Such a great movie. Still got it on Jellyfin and I rewatch it from time to time.

Could happen tomorrow, could happen in a year or two. Stay tuned for more updates on the ongoing shit show.

Home offence is the best defense.

When I was a kid in the 90s, there used to small fringe groups talking about global warming and everyone else rolled their eyes. Now when it’s too late, people have started caring.

Privacy, security and anonymity are at that place now. Anyone talking about how fucked up it is that even your TV and fridge is mining all the data it can, is considered to be a fringe alarmist. People are going to wait till the world is on fire before taking this seriously. There was an uproar when WhatsApp changed its terms of service a couple of years ago and that died down and nothing changed. The uproar from this (and Discord) will also die down and nothing will change. Maybe one day people will see this as relevant to their lives and take it seriously.

Maybe now the public will care more about online privacy and security. Now that the issue is smacking them in the face.

If anyone like getting their hands dirty with tinkering, then you can get inspiration from Zac’s YouTube video about modernising an iPod.

Guys, what’s the best Linux distro to install on my PC?

The community:

Newbies…Go with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Thank me later.

You get big electricity bill. They get free data to sell.

What’s the downside for them?

Many people need to use computers and Windows for 8 hours a day, every working day + AI shoved into personal apps. I wouldn’t expect even the world’s best escort to be giving head continuously for 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week.

I’ve got to figure that out still. Each step is a lot of learning and troubleshooting. I’ve changed the SSH port, deactivated root login, deactivated password login and left the passkey token on only my desktop PC with Fail2Ban. I’m waiting till I have another weekend I’m not at work to figure out VPN access. I’m using Synology reverse proxy system so I hope I’m secure enough for now anyway.

OK, so I’ve spent a load of time on this today. Searching for “self-hosting security” mostly brings up mostly home surveillance camera results.

I’ve found this resource and have implemented his recommendations. Finally a good resource and I’m feeling much better after hardening SSH access, closing open ports in the firewall, installing Fail2Ban, etc.

How can security be made accessible? I’m a noob at self-hosting (I can deploy Docker containers and all that). There are loads of guides for beginners. I haven’t found any accessible info about security to learn from in an incremental way. Surely the advice can’t be that self-hosting shouldn’t be done till you’ve done a undergraduate qualification worth of learning about cyber security first.

Sold on the importance of data privacy from content creators (I think it started with Techlore on YouTube). Once you’re convinced on the ideology, then finding the tools and means is just the grunt work from there on out.

I moved to Mailbox.org, slowly started degoogling, stopped using Amazon, left Reddit after the API changes, switched to Linux after Steam Deck desktop mode gave me confidence, got a Synology NAS, realised docker was a thing on Synology, outgrew the NAS and got a mini PC server…the journey continues. Now I need to set up home assistant, Synapse Matrix server and see about changing to Graphene OS when I next change my phone.

Normies find it triggering if things take extra steps or aren’t proceeding in the normal way they expect.

My family (and wife especially) get triggered…“why can’t we just be normal and use Netflix, why do we have to tolerate any buffering on your Jellyfin thing. What was the email address you use again? Why don’t you just use WhatsApp like everyone else, no one uses this Signal nonsense. I’m sending you photos on Google Photos or WhatsApp, why should I have to figure out adding them to you NAS drop folder. What is this MailBox nonsense, why don’t you just share your calendar from google calendar”.

A lot of tech tools are social tools. Other people don’t want to think about this stuff. They don’t care about stuff that doesnt affect them. They don’t care about my FreshRSS feeds, that doesnt affect them. But they do care that I can’t send them photos on Google Photos.

I’ve been with Mailbox for years now too. Also very solid.

My organisation is going through this right now. The overarching management “corporation” is looking at our numbers and saying that we’ve got more employees and spending than 5 years ago, but have the same output metrics… So we’ve got to cut back staff and spending because there’s dead weight that’s not adding to productivity. The problem is that these will be small ineffective parts of people’s otherwise useful jobs. You can’t do what Elon Musk did and start firing people across the board to correct the numbers. It’s a complex problem to solve.

Its recent in being a month old now, but:

• set up a dedicated server mini PC that really let me expand my self hosting beyond my Synology
• switched from Plex to Jellyfin (including for music)
• found out I can hard link files with my Arr’s setup so I can seed without having to keep duplicate copies of files, so that’s a win for the network. The privacy aspect is that I’m happy to get rid of data mining services I was using before my Arr’s setup.
• started using Immich for photos. So far so good
• Self hosted notes (Joplin)
• got remote desktop working on my home server, so if I’m at work and need to do a personal task, then I can do it on my own PC rather than the work browser.
• I use a chat app to make groups in which I’m the only participant. This is for sharing things across devices (links, files, notes, etc). Even on locked down work PCs I can open the web chat app and access my self-shared content. I used Telegram for this before. Now I’m self hosting an Element server.
• I’ve got syncthing running on my Retroid Pocket 5 + PC with Switch emulation. So Now I can ditch my Nintendo Switch completely and keep control of my save files. Fuck you Nintendo.

Someone hacked my fridge and gave it a virus. I ate the food and got gastroenteritis.

The food encryption was unnecessary, I already got DDOS’d when my wife and kids got there first and ate all the cake Before I got home from work.

Music streaming has gone the same way as video streaming for me. All my music is in Jellyfin and music is all purchased from Band camp where I can easily add on a few extra £s for tipping the artist. And if it’s not on Band camp, then it’s time to dust off the old skull and crossbones hat.