Comment by bullen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bullen | Hacker News Reader

Back in the late nineties there was a Swedish web company called speedway-da.se or something like that (digital army) that linked to a site they made for their friends that grouped their personal blogs.

It was something short like bla404.something can't remember so I can't search archive for it either... but since speedway isn't there I think this was before archive existed.

Anyhow the point is; those "blogs" or home made diaries where incredible, pseudonymous before people realized that what you say on the internet can be stored forever so people really REALLY said the truth and I couldn't stop reading.

About relationships, funny tidbits and absurdities of life all mixed in the most honest and open communication I have ever witnessed, all made from scratch (html and pictures only at that time no .css an very little to no .js) AND designed from scratch AND self hosted!

To go back there you need some sort of cryptographic solution that ensures you can hide forever but even then the sort of information you are prepared to share now is not the same as back then when nobody knew/understood what privacy problems an indefinitely copyable/storable/shareable world brings.

It's lost in time, like tears in rain.

> Anyhow the point is; those "blogs" or home made diaries where incredible, pseudonymous before people realized that what you say on the internet can be stored forever so people really REALLY said the truth and I couldn't stop reading.

Odd but I felt like people were more aware during that era that what you said might never go away, but were perhaps emboldened by the default pseudonymous state of the web at the time. I remember being taught in school to use no personal information when setting up accounts and my classmates largely following that doctrine. Facebook's real name policy seemed bizarre to me but the world had kind of changed by then.

I think the problem is we need to move into the low power digital realm to survive, because all physical low hanging fruits have been picked.

So that means the real value has to move into the digital world which is fragile = the hardware breaks and since it's connected you can get hacked without recourse!

Back then digital was just for fun, now it's serious. I don't know where you grew up and which level of paranoia the people around you had?

That said, you should probably be more scared about the future, than the past; only one way around it: Take responsability and prepare:

  - Own your connection.
  - Own your hardware.
  - Own your software.
  - Own your time.

And here "own" is more "know", "be able to repair" and "have the right to use", than "be rich in money"; although without money you can't do anything.

But a simple Raspberry 4 on battery backup (on the fiber router too) with dynamic DNS; can actually feed you, maybe not today but very soon when AWS and co. start raising prices! It's not a question of if, but when.

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