

spoiler

Maybe read where OP says ‘Yes I used AI, English is not my first language.’ Furthermore, are ethnic slurs really necessary here?
Incessant tinkerer since the 70’s. Staunch privacy advocate. SelfHoster. Musician of mediocre talent. https://soundcloud.com/hood-poet-608190196



Maybe read where OP says ‘Yes I used AI, English is not my first language.’ Furthermore, are ethnic slurs really necessary here?


but the noise of the platters was not acceptable
Sometimes, being medically deaf is a bonus. LOL


Sweet! I’ll check it out.


I use Reddit for reference through RedLib. I could see how having an on-premise repository would be helpful. How many subs were scrapped in this 3.28 TB backup? Reason for asking, I’d have little interest in say News or Politics, but there are some good subs that deal with Linux, networking, selfhosting, some old subs I used to help moderate like r/degoogle, r/deAmazon, etc.


Yes, however you could run it in Wine, or create a Windows VM.
As far as brands of firewall appliances on Ali Express, I hate to say it, but at the off brand level, it’s 6 of this, half dozen of the other. You pick the spec that gives you the best bang for your $$. Before I pulled the trigger tho, I would do a cursory search for reviews. You’re probably not the only person on the planet that has ever bought that specific off brand, so the chances there is a review somewhere is good.
Protectli VP2430
Pricey. I mean, if you have the cabbage, no worries. However, you can find off brand, but similar for much less on ebay or Ali Express. I don’t run OPNsense, but I do run pFsense. My pFsense box runs pfblockerng, suricata, ntopng, unbound, tailscale, I use a ton of feeds, and quite the robust set of rules. It doesn’t take a super computer to be an effective OPNsense or pFsense firewall.
Mini PCs
Lenovo’s are nice, sip power, quiet, but unless you can source some used ones they get pricey.


I wish you the best with you efforts.


Fascinating. I did some digging through old bookmarks and finally found the site I was refering to with Russian life and a lot of abandoned structures in Russia: https://englishrussia.com/?s=abandoned


That’s worth a bookmark. Thanks for the share.


Oh sure I understand data hoarding. I was just thinking, to restore 50 tb from the internet is going to take more than a fortnight.


Because the cheapest way would be to trust that it’s already backed up on the Internet
That’s a shit load of downloading. LOL wow!


Backblaze personal is about the cheapest I know of: $99 per year unlimited. Caveats would be that the drives have to be physically connected to the computer doing the backup. Additionally, should you ever need to restore the backup, the best way would be to buy a 10 tb drive from Backblaze, restore the data, then send the drive back for a full refund x 5. Restoring 50 tb online would be excruciating.


Understandable. I don’t know what your threat model is. I don’t trust any of them except to do what is in their best interest, globally. However, there is nothing stopping Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, UK, or even your country, from doing the very same thing. Governments make laws for citizens, not themselves. Everything can be compromised at any time a government decides to. That is the reality of it all. If I am going to have to hide my online activities from a government in 2026, then game over, and there’s not a damn thing I could/can do about it. I’ll just unplug, and live out the rest of my life in the seclusion of my farm/compound.


data server
Here is the way I understand Tailscale to work. Feel free to correct any misinformation.
Tailscale doesn’t operate ‘data‑center’ servers that store or forward your traffic.
Control plane: Holds device metadata, public keys, ACL policies, and the DERP map. It is a small, highly available service that all clients contact only when they start up or need a policy update. Tailscale runs this service on a handful of cloud providers (primarily AWS and GCP) in the United States. TThe service carries no user data. Only control information.
Data plane: Carries the actual packets between your devices. After the control plane tells two devices how to reach each other, they open a direct WireGuard tunnel that is end to end encrypted. There are no dedicated ‘data servers’. Traffic travels directly between the peers. If a direct path can’t be established because of strict NATs or firewalls, the connection falls back to a DERP relay. The DERP relays are the only servers that ever carry user payload.
However, to keep with your fear of the US having all your Tailscale keys, what makes you think that Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, or the UK wouldn’t/couldn’t do the same? I’m no shill for Tailscale. AFAIC, you can either use the service or not. Your choice, no skin off my back. I’m just curious how far the paranoia rabbit hole goes.


While true, only partially.


Absolutely agree 100%. Self sufficiency is something I have diligently worked on to achieve in my life. Not only in the digital sphere, but in my daily life as well.


It’s a tool. A tool that needs some heavy regulation, but a tool nonetheless


These are my opinions. There are many like them, but these are mine.
I believe in, and practice privacy, security, and anonymity in every facet of my life that I can. Selfhosting fits in with that just nicely. However, I am very realistic about the whole thing. You are never going to take down Google, Amazon, Microsoft, AI, et al. The best you can do is disconnect from them. However, in the case of Google specifically, that’s a very tall order. The amount of domains and subdomains they run will blow your mind. Almost daily I find yet another one to block. Which makes the likelihood very high that you will encounter one that isn’t in your blocklist, or what have you. Same for Microsoft, same for Amazon, same for all of them. So, to me, chest beating about taking down ‘corpos’ as is usually the jargon, is kind of useless. Oh, it makes us feel good, but in the grand scheme of things, it does little. I would say the percentage of privacy minded individuals that actually practice it, and the percentage of selfhosters is very slim when you consider there are 8.4 billion people on this planet.
Additionally, I hear people saying ‘I run this or that federated’, or whatever ‘…and that can’t be taken down’. That’s a false sense of security to me. Everything can be taken down and a moment’s notice, even the internet. I’m not saying capitulate or rage quit. Again, I’m just very pragmatic and realistic about life in general.
Yu mussi bawn backacow