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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.
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Is that a personal website in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?
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.
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.
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!
...here's an even more novel idea: just store data on your phone and stop worrying about Rube Goldberg machines meant to get around the limitations of locked down and crippled mobile platforms.
This sounds like an alternative to a network hard drive and likely to be used for similar reasons.
Spamming the world may not be it's actual intent.
The web is probably supported by your highly proprietary mobile device even if nothing else is. Probably simple to use too.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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