Les OrchardJul 24, 2024

@vkc This is a thing I keep running into and I feel dumb because it surprises me every time: folks who either have no idea that self-hosting is possible or, even weirder, somehow think that self-hosting anything is ILLEGAL. Like, DIY anything on the internet is an impossibility beyond reach.

And I forget that I grew up with dial-up BBSes run on personal computers in bedrooms. And web servers on hardware we assembled with domain names we bought. Even as cloud came around, internet services running under our own accounts.

Seems like all of that is not even a memory to a lot of folks today, because they've never seen it in action in their lifetimes.

Show threadKevin Karhan Jul 27, 2024

@lmorchard @vkc nodds in agreement I'm flabberghasted by rising #MediaIlliteracy & #TechIlliteraxy despite things being easier to do than ever before.

  • This ain't like 1999 where one had to buy a book to learn #HTML and be rich enough to afford #ADSL!

Nowadays even a cheap smartphie can host an #OnionService and stuff like #OnionShare even makes way easier...

Show threadbojkotiMalbona

@kkarhan
The biggest recent loss is #techilliteracy at universities. Self-hosting may be out of reach to a large portion of households but if you go to univerisity today it’s a quite depressing sight.

E.g. Do an MX lookup on mit.edu. The answer:

mit-edu.mail.protection.outlook.com

Indeed, #MIT where you expect to find the biggest brains and they’ve dumbed tech down to where they cannot even handle hosting their own email service.

A university campus should be a highly capable self-serving village with minimal dependency on the outside world. Universities should be leaders, not followers. Students should have campus jobs to run in-house services and inherently learn from experience.

If the university outsources everything and demonstrates dependency, of course it’s going to produce graduates who are dependent and incapable.

IMO there needs to be a university comparison project that tests competency by measuring what they outsource both in terms of commercial closed-source software and services.

@lmorchard @vkc

Aug 16, 2024 at 4:46pmWeb
Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 17, 2024

@bojkotiMalbona @lmorchard @vkc I remrmber my smol university proudly #SelfHosting their tech on-prem because they have a #Datacenter with over 1MW(th) cooling capacity on campus.

Show threadFlauschdompteurAug 17, 2024
@bojkotiMalbona @kkarhan @lmorchard @vkc it's more like "no one will accept your email if it doesn't originate from <large ISP here>". *particularly* university IP ranges are blacklisted at a loooot of services due to all kinds of abusive behavior.
Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 17, 2024

@diebarschlampe @bojkotiMalbona @lmorchard @vkc
I sincerely disagree since Universities have usually more competent IT staff onsite than ISPs or Hosters.

  • I'd rather blocklist the entire /8 that #Apple has than the #MIT...
Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 17, 2024
@diebarschlampe @bojkotiMalbona @lmorchard @vkc I.mean, I can understand #ISP|s pitting theor #consumer #IP ranges lon line the #Spamhaus PBL to twart #malware that tries to #spam from those nodes, which isn't a thing for over a decade, but hey, gotta have to nudge people into #business plans somehow...
Policy Blocklist (PBL) | DNSBL for effective email filtering

A dataset containing end-user IP address ranges from which email should never be sent directly to the final destination.

The Spamhaus Project
Show threadbojkotiMalbonaAug 17, 2024

@kkarhan
Been running my own mail server for decades. And yes, from a residential IP. So I get blocked by MS, Google, and other giants. I was angry at first but I have come to appreciate it. I came to realise I do not want my email traffic to subsidize surveillance advertisers and shitty corps of their ilk.

Needless to say, I’ve mostly quit email. I buy stamps and send snail mail. Recipients must snail mail me back because if their #email address resolves to MS or Google they’re not getting an email address from me.

I should probably stand up an always-on onion mail server and exceptionally disclose onion email addresses to MS and Google users.

@diebarschlampe

Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 19, 2024

@bojkotiMalbona @diebarschlampe nodds in agreement

Personally, I'd love to start an #eMail provider that literally bans all #unencryped (aka. not #PGP/MIME-encrypted) #eMails and will tell senders to fix their shit every time they don't encrypt stuff and just flatout delete any unencrypted mails.

Same with Hosters known to snitch on users [beyond duely submitted warrants!] or being #PRISM collaborators.……

Show threadbojkotiMalbonaAug 17, 2024

@kkarhan
Indeed.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If #MIT folks cannot figure out how to communicate without dependency on a tech giant that makes everything easy (for their own customers), then it probably should surrender its big brain credentials.

Universities like #MIT really set a low bar when they simply become a factory that produces more Microsoft workers. Their goal should be to produce people who compete against Microsoft.

Leaders don’t dance for Microsoft. They don’t follow the indoctrinated crowd of zombie pawns and hand over the helm to GAFAM and Cloudflare. They lead. They roll their own tech. They invent what they need and they invent the next best thing.

I once had a prof who said something like:

“I’m not here to teach you what you can just as well learn on the job. I’m here to teach you about what industry is doing wrong/badly so you can go improve it and bring the state of the art research to the industry.”

Industry is risk adverse to some extent and naturally slow. Universities should be *ahead* of industry. This has gotten flipped backwards which is a sad state of affairs.

@diebarschlampe @lmorchard @vkc

Show threadbojkotiMalbonaAug 17, 2024
@diebarschlampe
If MS blocks MIT, MIT should innovate their way out of it, as opposed to the defeatist move of joining MS.
@kkarhan @lmorchard @vkc
Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 19, 2024

@bojkotiMalbona @diebarschlampe @lmorchard @vkc +9001%

I'd rather make all the #Microsoft customers know it's Microsoft who's to blame and tell them to fix it!

Show threadKevin Karhan Aug 19, 2024

@bojkotiMalbona @diebarschlampe @lmorchard @vkc nodds in agreement

I hate the #GAFAM-driven #Enshittification and the #Microsoft tech stack.

  • I can accept it when someone needs something specific, but every single time I asked people who claimed they need i.e. #Excel they refused to tell me what they use it for or what function they need #LibreOffice doesn't offer them.

I get hired and paid to prevent #LockIn effects and to enshure #ITsec is up to code, but that necessitates not surrendering to #PRISM-Collaborators and #Govware integrators...

GitHub - kkarhan/windows-ca-backdoor-fix: Fixes a critical backdoor in Windows' CryptoAPI, which allows to unconsenting Update of CA Certificates in the background. See https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2013-17-Zweifelhafte-Updates-gefaehrden-SSL-Verschluesselung-2317589.html

Fixes a critical backdoor in Windows' CryptoAPI, which allows to unconsenting Update of CA Certificates in the background. See https://www.heise.de/ct/ausgabe/2013-17-Zweifelhafte-Updates-gefae...

GitHub