Preparing for the Collapse of Digital Civilization | Hacker News Reader

Preparing for the Collapse of Digital Civilization

shkspr.mobi

39 pointsedent16 comments

And here I was thinking it was about the collapse of the Internet should another World War were to break out...

Isn't the take away from the Google Reader et al issues is that we shouldn't leave our eggs in a single basket? And that we're better off not putting our faith in a single free service to do our bidding?

I think, to torturously extend the metaphor, that we shouldn't be putting eggs in any baskets - we should keep our own hens.

Of course, you're still at risk that your hosting provider could die, or your ISP could break etc.

Not happening, for reasons similar to why we no longer keep our own hens.

Besides, putting aside questions of hassle, the majority of folks would be unable to keep hens half as good as what is currently provided to them.

I don't think I'd recommend rsync as a replacement for Dropbox, as rsync isn't as elegant and doesn't replicate the functionality of Dropbox. (I use and like both tools.)

You might consider also recommending Unison as a Dropbox alternative rather than rsync. Unison is probably better at multiway synchronization.

Interesting. I thought Unison wasn't actively supported any more? It does look like the better choice - although lacking in Android / iOS implementations from what I see.

I think it's supported, as there were updates for it last year, but just not actively developed. The developers are working on another project called Boomerang that's supposed to replace it(maybe?), but which hasn't seen an update in years last I checked.

There's also Git-Annex assistant: http://git-annex.branchable.com/assistant/

Too true! But in this case, people were putting their eggs in a basket held by Google; they could hold the basket themselves, even though it would then still be one basket.

Perhaps most relevant to this issues is the social networking sites that are large data silos owned by private companies. There is much movement towards a more open, decentralized, and federated social web. Indie Web Camp is an interesting group of people (which I proudly belong to) who care about and are building tools to this pursuit - http://indiewebcamp.com

Step 1: Obtain and secure your very own web accessible server...

Fudge :/

Maybe I'm just forgetting the pain of doing this, as it was so long ago, but here's my general remembrances:

1) Call your ISP and ask for a "business" account with static IP. This will cost more, but to some, it's a privilege worth paying for.

2) Setup a spare computer with $OSS_OS_OF_YOUR_CHOICE running a web server and put in the numbers your ISP tells you.

3) You're done.

Of course, it'd be nice if you would harden the server (maybe start with a hardened distro) and have email as well as a domain name, but those aren't that complicated these days either (and can usually be outsourced if you don't really care). Heck, you can skip all this and pay under $10/month for a web server of your own (virtualized of course).

You shouldn't even really need a static IP. I run mine with a dynamic IP with dyndns very successfully.

That's definitely an option. Sometimes, though, the TOS or just general policy blocks that. Part of the reason to go with a "business" account with static IP is to tell your ISP that "hey, I'm not kidding, I want to serve stuff here.".

Web accessible servers are cheap and easy to come by these days in the form of cloud instances.

AWS will even give you the first one for free.

The technical knowledge required to setup, secure, and maintain your own server sets a pretty high bar. What's really needed is a turn-key solution.

Is this true? Doesn't this free service stop after a year?

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