Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Keeping My Data Mine? (2015 Edition)
New submitter schklerg writes: Like many, I am tired of being the product of the corporate "cloud" overlords. To that end, I've got my own Linux server running Tiny Tiny RSS (RSS — Feedly replacement), OwnCloud (Storage / phone backup / Keepass sync / notes — Google Drive replacement), Coppermine Gallery (picture library), Dokuwiki (quick reference), and Shaarli (bookmarks manager — Foxmarks / Sync replacement). Crashplan lets me pick the keys for my backups, and the only thing Google Drive ever sees is a pgp encrypted file of various items. Next up is moving from gmail with iRedMail. Yes, the NSA may have it all anyway, but being under less corporate control is a nice feeling. What have you done to maintain control of your own data?
That's pretty optimistic. I'm sure we'll have a duplicate discussion about this before the end of the year.
What have you done to maintain control of your own data?
I did nothing and it worked. It's still all on my harddrives today. Cool, huh?
I bought a Synology NAS. I've got full control of my data, and sharing it in every possible way is extremely easy. They've got a ton of good packages you can use it with, so it's just installing the NAS, configuring your router, choosing which packages you want (ranging from just file browser in your browser, to a mediaplayer in your browser, to cloud like syncs, to every possible server you can imagine (vpn, web, svn, database, email, ....)) and all fully under your control :). :). so even if they don't give a package, you can get it on there yourself :). :). I was also considering rolling my own, but it's just not worth it imo.
It may not be open source, but it does run linux
I'm very happy i made the decision to buy it, they're not that cheap, but they work very well
I no longer consider things like my name, address, social security number, ip address, bank acct number, etc to be "my data." The only things I still consider to be mine are my pictures, films, and music which I back to to external USB drives that I store in a fireproof safe. I leave the bulk of the security of my personal information up to my providers and try to use hard to crack passwords. If there is a leak (I'm sure there will be, if not already) and it affects my livelyhood, I will hold the company that compromised my data responsible. I don't believe that I have any assets that could be attacked that aren't covered by FDIC or identity theft protection, and none (other than title for my house/cars and my 401k/IRA) are worth more than what I can get back in small claims court, so I just don't worry about it.
I can "maintain control of my own data" while still using external services. All my data sits locally, and is backed up to multiple locations, but I also put plenty of it out there in the world. But Flickr or Tumblr or Facebook or whatever could go away tomorrow without me losing anything material.
I'm not sure what the whole "corporate overlord" thing is all about...either use the services or don't. I don't see either as a significant victory for good or evil.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
If you really want to keep your data yours, you better be on top of all software updates. i.e. ownCloud has had 24 CVEs this year alone.
- Piwigo for photos, because Digikam supports direct uploads to Piwigo.
- Kolab for Email/Calendar/Contacts, because it support ActiveSync and thus iOS and Android support syncing out of the box. Also Kolab is pretty awsome.
- Seafile for cloud file syncing, because it is a lot faster than Owncloud
Please keep in mind that I recommend Owncloud as well, because it is a lot easier to install and maintain. You only need webspace. No one in their right mind should really be operating a personal email server in 2015. This is what Google Apps is for. If you earn minimum wage or above, anything you pay for Google Apps will be a lot less than the time you spent on maintaining an email server. I also use Keepass and sync the file.
- Firefox Sync is open source and uses client side encryption. So why bother with Shaarli? Maybe because Firefox only just now came back to the iOS platform? Note: Chrome/Chromium is nice, but not really for me. For several reasons. This is a thread about keeping your data to yourself, so Chrome goes out the window anyways. Then we have the repeating issue with the extensions
http://labs.detectify.com/post...
which applies to Chromium as well. And then there was the quality/packaging issue on Debian. Among other stuff. So why bother? I use Chromium frequently. Just not as my primary browser.
Many, many years ago my boss was in Washington DC doing some intensive marketing and I was in San Diego trying to keep his operation on track. Since the stuff he needed was proprietary, we tried encrypting our messages (on DARPANET as I recall) for a while. That lasted about three days. Technically, it worked fine. Pragmatically, it was a monumental PITA.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I self-host and encrypt where possible. For other things, I use providers as trustworthy as I can find.
Email privacy is a tough problem, but a solvable one. I'm working on a project that will give me gmail-like convenience without entrusting my data to Google, and might eventually grow automated/transparent encryption capabilities. It's going to be a while before it's usable, though; nobody is paying me to work on it, so it doesn't get enough of my time. (The mailpile project overlaps some of my goals in this area, and might be worth a look to anyone interested in the topic.)
A Facebook replacement is another tough one, perhaps even tougher than email, but I believe it's also solvable.
Please keep asking questions like this, and sharing what you discover. The more of us we have thinking about these problems, the more likely we are to work out their solutions.
Christ, it's "back up", not "backup". You back up your data to create a backup.