theneverfox

True, it's probably overkill. But even if you don't log, they could theoretically start live monitoring the VPN with a court order... With a setup like this, there's no front door or backdoor, just an ephemeral image you have to restart to modify. You'd have to write in access methods and rebuild to get in... The government can't just walk in and demand you stop what you're doing and build something for them

It does add security, even if you might not need that level of security

I mean, if you set up your os on an encrypted ram disk, then set it to restart when the server rack door was unlocked/opened and didn't leave a backdoor for yourself to remote in, you could have a situation where you entirely lack the capability to give them access to anything before that moment. A skilled hacker might be able to get in through an exploit or do something crazy with cryogenics to read the memory at the time of shutdown, but a quick restart would overwrite most of what's in memory and scrub that

Legally, there's not much better defense than "I'm sorry your honor, I can't provide access to the running system in the same way I can't un-shatter a smashed mug". If someone shows up with a warrant, you could explain that it'll wipe itself if they open or unplug it, and it might've done so already. Then you guide them to it, hand over the key to the server cabinet, and let them decide to open the cabinet and destroy evidence so they can take it with them. Or they can take you at your word, and give up.

Court orders can't break physics, and as a VPN your reasoning for setting up the system like this is to make your service more appealing to customers - the purpose is not to aid in a crime or destroy evidence, it's just the normal course of business.

The same way that most companies wipe their emails after 30 days - yes, it potentially destroys incriminating paper trails, but that's just a side effect of the security policy you've had all along

Granted, there's probably some sketchy sealed laws they could use to force you to backdoor your own system moving forward, but you can fight that as it's undue hardship. It requires a non-negligible amount of work and would make your product less competitive

They might win in the end if they keep pushing, and even might be able to order you to "keep up the canary paper" (meaning keep claiming not even you have access to the running system), but more likely they'd get a warrant for your customer financial records and try to find an easier path to find what they want elsewhere

And what's the alternative? You learn to maintain your own equipment and take operation of your powerful and dangerous tools into your own hands, like you do when operating it? You find a local mechanic, like you would with a car, plane, or boat? You keep using the same equipment without paying the manufacturer more until it deteriorates too much to repair?

That's insane. There's not even a subscription involved, it's deranged. Forget your rice, the shareholders need bigger made up numbers!

And then you have Woz, who is an engineer, who shared his own stock with employees when Jobs declined to, who sold off his investments when he had enough money to live the rest of his life in the utmost luxury. Which stopped him considerably short of being a billionaire, people who continue to hoard amounts of wealth far beyond what a person could ever use (like Bill Gates)

Woz was an engineer who figured out how to make a computer run on televisions to make it more affordable for the average person. He worked for a living - comparing him to Bill Gates is unfair.

He actually did the thing, personally with his own hands. He isn't rich because he exploited people, he's rich despite others becoming far richer by exploiting his work

He did the thing that all billionaires should have done long before they became billionaires - he realized he had more than enough, and he stopped hoarding wealth.

He's not a billionaire - I'm pretty sure he got X million, then decided that he had enough

He weighs in frequently on technology issues, his takes aren't always ideal, but he's a consistent advocate in an area he's qualified to have an opinion in. He also helped found the EFF

From Wikipedia:

Wozniak has discussed his personal disdain for money and accumulating large amounts of wealth. He told Fortune magazine in 2017, "I didn't want to be near money, because it could corrupt your values ... I really didn't want to be in that super 'more than you could ever need' category." He also said that he only invests in things "close to his heart". When Apple first went public in 1980, Wozniak offered $10 million of his own stock to early Apple employees, something Jobs refused to do.

I mean yeah, but with good reason

To put it another way, people don't trust Musk with anything remotely important

Oh, they got it. Just not from Apple... If you have physical device access, we have basically zero methods to stop nation state level access

I believe there was an Israeli provided crack on that issue

1. yes, by being a massively bigger instance their algorithm will have a huge impact on the feed algorithms on the fediverse side. If they show a post in their algorithm in threads, it will get massively more engagement due to just being shown to a larger user base

The only "solution" is granular federation - the fediverse side could treat them differently, say by having their posts and comments count less when building a feed... But that's easier said than done. Do they build a "threads ranking" feature into the core, or do they they give admins the tools to build specific configurations for federation?

It's definitely not present in Lemmy, and I don't believe Mastodon has it either. And on that topic...

2. they have granular control over their own federation. They're a monolith where the fediverse isn't - if they want to sprinkle in fediverse content, it's much easier for them. If they want to publish only their most controversial content to the fediverse, they can. They can do it at any time telling no one

For example, there was a post claiming they're blocking toots referencing pixel fed. I don't know if it's true or not, but they easily could. And in doing so, they effectively derank those posts in the fediverse (see point 1)

3. they could EEE conventionally, by extending the activity pub standard to serve their needs, or by making the fediverse reliant on their content then pulling away

There's a lot of ways they can leverage their size as a weapon. They're not another instance, they're a private monolith running their own code... And they have a terrible track record

They're not really a husk, they're doing all the things they ever did. And a lot more... Which we really wish they hadn't

Reddit is more like a twisted/undead version of a tech company... It's still moving and growing, it just has been taken over by the lust to corrupt the living and drain their sanity

Let's just give them a chance guys. They haven't done anything bad yet. It will help the fediverse grow. We need their content

wE cAn AlwAyS dEfeDeraTe lAtEr. It dEfinIteLy WoN'T bE tOo LaTe tHeN

And to turn dc into ac, you need to rotate a small singularity around the pipes of electricity. That's why inverters are so heavy

Well, you just have to convert wheels to motors. A car runs on wheels, which is 1/4 motors. A boat runs on motors, and has one, meaning it has 4 wheels and is probably street legal!