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mikeboson Ask HN: DIY Home Automation

I'm using homeseer. It offers a lot of integrations, there are plugings for functionality, but you can also write your own or add scripts. It enabled me to smart small. The experimenting and small steps ensured the WAF (wife acceptance factor) to be high.

I tried several open source solutions but they just needed to much work or upgrading broke stuff. Nog good for the WAF.

mikeboson Show HN: DeadManHandle

So yeah I have something like this on a VPS. I wouldn't touch this in saas unless backed by some form of continuity guarantee, which would make it expansive. Oh and I’m in my 40’s.

mikeboson Show HN: NoWorries – Service to Send Your Last Message

It was one specific example.

- Who has access to the data

- Can a contact access the data

- This is very much a one/two man shop, what happens when you are incapacitated?

- Where is the profit? Or why is it free

Just to give some insight, I have basically three data stores. One is the official legacy, then a system to sent out messages. Which contain instructions (including decryption fast needed financial info) and then a datastore which is downloadable of S3.

This solution would fall in the messages part and fits perfectly. The information in those messages is not something that I would want to be disclosed or accidently sent. The contacts are all not tech savvy so I can't use PGP/GPG or something, they simply wouldn't understand, I can make them remember a password but that's it. One of the best solutions is most likely a system like tresorit send, but then for a message.

I think your solution works for a subset of use cases, but the more digital data you want to give access to the less you trust these solutions.

mikeboson Show HN: NoWorries – Service to Send Your Last Message

I’ve been playing with something like this as a self hosted service.

My main points of worry in this kind of services are data security and reliability.

How are these addressed here? As it’s a free service there is no contractual obligation to fulfill. There is no mention what happens with the data afterwards. There is more to consider but you get the drift.

Like the idea but before I would use it would need a lot more information.

mikeboson Ask HN: Alternative” News Source That Counters Major Attitudes?

Agreed, it doesn't matter if you have a local variant in their trademarked light salmon color :-) Solid journalism, non biased and self critical. And sure that's not a 100% score but still best paper.

mikeboson Show HN: Free zero-knowledge encrypted backup with open source client

Ok let's do the trust and compare thing

- Dropbox is a registered company, savefileme is an unknown

- Dropbox has a ToS, savefileme ?

- Dropbox discloses to a certain degree who owns it and works there, savefileme is an e-mail address

- Dropbox has a published architecture of both his frontend and backend. Savefileme has a partial opensource client (don't forget that include from savefile.me) and no details published of it's backbone

I could go on and I could switch dropbox for OneDrive or Tresorit. You may have a fantastic product, but basically it doesn't look trust worthy or even better then <big name storage solution>

mikeboson Show HN: Free zero-knowledge encrypted backup with open source client

Oops there is encryption. Sorry for that. You do load however code from the website and from another repo. Account creation is random so losing the config seems to be bad.

You have no payment option.

You have no physical address.

No idea on what continent my data ends up though, or what guarantee there is that the data persists.

Why in the name of <random deity> would I trust this to run let alone trust you with my data?

mikeboson Show HN: Free zero-knowledge encrypted backup with open source client

Well this seem legit </sarcasm>

Everything is backup up for 1 dollar a month, typo's on the website, no name what so ever except for the savefileme authors. No mention what backend this ends up.

Looking at the source code I can't find the encryption, it just basically uploads or downloads a file.

mikeboson Ask HN: Looking for books about raising kids

I tried to read a few articles/websites about parenting when my kids reached the three years. The problem is that most are about what at that time is the current fad in psych country. Most of that stuff is made up as they go without any scientific proofing what so ever. Never found a good one tbh.

I tend to follow the following guidelines:

1. punishments generally don't work as a long term solution, only apply when temper is lost :-)

2. Give lots of freedom so they can make errors. Only apply a rule to a situation when you can make a logical argument about it and make that rule situation specific instead of general.

3. Spent time, talk to them, play games with them, make fun with them know what's going on in their live.

It's not perfect but so far they are decent individuals and i have lots of fun

mikeboson Ask HN: Is there a cheap option to get a trusted IP for sending emails?

Oh and really low cost. Get an mxroute.com account for $30. They use mailchannels for outbound traffic it's a pretty decent solution with solid delivery.

mikeboson Ask HN: Is there a cheap option to get a trusted IP for sending emails?

https://postmarkapp.com/

They used to have a free tier in that you got 25.000 credits (one mail one credit) for the trial, not sure if it's still there. Otherwise the cheap plan is 10 dollar.

I never had e-mail problems using their servers.

mikeboson Ask HN: What are you favorite tiny tools?

Sure.

Diary:

  - Python script that fetches the diary template and fills it with information like location
  - With x-callback-url it is sent to drafts
  - in drafts I can edit the rest and have an action to upload it to working copy

In drafts the action Call: With x-callback-url open pythonista and parse the text for a telephone number. Then that's sent to the call program

Drafts Meeting notes: Launch python script. Scripts get the template from working copy and fills it with date and through a popup a Title. Want to change that so you can select the meeting from the calendar and have it filled in. Then sends it back to drafts.

I have a vacation list drafts pulls from working copy.

In drafts I have shortcuts to add that draft to due, Things or mail/whatsapp it.

The drafts forums and resource directory are a good starting point. Once you add Pythonsita all bets are off it becomes the most versatile app on the phone. Working copy is nice to have so you don't have to deal with templates in java script code or with tags in draft itself. Apparantly a mac app is coming, currently a pc user, this would almost be enough to just get a mac :-)

mikeboson What authority should I contact in case of GDPR breach?

It's the law (tm), not complying because it would cost money is a very poor excuse. Besides some case law would help the law and guidelines are a bit vague on specifics.

mikeboson Ask HN: What are you favorite tiny tools?

Drafts 5 combined with workflow and Pythonista on IOS. For everything ranging from diary, personal crm, search adress/telephone number/e-mail in a given text, meeting notes and well almost anything. Very usefull combo

mikeboson Ask HN: What secure personal file hosting solution do you use?

It depends :-) Want to get to your files without being reliant on a toolchain? Go with a standard provider, I'm not sure what your objection is to google or dropbox, but there are a lot of fish in that sea like tresorit to cater to niche markets. If it's a security thing always question if the photos of your kitten are really that critical compared to the chosen solution. And as always if a government agency is your concern you're doing it wrong.....

If the toolchain doesn't bother you use cryptomator or something like that and just pick some storage where ever.

mikeboson Ask HN: How to prevent abuse of free service costing money to website?

It may seem obvious, but add an registration through oauth providers like google and facebook. It should trim down the amount without a lot of impact I guess.

If all that abuse is in Russian you might just try to deny service if Russian language is used or add an extra hurdle like browser fingerprinting and rejecting the combo language + fingerprint within a timeframe.

Depending on your user demographic you could also use a reputation system for ip's. Trusted no delays, untrusted delayed for 10 minutes and if something similar is found within that timeframe (use regex) drop the message.

mikeboson Ask HN: What do you use instead of Gmail?

I've tried a lot of mail services over the years and every time come back to gmail, well actually GSuite. Stuff I tried: - Posteo.de: Great, but you can't use your own domain or groups, which was a dealbreaker. - Fastmail: Nice enough, didn't really care for the web interface though. - Postbox: Great, after the merger with fastmail got the fastmail webinterface :-) - Microsoft hosted exchange: It was ok, S.O. wasn't a fan due to slow webinterface on a tablet. Spam filtering was a weak point. - MXRoute: Nice service, good price/quality. In the end however I didn't liked that I couldn't control the spam filter (you have some config options but mostly it's global).

mikeboson Soverin Private Mailbox Review

This is not a review, it reads as an advertisment.

mikeboson Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?

If you're concerned about privacy, don't use a free service. Pay for it and the privacy concern usually goes away. If you specifically concerned with US laws go German: https://posteo.de/ is a good one to consider.

mikeboson Pirate Bay Founder: ‘I Have Given Up’ (2015)

There is nothing wrong with slapping an absurd price on a license or item. What is wrong is the legal framework that allows it for years after your death to slap a price on it. The reason it's wrong is that copyright was meant to balance the right's between consumer and creator. In the old days you had to perform or sell an item, no licenses.

mikeboson Ask HN: What password manager do you use, and why?

I tried a bunch: Lastpass Dashlane Keepass pass Passwordsafe 1password

Some a longer time then others :-) I'm currently back with lastpass.

There are two main things for me security and usability. Lastpass seems secure, don't know for sure as it's not open source and who knows how it's implemented. The usability is for me excellent, it works flawlessly on my deskop, tablet and mobile.

I would argue that keepass with say dropbox sync is more secure, but the usability is worse. It's a tradeoff at the current it seems

mikeboson Show HN: Journally – A simple journal, a daily personal organizer

Looks nice, couple of things. There is no way to customize date settings. The minimum is starting day monday or sunday and day/month/year vs month/day/year. I would want to be able to pick the most used tags by clicking on it instead of forcing me to retype them. It's mentioned in an other post, being able to export data is a must with these services.

Keep up the good work!

mikeboson Ask HN: What antivirus do you run on Windows, if any?

I'm currently running Bitdefender, there's no real good reason for that except the license for it was a cheap offer. There are some antivirus test like av-test.org and av-comparatives.org and no doubt others. Personally I think an adblocker and, notdownloading anything illegal and a decent spam filter are more effective. The last time I had a virus was 10+ years back.

mikeboson Interested in a cryptographically signed identity?

I have 20 left :-) drop me a mail and I'll invite you https://keybase.io/mikebos

edit: Mehh should be in the main thread, sorry

mikeboson Show HN: A web tool to download your Spotify playlists

So i checked the link, clicked about and got into an old fashioned load a new tab and new window with advertisement stuff. The new windows was hard to close and even got a misleading site warning from google.

This is not the way to earn trust with spotify inlog credentials through your site. Or even trust your site not trying to get malware on a computer.

mikeboson Ask HN: Brexit – Should I vote in or out?

As far as I can tell there is a lot of future predictions with basically no real evidence both for an exit and a remain. The main thing is you have some control over your local government and you have (almost) zero control over whatever the EU does. I think the question ins't what would happen but how far do you trust your career politicians in the UK and the rest of the EU.

Have fun with the choice, wouldn't know which one I would choose.

mikeboson A Protocol for Dying

So for

> well... yeah, but isn't that always the motive, what's the difference now?

See the reply of djokkataja, it covers it pretty well.

> And for (2) "sometimes, mistakes are made and people die who shouldn't have" - is that what you also think when it comes to, say, the death penalty?

There is a world of difference. Now let me say that we in the Netherlands have no death penalty, but let's take the model in America vs the process of euthanasie in the netherlands.

Deathpenalty -> Subject is not willing, evaluation is done by non trained experts (jury) on issues of law (ie guilty)

Euthanasie -> Subject is willing, evaluation is done by trained experts (at least 2 GP's) on medical issues.

In the deathpenalty scenario the worst you can do is kill someone innocent. In the euthanasie scenario the worst you can do is kill someone with a huge medical condition that for all appearances it seems to be terminal with an unbearable standard of living (ie pain).

Comparing the two is cheap rhetoric as far as I'm concerned.

mikeboson A Protocol for Dying

So this is from a personal point of view, my dad choose euthanasia.

1. Yeah it's suicide. When you live in constant pain, lie in bed, get meds that make you hallunicate and have no realistic hope for improvement that seems like a reasonable option.

2. Suicide usually has some form of emotional component in it that is shared in the environment. That's why we call it euthanasia, it's not really comparable other then the very general "choose to end own life"

3. Sure mistakes will be made. One such controversy in the Netherlands was euthanasia on baby's with an open back (not sure about the translation). If they had a lot of pain or not. In general there are some pretty rigorous procedures in place to ensure we learn from mistakes, and making sure it are honest mistakes.

So point of this reply, it's a two way street. If you have seen the suffering in the end stages of life euthanasia is not a bad thing. Are there drawbacks sure, we're talking about ending a life, no matter what you do there's a stigma involved and because actual human beings are involved it will not always go the way it should. At the end of the day, the ideal of someone being able to tell the world enough is enough and empowering them to execute that decision, on certain criteria, is a better world then letting someone die in their own feces hallucinating that worms are digging into their feet due to meds and not being able to move due to advanced parkinson. And yes that's the way my dad was in the end before the docter decided to cooperate with his euthanasia.