I currently use an Synology DS116, a small and simple NAS which I mostly use to backup my Mac via Time Mashine but I can't even find if this is supported on such a machine. It seems it is an NAS but without the being called a NAS, e.g. I haven't found anything about SMB or SFTP support.
Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
201–210 of 226 posts
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#202This should be encouraged and supported. While I do have many questions, which would definitely delay an impulse buy, it is of general interest to have more companies trying to create easy to use products that help people to cut the cord with 5 companies that rules our digital lives today. Now on with the questions I'd love to clarify: - How to ensure the hardware is not chipped with some low level spyware? - Can we…
Great questions: > - How to ensure the hardware is not chipped with some low level spyware? We use a verified boot process to ensure trusted bits are running on the HW. > - Can we install stuff on this machine? How is the upgrade process working? Do we have root on the machine if need be? Not yet - but we are planning for customers to be able to run their own services in the future. We have quite a few updates to do…
how can an end user confirm this is infact true, and confirm that the updates are also free from any similar nasty issues.
can the user control the updates, including choosing when, what and if they happen.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#203"Innovative hardware"? It says it's an ARM, with a secure root of trust. There's this Bluetooth "proximity token". Looks cool, I guess. It's running Linux, Dovecot, Postfix and Nextcloud. "Email senders now support sending emails over an encrypted SSL/TLS channel where the email is only decrypted once it reaches your personal email server. Helm is not able to decode these emails because we don't have access to the en…
>My experience is that if you have run a nice, clean email domain for (say) 8 years, then you won't have serious deliverability problems for personal email
I thought that, too, until the entire Digital Ocean netblock my IP was in started landing on abuse lists
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like a stupid design decision at that point to have a dedicated instance per user. For a pass-through they could multiplex tens of thousands of customers easily onto a single instance.
No, SMTP runs on port 25 only. You need an IP per end mailserver if you are not terminating TLS on the multiplexer. It's not stupid.
One computer can have multiple ip addresses though. I don't know if it works on AWS or for email but I think it's at least theoretically possible.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems that Nextcloud, Postfix, and Strongswan are copyleft. > You may obtain the complete corresponding source code from us for a period of three years after our last shipment of this product by sending a money order or check for $5 to: Without being illegal this is rather hostile. But then again they are selling subscriptions to open-source software so I expected something shady.
See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It’s perfectly ok to charge for GPL software. Providing the source on a physical medium for a price is reasonable because no one should be forced to run a digital distribution setup and infrastructure just because they build software that derives from GPL pieces. Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an onli…
Strong agree, but I still think they might be missing a trick.
Speaking purely personally, despite not currently being in the business of physically-distributing GPL'd object code: put a copy of the corresponding source inside the product. Storage is sufficiently cheap nowadays that this isn't nearly as onerous as it used to be.
For bonus points, bootstrap the image then use it to build itself from its included sources for distribution.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#206It's a little odd that the whole premise is own your data and then when you go to order and there's a recurring subscription fee that you can't opt out of
Plex is kind of like this, though Plex Pass isn't integral to the base functionality and you can buy a lifetime membership at least.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly how it works
I feel that the internet is doing the full circle again, mediated by rent seekers - 1. all IPs are the same, email for everyone 2. residential IPs cannot into email cause spam 3. consumers don't get into IPs anymore cause CGNAT 3. AWS collects all the other available IPs and rents them out 4. consumers can now get IPs again, rented from AWS 5. ... 6. profit !
> residential IPs cannot into email cause spam
Strictly, that's dynamic IPs. The Venn diagram may almost be circular, but not quite. Part of the point being that it's much easier to block static IPs, while a spammer on a dynamic IP will evade any blocks when their IP address changes.
My in-laws outbound email broke recently because, being on a dynamic IP, they'd been set up to send through their ISP's smarthost. Then they changed ISP :P.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. But it’s also useless if they go out of business period. I know, I know, opensource it in the event of bankruptcy and continue receiving security updates and what not. But when as that ever actually panned out? Tbh, I don’t know why subscriptions get such a bad rap on HN. recurring revenue (ie subscription) is actually one of the best tool we have for ensuring the products/services we depend on don’t go under.
No, the whole premise with “personal server” is and should be that company going out of busines would have no efect on server and data on it. It should continue working exactly like it did when you bought it. This means that mandatory subscription is a dealbreaker. Optional subscription on the other hand would be just like additional service for which you could pay if you incapable of doing something yourself or thro…
I understand the premise fine. I’m just saying it’s an unrealistic expectation.
For example, “should continue working exactly like it did” sounds nice, but what happens when the company is out of business and your server’s kernel needs a kernel patch due to a security issue? Sure the server still works, but you probably shouldn’t be using it if you in fact want something that’s private/secure.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. But it’s also useless if they go out of business period. I know, I know, opensource it in the event of bankruptcy and continue receiving security updates and what not. But when as that ever actually panned out? Tbh, I don’t know why subscriptions get such a bad rap on HN. recurring revenue (ie subscription) is actually one of the best tool we have for ensuring the products/services we depend on don’t go under.
> Tbh, I don’t know why subscriptions get such a bad rap on HN Because a lot of the times things don't need a subscription, but it's just a way for the company to squeeze more money out of you. Some things you can't buy of course, like a streaming service, and I do pay for them. However, I will never 'rent' an online movie which I can only watch once or some such bullshit where the limitation is 0% technical and 100%…
> I will never rent an online movie
Why not? I do it all the time for a simple economic reason: renting is $2.99 and buying is $14.99.
If I haven’t seen the movie yet and I don’t feel super strongly about it, I don’t feel like paying the full price. Of course if I end up loving the movie and want to buy it, I’ll end up having spent an extra $2.99 to rent something I now plan to own. But I can’t remember ever doing that. I rent. I watch. I move on.
Also I wouldn’t buy a movie that I can’t store in a physical format.
Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do
#210Many people here, including myself, are heavily turned off by the mandatory subscription that costs as much for 2 years as an entire device. However, the service provided as part of the subscription, a static IP address forwarding to your device without terminating the TLS connection is actually cool. For about 30$/year (24$ sounds good), I'd absolutely buy that alone, since that's the key to the tag line - truly pri…
Not directly competing with Helm, but we at Hoppy Network provide a static IP over WireGuard. It came out of a desire for "truly private email". We provide: Clean IPv4 + IPv6 address, Reverse DNS, unblocked ports, unfiltered ICMP It's priced reasonably to keep bad actors out: https://hoppy.network We have a $60/year plan in the works, which will be available before the end of this year.
I like the idea of decoupling residential IP service from a physical ISP, but I'd be worried about getting blocked by Netflix, like Hurricane Electric's tunnel broker. Has Hoppy managed to avoid those problems?