- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews
If you’re a regular internet user the Personal Data Storage paradigm won’t move your data from the cloud to your personal computer. Most people will still rely on an institutional cloud service, but instead of data-banking with a shareholder-controlled corporation people’s data can be entrusted to the equivalent of member-owned credit unions for data storage.
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Or how about the radical idea of not relying on someone else for your important files?
that great for people who have the knowledge to do that, but keep in mind that most people do not, and don’t want to learn how to selfhost from the ground up if all they want to do is backup some photos or work files.
The irony is that self hosting in many ways has become way easier, faster and cheaper then using proprietary alternatives.
The catch is what you are already used to do.
A good example to illustrate this is is how easy it is to install software tools on linux using a package manager.
You get used to this so quickly that when i had to install something on windows i really struggled:
i have to find the right site to download from, run that installer, navigate menus, make sure it doesn’t come with bonus malware. And then when i finally run it turns out its a free demo and half the features are locked.
Comparing different plans for o365 and setting up a family with different accounts, again its a pain.
Spinning up a one click install nextcloud instance and getting that configured was peanuts in comparison.
Agreed! I’m working on converting my wife and the rest of my family to Linux. I got a nextcloud server set up, alongside Grocy, Jellyfin, and a few others. So far, it’s made our lives better! It works better than our Google calendar. Everyone has their own accounts and things are rarely breaking. It’s so nice.
Well, there are always ready-to-go solutions. A 1TB external drive isn’t all that expensive nowadays, and they’re enough for daily use!
Plus, honestly… there are soo many tutorials online about how to set up everything, and most things are a couple of commands one has to copy/paste into a command prompt. The anxiety is far worse than the procedure itself.
Maybe what’s needed is propagating these tutorials more, make them visible and highlight their accessibility in terms of procedural difficulty!
most things are a couple of commands one has to copy/paste into a command prompt.
how many people do you think know what a command prompt is? because quite frankly even knowing that much is very uncommon for the vast, overwhelming majority of the population.
you’re talking about condensing years of learning into a few tutorials, as if it’s nothing. idk if it’s smug superiority, or you’re literally just ignorant of how much you know that the average person does not, but it’s fucking wild that you think the average person is going to be able to do what we do without giving up.
this ain’t a hobby for everyone else, it’s difficult and frustrating work.
Is there a way to automatically back up a device to an external drive like that? An advantage of the cloud is it’s automatic. So I don’t have to manually do it all the time or risk losing recent files.
Absolutely. Plenty of backup software will work with an external drive, provided it’s plugged in. Hell even a cron job would work.
I don’t know about LibertyLizard, but I thought they were asking how to do that when one is out and about, and the external drive is at home
Ah, I see. Definitely possible to set up something like nextcloud or immich for file and photo backup. Then use a VPN like tailscale or wireguard to access while out of the house, or setting it up publicly available (usually being a reverse proxy).
But most of those people couldn’t care less about who they store their data with.
I mean to be fair, self hosting data doesn’t mean much more than just adding a hard disk or something. It’s only when you want remote access to it that it becomes more complex than that.
it does. you need to choose the software. you need to install the software. you need to update the software, and be prepared to deal with a bad update. you need to keep backups so that you can restore your files when disaster happens, and you need to know how to make a proper backup (have all the data, also backup the permissions, databases need special care, …) and how to restore it.
Yeah. It’s astounding. People live every day with and within these lighted rectangles and have no fucking clue, and rarely any interest, in how they work.
I’m just done with them. Whenever it doesn’t do what they want and they start screeching, I just calmly get up and walk over and close the door.
Oh Windows problem eh? *sst*. Mmm. That sucks, bro.
Well, bye.
This! Invest in local storage as much as possible, ideally create your own proper storage server! Given how fragmented and volatile things are becoming, this isn’t even just about access anymore, it’s about archival as well.
But… but, there is no such thing as local storage. There are just other people’s clouds!
How do you account for off site back ups though? I’m currently setting up my own set up but I’m not sure how I should perform off site back ups.
Got a friend or family member willing to let you drop a miniPC at their place?
You could also go the offline route - buy two identical external drive setups, plug one into your machine and make regular backups to it, drop the other one in a drawer in your office at work. Then once a month or so swap them to keep the off-site one fresh.
Also there’s really nothing wrong with cloud storage as long as you encrypt before uploading so they never have access to your data.
Personally I do both. The off-site offline drive is for full backups of everything because space is cheap, while cloud storage is use for more of a “delta” style backup, just the stuff the changes frequently, because of the price. If the worst were to happen, I’d use the offsite drive to get the bulk infrastructure back up and running, and then the latest cloud copy for any recently added/modified files.
Some of us never used cloud storage. I never trusted it.
Yeah I would prefer to move my data from the cloud to my personal computer. With fully automated cloud-based end-to-end encrypted backups, of course. Even web apps have good access to local storage now. If I want to share my personal data with someone, I can send it to them.
I’m sure there are a few applications where something more complicated is required. Neither lemmy comments nor biometric data from a “smartwatch” are among them.
Now I’ll even have more trust issues.
Would I rather trust;
A share-holder controlled corporation who has to follow their own rules and standards to make sure said data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
or
Member-owned data storages that could be broken into far easier than the share-holder controlled one.
I’ll stick to my home server, thanks.
I’ve spent the last 2 years pulling all of my cloud data. I’ve read too many stories at this point about people losing access to their stuff and with the way administration is going, that’ll only get worse.
The cloud is just someone else’s computer, after all.
I never saw the point in storing my private files on someone else’s computer. Seemed like a scam, the type Facebook is.
I think the best idea would be to duplicate it multiple times and share it with multiple people encrypted so that only you can open it.
Things like IPFS, for example.
This is also the way nostr works.
If only there were some security researchers who routinely release and audit open source implementations of encryption and data safety programs.
The world would be so much better if people just trusted for-profit organizations instead of actual humans. Cuz all our modern crises like climate change, pfas in water and other ecological crises were caused by individual humans. Not these shareholder backed for profit organizations
Member-owned data storages that could be broken into far easier than the share-holder controlled one.
that’s just corporate fear mongering propaganda. it isn’t true at all.
I don’t know if it was overhyped or too expensive (or both) but Drobo seemed like a good consumer solution to this problem. The idea of being able to live swap drives and have it all handle redundancy, provisioning, recovery, and whatnot automatically is critical for making this a true “home appliance”.
I think Drobo suffered from the problem of being slightly too technical for the technology dumb, and slightly too dumbed down for anybody who knows what Network Attached Storage is. Once you have the knowledge to know that you want network attached storage with redundant hardware, a generic RAID solution is within your ability level and there’s no point paying a giant premium for the Drobo branded version.
There’s a corp solution called “CyberArk” that’s intended for storing passwords and other secrets and providing an audit trail for every access, as well as access controls, etc. It’s nothing like a solution for personal data storage, but those core concepts would be great.
- Your stored data is under access control.
- Configuration of access to this data (write, read, and access frequency) is controlled by you.
- Access grants to others are time limited (although, maximum time may be 10 years or more.)
- Every data access is configured to be logged by default.
- Access to important data can be configured to require real-time authorization by the owner.
- Full change history is logged by default and thereby all changes can be reversed.
- Only the owner can choose to delete change history.
- Only the owner can choose to delete logs.
The trick is getting Meta, Alphabet, X, banks, retailers, libraries and the rest to agree to use this API for storage of your data. The next (impossible) trick is enforcing their secure deletion of copies of your data in a timely fashion after they have accessed it.
Sadly, if it is in the cloud, it can get hacked far more easily than on your local. But neither is really safe. And very few people can stomach what they would have to do to improve thier odds.
I can’t even decipher the summary. I’ll just stick to my syncthing setup.
I can’t say I’d understand what mysterious kind of data it might be that’s stored in social media networks but is owned and used by myself. Really - I don’t have any data I’d want to make use of stored in any social network, except banal stuff like my last few listens at Music Brainz. Usually you’re uploading the sort of data you want to be published to social media. They’re not created there, so why would I need a URL other than
file://with a local path attached to access it. I also seriously doubt that klicking “Save as…” really is some secret and complex ritual known only to immortals and the priest caste, nowadays. (I might be wrong here. I just do not have anything to do with mortals or godfood in my daily life.)
