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disconnecting from the proprietary network: how to lose friends and scare your family through a radical open source lifestyle.
what would happen if you took back everything form the cloud? this presentation covers a one year experiment in recapturing my digital life.
the inspiration: Snowden papers, Richard Stallman, and prism-break.org
the premise: no cloud services no cellular services all networks considered HARMFUL.
the solution: host and deploy every digtal service I use from a Ramnode VPS.
Step one: No cellular phone? are you crazy?
- a little bit. -- but ive got a point maybe. -- average cellular carrier charges from 600usd to 1200usd/yr for full network access. -- thats without a phone contract -- thats before weird taxes and fees. -- arbitrary data snooping and caps.
1.1: becoming my own phone carrier.
Ramnode VPS + Asterisk VoIP + Anveo = ~250/yr.
-- SMS inbound and outbound
-- $45 for 1 year of service covering phone number, e911, gateway to real phones.
-- challenge: SMS over SIP is poorly documented.
-- challenge: outbound SMS requires scripting.
-- challenge: VoIP on the internet is like sending a toddler to somalia. fail2ban.
-- SMS is now Email...more or less.
-- any meaningful comms take place over Signal.
-- “adding a line” isnt something you pay for anymore.
1.2: selecting the phone -- commercial phones are straight out of 1984. -- buy refurb/used phone and use lineageOS -- SIP client is BUILT INTO the android dialer. -- major benefits include rooted phone for cheap. -- firewall hosts using fdroid adaway -- challenge: HTC M9 is sometimes a bear to deploy to -- challenge: Google maps is now andOTP
1.3: performance results: -- generally great! sip service works well over wifi -- SIP over TLS also works well -- whisper systems secure call also works well. -- challenge: SMS over email has no tie to a real username... -- challenge: getting people to understand your connectivity depends on your freedom first. -- 911 access guaranteed in emergency over any cellular network, free. -- battery life of rooted phone is MUCH superior to proprietary
2: Extending the value of a VPS -- email through postfix/dovecot. -- web presence to absorb other services i might want/need -- example: gitea imports github things i want -- VPN with wireguard -- secure file sharing -- $250/3 services or more? sure.
3: The network is always evil. -- net neutrality is dead. we are all carriers now. -- proprietary routers are easily replaced -- pihole is a thing -- openwrt is a thing -- wireguard as necessary. -- its YOUR traffic. YOU pay for it. YOU should control it.
Conclusion: -- this is a very provocative and controversial idea -- many assumptions made about quality/ubiquity of wifi networks. -- many people will take personal your decision to do any of this. -- I am a professional system administrator/fool. YMMV.