←back to thread

The New Internet

(tailscale.com)
517 points ingve | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
sfRattan ◴[] No.41083257[source]
As I've been deliberately moving toward self-hosted computing, under my control, on my home network, I've had a feeling more and more that we're on the cusp of something transformative... For those who want it and those who care. There's an ecosystem of mostly FOSS software now designed to run on a home network and replace big, centralized, cloud providers. That software is right on the edge of being easy enough for everyone to use and for sufficient numbers of people to deploy and administer. News like Immich (to replace Google Photos) getting a major investment thanks to Louis Rossman and FUTO [1] is encouraging. The ecosystem of software you can now run on a commodity built NAS or homelab is, for me, the most exciting thing in computing since I first used the Internet in the late 90s.

The rollout and transformation, if it happens, won't look like all this stuff becoming so easy that every individual can run a server. But it is possible that every extended family will have at least one member who can run a server or administer a private network for the whole clan. And that's where tech like tailscale's offering will come in. That's where I see the author's vision being a believable moonshot:

Each extended family, and some small communities, with their own little interconnected, distributed network-citadels, behind the firewalls of which they do their computing, their sharing, and their work. Most family members won't need to understand it any more than they understand the centralized clouds they use now. And most networks won't be as well secured as a massive company can make its cloud offering, but a patchwork heterogeneity of network-citadels creates its own sort of security, and significantly lowers the value of any one "citadel" to even motivated adversaries.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTPqxgqgjU

replies(5): >>41084139 #>>41084198 #>>41085648 #>>41089256 #>>41090762 #
1. fuzzfactor ◴[] No.41089256[source]
>at least one member who can run a server

It may be highly unlogical, but maybe by shooting for zero it would be possible to bat 1000?

I do everything it takes so that the "extended family" site just works after I leave, as long as the "operator" can keep track of their USB sticks.

Scrap PCs being used as media servers have no internal drive.

Boots to the stick containing the server app.

Accesses media on a second stick containing the files.

Hotplug the media stick to emulate game-cartridge/VCR-cassette convenience.

Upon server failure or massive update, replace that particular stick with a backup or later version, or in the worst case get another scrap PC.

I know, easier said than done :/

replies(1): >>41089384 #
2. sfRattan ◴[] No.41089384[source]
A medieval castle could be defended by surprisingly few people, but not by zero people. And a castle full of people who don't know how to fortify and maintain its defenses eventually becomes someone else's castle.

Aiming for zero required sysadmins in the short term after your own passing, I think the computers you leave behind will run into a similar case of the same general problem in the long term: there's no such thing as an entropy proof system. Castle walls erode and weapons rust if there are no skilled people to maintain them. Computer components slowly break down due to ordinary wear and tear. Software configurations become obsolete and unable to talk with other software, and become less secure as vulnerabilities are discovered over time. If there are no skilled people at all to maintain a familial network-citadel, it will eventually break down and fall into disuse.

replies(1): >>41091933 #
3. fuzzfactor ◴[] No.41091933[source]
You have hit the nail on the head.

Especially with passing, eventually it's like the siege of the Alamo, when the walls do end up breached there's not a soldier there that can do any good.

It's shoestrings anyway and amazing it's working for now :)