Slashdot Mirror
Eggcyte is Making a Pocket-Sized Personal Web Server (Video)
Eggcyte has been working on this for two years. It's on Kickstarter now; a personal server you can use to share music, video, text, and just about anything else without resorting to cloud-based services where one weak password can put your private celebrity photos (you are a celebrity, right?) into the wrong hands. If you suddenly decide you don't want to share the information on your Egg any more, turn it off. If you suddenly have something new to share, like a video you just shot of the Loch Ness Monster capturing an alien spaceship, you can connect your Egg to the Internet anywhere you find a wireless access point. The main thing, say the Eggcyte people, is that your data is yours and should stay that way. Facebook and other cloud-based "sharing" companies use your data to learn about you. Here in the U.S. their primary purpose may be to show you ads for things you might want to buy. In more repressive countries, cloud-based sharing services may use your private data in ways that could be hazardous to your health. Of course, our government people would never keep track of what we post on Twitter and other online services... or would they? (Alternate Video Link)
You did read the TOS of your ISP provider, right? Some don't allow any server at all (email, Web, etc) on your home connection.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Is that a personal website in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
Why would I want to buy this hardware instead of using a software solution on my Smartphone? Seems that like would make a lot more sense...
Revolutionary! So instead of needing to actually install DD-WRT and buy a separate thumbdrive... They'll include it all in one tidy package!
But but but... "Cloud"!
Take the old laptop, remove the hard drives and battery, stick in a bootable usb stick or memory card running your favorite distro, and you have a very quiet, low-energy server for all your needs.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
How does this address leakage of private media on the internet? Sure, you can "turn it off" to disable public access, but you can do that on DropBox too.
The typical pattern, whether DropBox or "Eggcyte" is something like the following:
(1) You post private stuff on the cloud
(2) somebody else accesses it, whether it's intentionally or unintentionally shared
(3) bad actors download the media and publish it on other outlets such as 4chan
(4) you panic and disable the original share, although of course it is now too late.
(5) Sad stories about you are published on news sites, along with stern and moralizing finger wagging.
I can buy a raspberry pi with all the addons for less then 100 USD, load a webserver on it, and have more functionality then what this thing offers.
Yeah it has a screen and yeah its probably easier to set up. But that is what I'm buying then. A screen and an easier set up... for twice the price.
As to sticking it in your pocket... The whole web domain thing is great but subdomains are nothing new. I can get a free subdomain from any of several services. I do it all the time. Any system I work with on a regular basis that is on a dynamic IP gets a subdomain synced to it so that I can always login to that system. All they're doing is setting up a subdomain on a server they own and selling this unit... which is nice but isn't really competitive with a raspberry pi.
Am I missing anything? The thing is neat... its just redundant.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Almost everything (maybe everything?) this does could be done with a Raspberry Pi, but the result would obviously be a bit larger to carry around. It does seem like they've added some nice polish to the software in the form of the automatic data gathering (from a USB connected device), and they obviously need a back end system to give each Egg a subdomain under eggcyte.com.
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
People can still copy your photos and post them somewhere else online.
Now that everyone has a smartphone in their pocket there doesn't seem to be a lot of need for something like this. Why would I buy another device to carry around when I already have a perfectly capable computer in my pocket?
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
So my website goes down everytime I'm not in wifi range?
Plus the https://meetlima.com/blog/ blog shows already assembled units and stuff, so it is presumably past the kickstarter phase?
Eggcyte reminds me of the work of the FreedomBox Foundation. Both talk about being in control of your data and both are aimed at very small servers. FreedomBox appears to be more privacy oriented than Eggcyte, but both are responding to the same need of being in control of your internet life.
For a low end webserver, the HW of a cellphone will do, as will many ARM development boards like odroid xdroid, beagleboard.
In addition there is pogoplug, plug computers, etc....
This has been done already, and there are already many viable solutions, commericially
The Kickstarter page makes no mention of encryption between my device and the Egg.
Nor anything about encrypted storage on the device itself.
If your selling point is personal security, you should really be mentioning how your device is meaningfully secure.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
*Yawn* other companies like Drobo have been offering similar products for years. How exactly is this news?
But a lot more expensive?
I used to use an ICQ account (redirected via a domain account on 123reg) and client as a webserver for various files, when I didn't want the webserver on I just switched my computer off (or just killed the ICQ client). Worked very well for years.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
You see, the cloud services companies take advantage of the fact that most of us don’t know how to buy a domain, set up a website and program it to do what we want. So, what choice do we have but to click the "Accept" button when they show us the license agreement to use their service.
So instead you want us to buy a subdomain and tied hardware from you, hardware that isn't upgradeable. I can use an old laptop and get a much better screen, much more storage, much better performance, and a wider choice of software. And unlike Tizen, where "the entire SDK has been published under a non-open-source Samsung license", which you can read . Some exerpts:
IMPORTANT NOTE: This license is primarily applicable to several proprietary components, which are not open sourced. If applicable, the Open Source Software license shall take precedence over the rights and restrictions granted in this Agreement, but solely with respect to such Open Source Software.
... and ...
3.1 Except for the limited license granted to You herein, You agree that all right, title and interest in and to the Tizen SDK including the concepts and technology inherent in them, Samsung or Tizen trademarks, copyrights, patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights, are, and at all times shall remain, the sole and exclusive property of Samsung. Except to the extent permitted under this Agreement or by applicable law, You shall not (i) modify, reverse engineer or disassemble any portion of the Tizen SDK; (ii) lease, rent, copy, redistribute or sublicense the Tizen SDK to third party; or (iii) remove, efface or obscure any copyright notices, logos or other proprietary notices or legends included in the Tizen SDK. You may not use any component part of the Tizen SDK in any way independent from the Tizen SDK. You may not load or install any of the Tizen SDK onto mobile phones or any other devices, except a personal computer.
... and ...
8.1 You acknowledge and agree that the Tizen SDK was developed at considerable time and expense by Samsung and contains valuable trade secrets and confidential information of Samsung. Accordingly, You agree to maintain the Tizen SDK in confidence and except as expressly provided in Section 2, You (i) will not disclose or provide access thereto to any person, or (ii) use the Tizen SDK for any purpose not expressly authorized hereby, or permit or authorize any other person to do so.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
http://static.squarespace.com/static/53c5ea40e4b0fa582992062e/t/53e9a4a8e4b0cd70f5b4b601/1407820979255/The%20Egg?format=1000w
about as off center as the idea
Reuse an old pice of hardware instead
Why not just run a web server App on your smart phone?
-No second device to buy, carry around, or keep charged.
-No second device to constantly "sync" with.
-Far easier to keep patched with security and feature updates.
Of course, that's putting aside all the issues around trying to run a web server on personal internet access accounts (cell, public wifi, home wifi, work wifi, any of it). The bandwidth issues of trying to share a video of your kids with your family alone will trash most any common internet connection, and that's if it'll be allowed at all (inbound port 80/443) or legal ("no servers on this connection!").
This project has Epic Fail written all over it.... So I'm sure in classic Kickstarter fashion it'll get funded 10x over it's target. Because, sheeple.
My
The Eggcyte is immune to discovery, hacking and theft.
The solution to insecure devices connected via cloud services is supposed to be another insecure device connected via another cloud service?
If you want secure hosting, run your own server. You can do that on your desktop, a phone (current or old), or something like the Raspberry Pi.
How is this better than using something like Cloudfogger which automatically encrypts everything before it's uploaded to the cloud?
I didn't read TFA but they summary makes out that having your own server stops other people mining you data.
As soon as any of the data leaves the device, you've lost control of it.
Then you don't have an Internet Service Provider. You have a Read-only Internet Provider, or R.I.P. Choose a real ISP, if at all possible where you live.
"Your own webserver". Nothing new here - move on. Had that ability since the web came around in the nineties - web servers were open-source from the start.
It's a really cute idea, but from what I've seen so far is lacking a few fundamentals.
Firstly, there's little mention of user interface design, which if you want this to be used by average Joes and Janes is about the most important thing.
Secondly, sharing your stuff on your own server is cute, in fact we've only had it for about 30 years, even before the Internet with BBS etc. - the problem is connections, networks. Facebook solved that problem and that's why it works and people use it. If everyone has mynamewithsomerandomadditionbecauseitwasalreadytaken.eggcyte.com - how do you find them? You will need a social network layer on top, at which point you're basically back to Facebook, minus distributed data storage.
Thirdly, the idea of having it mobile and being able to plug it in anywhere is cute, but it also means that the device - and thus everything I want published - is unavailable while in transit. In practice, the mobility will be a non-issue because of this.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
So... this is a small server that runs Diaspora - https://diasporafoundation.org/ ? Why does this need funding?
Given the (big) size of today's smartphones, I don't see why people would want to carry another, big device. Yeah, the egg has its strengths but they can all be reached with common good sense with the many, current devices already existing.
USB drive, For idiots.
Lets be honest.
A word used exclusively by the sort of person it describes.
So you use the word all the time then?
The screen is what is going to be the undoing of this thing even before it gets off the ground. I know the screen makes it cool, but it brings the cost of the device into the range where its no longer in the acceptable impulse buy range (think $99 price point). The screen is too small to do anything useful on it, and because of it, it screams its desire to be the prominent device in your pocket. The problem is:
1) we already got one in our pocket that serves this purpose just fine
2) we don't need two
The device is vastly inferior in that it almost takes up the same amount of space in our pockets as our smartphone while adding redundant, inferior functionality. It's just not space efficient to carry around for what it does. I use a Sandisk Connect WiFi flash drive for this purpose. Same functionality, but much smaller and does not "compete" with my smartphone. Its complimentary.
I bought an iPhone 6 (64GB storage) for $299. On top of my phone, you now want me to buy this thing for an extra $200 for 64GB storage? Remember, this thing does not replace your phone - its, in-addition-to to your phone. I could have upgraded to a 128GB iPhone 6 for an extra $100. Going the Egg route, its $500 for 128GB storage. Going the single phone route, its $400 for 128GB.
Not to mention the fact that now i'll be carrying around two clunky devices in my pocket rather than one? And one of them will have a subset of the functionality of the other superior device?
How does that even come close to making any sense at all (financial or otherwise)? Me seriously thinks this is an intelligent test ...