hard drives in my office (7 miles away) which had many duplicates of everything I own. But since I am no longer there they are all in this house. Therefore if my house went I'd lose all except what is in Dropbox. On my agenda is to put the music, pictures, book backups at various friends' houses. That would only leave how to get geographical diversity with that Eudora folder.

What I could legitimately be accused of is spending so much time and money in insuring that I am extremely well backed up.

[Mountaineer]

I don’t want to be morbid, but does or will anyone else have value for your electronic collection? E.g. What happens when you die? And, what are the consequences if it all disappears today in a big electromagnetic event and you survive?

.

[InsuranceGuy]

[deleted]

[vnatale]

I don’t want to be morbid, but does or will anyone else have value for your electronic collection? E.g. What happens when you die? And, what are the consequences if it all disappears today in a big electromagnetic event and you survive?

.

How does that matter? All that matters is its value to me today while I am still actively using all my information - pictures, music, books, data - in all its forms.

If the last happens - and I don't know why you even bring it up since it is such a fantastical improbability....then I have thousands and thousands of Beta / VHS tapes, paper books, CDs, records to fall back upon.

I am truly mystified as to what the purpose of your questions?

[Cortopassi]

I don’t want to be morbid, but does or will anyone else have value for your electronic collection? E.g. What happens when you die? And, what are the consequences if it all disappears today in a big electromagnetic event and you survive?

Vinny, this is my take on Mountaineer's question:

We have been scanning GBs of docs and photos from my wife's uncle's place. Cool stuff to be sure, from the early 1900s through Vietnam. See one below.

But honestly, once it is up there, it is just like a box in the attic, you might look at it a few times over the course of a lifetime if ever. Or at least that's me.

Vinny, the extent you are going through to backup and save everything (I understand that is your personality) is 180 degrees opposite of me and gives me anxiety reading! Not faulting you for doing it, but for me, my happiest days are when I can go home and throw old papers and stuff out, vs. save them.

Again, probably just me.

[pp4me]

Storing pictures in the Amazon cloud if you have Prime and a Fire Stick allows them to turn the collection into a really neat screensaver. I just looked at the selection choices last night and now you can even request a screensaver of photos of individuals by name which they have somehow identified with their face recognition technology (I'm still baffled about where they got the correct names for their photos as I don't remember ever supplying them).

If it wasn't for this I would have to conclude that all those thousands of pictures taken over the years are completely useless as nobody ever looks at them.

Double ditto on videos taken over the years. Who is ever going to go back and watch all that stuff?

I was also thankful when scanners became dirt cheap because it meant I could scan all of the old hard copies and throw them away instead of lugging them around forever. I've also gotten into the habit of doing this with paper documents.

[vnatale]

I don’t want to be morbid, but does or will anyone else have value for your electronic collection? E.g. What happens when you die? And, what are the consequences if it all disappears today in a big electromagnetic event and you survive?

Vinny, this is my take on Mountaineer's question:

We have been scanning GBs of docs and photos from my wife's uncle's place. Cool stuff to be sure, from the early 1900s through Vietnam. See one below.

But honestly, once it is up there, it is just like a box in the attic, you might look at it a few times over the course of a lifetime if ever. Or at least that's me.

Vinny, the extent you are going through to backup and save everything (I understand that is your personality) is 180 degrees opposite of me and gives me anxiety reading! Not faulting you for doing it, but for me, my happiest days are when I can go home and throw old papers and stuff out, vs. save them.

Again, probably just me.

You don't have a collector's or library mentality. It is there if you want to access it.

I was in my former job for 12+ years. When I got the job I had a four drawer file cabinet. When I left I still had that same four drawer file cabinet. That was a product of dealing as little as possible with paper as I could and only saving what was essential. I did so much of my work exclusively electronically that others would have generated and saved tons of paper from that same work.

I'm that kid who spent $120 acquiring his 1,000 Marvel comic books in the 1960s because he absolutely loved them. And, had the collectors' mentality even back then as a teenager to take care of them and, most importantly, keep them.

At their peak that $120 spent (not invested) had a theoretical value of $70,000. For a long time I'd stated that they'd be the down payment for my house but I did not need to sell them so as to be able to buy my house.

Having collections of things you love, that you acquired because you actively use or used them, is not collecting just to have them. It's to have them and for them to be available to you whenever you want. Having tons and tons of choices.

For probably the vast majority of people it's just clutter. For collectors, it's all something special.

On the other hand in the entire house I have just four pieces of what might be called furniture. A bed, this table, a desk in the other bedroom, a kitchen table. That's it! I don't need or want any other furniture!

[dualstow]

I think I share Vinny's quirk to an extent. I mean I'm battling clutter, but since electronic stuff doesn't take up much space, I like backing up. Just a few hard drives. There's a guy on b'heads called Vulcan, aptly named because he wrote about some DVDs, M100 or something, that last a thousand years and are resistant to all kinds of elements. Kind of neat. I like burning data discs even though it's possible my family will never view them. It's a compulsion.

But, I spend less than a week a year on this. Even my one touch back up only happens once in a while because if I leave the hard drive near the computer, my cat knocks it on the floor.

I trashed my VHS tapes.