On Tuesday I had a great interview with David Croisant about how we can take back control over our information and privacy by having our own private cloud.
As you know, when you store your data on “the cloud”, that simply means that you are storing your data on a random company’s server. Many times, the terms of service that you sign by agreeing to use that service actually turns the ownership of that data over to that company, which means that they can do whatever they like with it.
Do you trust Google, Microsoft, Apple or some other company with all of your information? These companies have proven over and over again that they should not be trusted.
But there is a solution: create your own private “cloud” by having your own private server. This server can connect to your different computers and devices, but YOU keep total control of your data. There are many different things you can do with your own server, and David gives us a tour of how simple it is and how powerful it is.
I know you will really love this. Please enjoy the video.
* As a quick note to people who attended live, there was a confusing part of the interview in which we went down a rabbit hole regarding routers. I have cut this part out of the replay out (see a longer explanation below).
The company that David works for is Start9. Use the coupon code: PAP to get a 9% discount off of your purchase.
Also, if you have questions, please ask them below and I will ask David to respond to them here.
Now, I want to explain the router issue for people who attended the live presentation. Here is the quick explanation…
When we sign up for internet service from our internet service provider (ISP), the ISP then provides us with a router, which also acts as a firewall between the internet and our home network. Obviously, the router that the ISP provides is not the best quality and we are trusting the ISP to do things properly. Having our own router/firewall is better, but the open source ones are typically fairly complicated for average people to use.
The router is a completely separate issue from having a private server. When you set up a private server, your communications between your computer and your server are completely encrypted.
Yes, the router is an important consideration, but I will continue to do more research on finding a trusted, open source router that is easy enough for the average person to use.
6 thoughts on “Watch the Replay of Glenn’s Interview with David Croisant About Having Your Own Private Cloud.”
I thought there were problems setting up a home server with home ISP accounts… have either of these changed since I looked many years ago?
1) dynamic (changing, not static) internet address.
2) ISP legal agreements prohibit servers on a home (non-business) account.
Installion & learning curve:
1) If someone sets up a server “now” using your software, what will be involved in upgrading when next year’s update comes out?
2) when next year do you expect to release the new debugged version?
3) what’s the process to check for & install bug fixes/patches/updates?
Is everything done through the network, or is a screen & keyboard needed for anything?
Does it automatically restart after a power failure?
I forgot to include a question…
There are other companies targeting similar markets. What are the pros & cons of your system?
To our knowledge, no other company has built the powerful and flexible platform that we have, specifically for this purpose, with a foundation of freedom and privacy. In my research, all other systems that are attempting this are doing so as an afterthought, or are hacked together (docker compose schemes normally). If you’d like to dig deep on our tech stack, you can check out our repositories on github.com/start9labs
The well-built systems that do similar operations are not made to be accessible, and require systems administration skills or know-how. These are platforms like Proxmox, TrueNAS, Unraid, etc… and again, they all have a different focus that we do.
1) Yes, dynamic IP is a challenge, but there are many tools for dealing with this. We will have multiple options, including tunneling all traffic via a VPS that you own (more private), using dynamic dns (doesn’t require a VPS), or using a VPN (if you don’t intend to publicize any services).
2) As a rule of thumb, we are building technologies that work, and their use is up to each individual. For example, there are many countries where using Bitcoin is illegal – we do not take this into account when developing our software, as it is up to the whole body of the people to override unjust or nonsense contracts / legal systems. My understanding of ISP policies is generally to avoid abuse, but you will have to check with your ISP if that is a concern for you. Doing heavy uploading (i.e. serving large video files to a lot of people) is likely to hit your bandwidth limits if you have any. Doing personal / family shares is unlikely to be an issue. Even a small business is unlikely to use a ton of data. Again, do your own research and think about your use case, as everyone’s is different.
Second set of questions:
1) This will be a simple software update, downloaded from the internet. The set up will be as involved as you choose to make it. Meaning that you can do nothing, and simply use the device (with some new features) about as they are used today, or you can take several hours to set up individual services with custom networks and access.
2) I’m not sure what you mean by “debugged version.” I mentioned one bug during the demo, and that will be fixed in the next few weeks in a minor release. The major overhaul that I spoke about we do not have an ETA for, although we are shooting for Q1.
3) You will get notifications when there are updates to the OS, and also to services. Simply click the appropriate “Update” button if you choose to do that update. We will *NEVER* force updates of any kind on a user, unlike Apple/Microsoft.
You can hook up a screen if you’d like; we call this “kiosk mode,” but a screen/keyboard are not required.
Yes, our devices automatically boot upon power restore. We are working on integration with battery backups as well, for those that would like that feature.
Sounds intriguing. I love that this is a kind of renaissance of the original conformations of the Internet. I do not quite “get” all of the technical language, but it is quite clear that one needs to beware of offers of pleasant convenience. Elizabeth
Thanks Elizabeth.