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Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

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Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#161

Post by browningstreet »

righthand wrote: post #149
browningstreet wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Schneier can’t get more than 13 comments on a solid protocol crypto wallet, I personally don’t think that anyone will ever care about a solid protocol app of any kind. And I’m all for it, just calling it as I personally see it. Some things are fire, some things are warm, and some things are DOA. And I’m typing this on my Linux desktop (f’real). https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/07/data-wallets-...

A Solid protocol cryptowallet. Arcane on top of arcane. I think it’s entirely unfair to dismiss technology because it hasn’t demanded immediate adoption by society. Solid is attempting to help define a better data future. We have working mechanisms in place but everyone is at a disadvantage except the people loyal to these giant corps. Attempting to give people the power to organize their data as they wish and to be…

Crypto wallets are not nearly as arcane as Solid. How many people have Binance accounts?

Market share matters, critical mass matters, adoption matters. I'm suggesting that mindshare goes negative over time if these things aren't achieved, and when you have long-tail blog posts trying to pump life into it, it's pivot time.

Righteousness alone doesn't win any of those things. It's been a very long time since Solid was released and it's like a whisper in the wind.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#162

Post by layer8 »

dzonga wrote: post #148

I like the convenience of the cloud. but don't know whether its due to declining literacy rates / awareness etc. the cloud is nice and e.g google storage, iCloud but now with fast microsd's you can buy 1TB for $100. have a few copies then boom, you own your own data. but now phones don't allow you to have microsd's so here we are. likewise things like email etc instead of all of us being on gmail we could have commun…

I use Dropbox, but with an encryption overlay that also integrates into the iOS Files app for ease of use on mobile. So it’s possible to use cloud storage and still keep your data private.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#163

Post by sholladay »

InMice wrote: post #26

Among the first page and 2nd page (top 60) there is always atleast 1 post about how we're gonnna "take back the web" or make it back into some form of our 90s millenial nostalgia memories, self hosting, federated this or that, etc etc. Meanwhile - Nothing changes, everything generally gets worse and younger generations come into the world with no memories of the 90s internet or the world before mobile devices or surv…

The most compelling and plausible solution to this that I have seen is a set of standards called Solid, made by Tim Berners Lee, who invented the web.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_pr...

You’d think that if anybody could pull off reshaping how data is stored and shared on the Internet, it would be him. And the technology is, well, solid.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have as much traction as I would hope. Probably because it requires a new way of thinking about many parts of the tech stack. It’s not as simple as swapping out one library for another one. The existing web has so much momentum, and so many of today’s tools and frameworks have assumptions built into them that aren’t necessarily convenient for building a web where users have true data ownership.

Still, I’m rooting for Solid and the team behind it. They clearly understand these issues. They’ve been building libraries and scaffolding tools to make it easier to adopt Solid, For new projects, it’s pretty easy these days.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#164

Post by ryandrake »

ArcHound wrote: post #80
pessimizer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to do what we preach You start. edit: I have no idea what people think they're talking about when they're like "people should just" and "you should just." The cage is not all in your mind, dude; it's an actual cage, guarded by people with guns.

Not OP, but I am self-hosting a bunch of things, like my blog. I am trying to move away from Google, my primary email for important things is under my domain (not purely self-hosted, but still). I am also creating backups so that I can recover if a service is gone for any reason. So yea, some of us are practicing what we preach.

Exactly, I've stopped worrying so much about what "everyone" is doing, and just continue to do my own thing. I've self-hosted E-mail and web for 15+ years at this point. I keep my music and movies on spinning metal in my garage with an NFS server running on it. Photos stored locally too, and everything backed up on my own storage. I don't care how locked-in Spotify keeps you, because I don't need Spotify. I don't care how much data Netflix collects, because I don't use it.

It's always fun to read articles about how urgently we need to go back to local-this and self-hosted that, knowing I never left!

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#165

Post by layer8 »

crazygringo wrote: post #42
erlend_sh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The moment you create/share data with a site, what's to prevent them from reselling it? If I can clearly assert origin and personal ownership of my data, I can forbid further reselling of it. EU legislation shows that we can actually have the right to demand that a company forgets about us . Asserting such rights become easier the more accurately we define what data is ours .

> If I can clearly assert origin and personal ownership of my data, I can forbid further reselling of it. Can you? A site's TOS will say that by sharing your data, you grant them the right to display, reuse and redistribute it, the same as you do now. And that would take precedence because your host provided the data. They requested and you provided. The only thing that would change that is actual legislation. But th…

The right granted by the TOS elapses when you cancel the respective service, or when you revoke your consent (in which case the service provider may possibly cancel the service). (Some TOS are also simply illegal to begin with.) That’s what the GP is referring to.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#166

Post by fooqux »

jasode wrote: post #154
xandrius wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If even the people who experience a different time gives up because "nothing changes" then it's truly over. We need to do what we preach: sure, things are worse in certain things but for sure setting up a local network with top-level open source self-hosted alternatives is the easiest it has ever been ever. Also I think people forget to realise that the type of people who were online in the 90s are still online, many…

>but for sure setting up a local network with top-level open source self-hosted alternatives is the easiest it has ever been ever. Understand your enthusiasm but to relate the discussion back to Tim Berners-Lee idea for SOLID data storage protocol... Running self-hosted things like email, NextCloud, Plex, sandstorm.io, etc -- are not relevant to the gp's "nothing changes" complaint. Without dissecting the SOLID proto…

> It should be obvious that companies are not incentivized to write transactional data to users' storage pods which explains why the SOLID protocol doesn't seem to gain much traction for the last 9 years.

Not simply "not incentived" but actually decentivized. It's not just that companies lose the ability to have a better algorithm to recommend products, but the data itself is worth a fortune. Google, Facebook, etc are worth as much as they are because of the give amount of personal data they've gathered. And, the reason it's worth so much (well, one reason, and probably the least-scary one) is advertising.

Online advertising is the keystone keeping this pile of shit upright and I can't wait until that bubble finally pops. That is when the narrative will change. None of the ideas in this article will come to pass until all of the data that Google hoards is suddenly useless.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#167

Post by anticorporate »

ksec wrote: post #105

In terms of NAS, I have long wonder if there is a market for a combination of both online and offline. We will need at least 2 HDD for redundancy and to prevent bit riot. And the NAS will be sold as a whole package and subscription, with an encrypted backup services included for first 2 years and requires the backup subscription to work there after. The profit margin is first on the hardware and then on long tail bac…

> for redundancy and to prevent bit riot

What are you doing to your hard drives that the bits are rioting?

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#168

Post by jbeninger »

carefulfungi wrote: post #64
jstummbillig wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing changes because the ask is silly and disconnected from the reality of normal people's lives. So what happens if Google has all your data? To the best of my observations over the past 20 years: best in class services, cheap, paired with excellent security and data availability.

Exactly. "It's good for you and takes some effort" is a bad growth strategy. For this movement to win, something will have to replace social media and walled gardens with a better dopamine hit, that just happens to keep data private.

I think we're still missing an "open social" closed social network. Something like old-Facebook where you can post to an intimate audience of friends and family, and your feed isn't stuffed full of ads and influencers. Just a little private windows into your friends' lives.

That feels like something that could displace other social media in a way that's difficult for for-profit businesses to replicate since it goes against every product manager's instinct to leave engagement on the table, and would stand in stark contrast to the current social media landscape.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#169

Post by righthand »

browningstreet wrote: post #161
righthand wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Solid protocol cryptowallet. Arcane on top of arcane. I think it’s entirely unfair to dismiss technology because it hasn’t demanded immediate adoption by society. Solid is attempting to help define a better data future. We have working mechanisms in place but everyone is at a disadvantage except the people loyal to these giant corps. Attempting to give people the power to organize their data as they wish and to be…

Crypto wallets are not nearly as arcane as Solid. How many people have Binance accounts? Market share matters, critical mass matters, adoption matters. I'm suggesting that mindshare goes negative over time if these things aren't achieved, and when you have long-tail blog posts trying to pump life into it, it's pivot time. Righteousness alone doesn't win any of those things. It's been a very long time since Solid was…

I do not have a Binance account and think cryptocurrency is a terrible starting point for a Solid application. Not even people who buy cryptocurrency care about where their cryptocurrency is held.

Arguably it hasn’t taken off because no one has incentivized using it.

Re: Personal data storage is an idea whose time has come

#170

Post by crazygringo »

layer8 wrote: post #165
crazygringo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I can clearly assert origin and personal ownership of my data, I can forbid further reselling of it. Can you? A site's TOS will say that by sharing your data, you grant them the right to display, reuse and redistribute it, the same as you do now. And that would take precedence because your host provided the data. They requested and you provided. The only thing that would change that is actual legislation. But th…

The right granted by the TOS elapses when you cancel the respective service, or when you revoke your consent (in which case the service provider may possibly cancel the service). (Some TOS are also simply illegal to begin with.) That’s what the GP is referring to.

No they don't. I don't know where you've gotten that information, but none of it is correct.

I mean, a TOS could be written that way. But they're generally not, because companies don't want to self-impose limits like that.

The TOS usually has something like "grant the platform a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, display, distribute, modify, and otherwise use that content in connection with the service".

See the word "perpetual"? That's standard.

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