I'm coming to the conclusion that community-owned and operated small clouds (co-ops) with easy onramps for self-hosting open source services like mail, storage, and VPN are the only way forward. Every corpo service is eventually going to make you ashamed to use it.
A fair number of the open source ones too, but at least money isn't changing hands.
Not for nothing but I've written a very well-regarded guide on home labs if you want to get started.
I guess I need to clarify that this model does not solve every ill of the current state of technology in society. It is an exit from reliance on corporate services that don't align with one's principles. What you're willing to pay for that is a decision for each community to make.
I guess I should also note I think private VPN is a solution unfit for the problems for which it is mostly used. But I do want people to have options to exit the corporate internet that don't require years of IT experience.
Ended up writing about this.
@mttaggart any suggestion on home labbing (two b's?) in this era of crazy hardware prices?
@brahms The book does, yeah!
@mttaggart I wanted to buy it anyway, now you double-sold 😂
@brahms Thanks! But also, I will just say it's absolutely brutal out there. eBay, Amazon refurb, Savemyserver, and GovDeals (US) are probably the best bets.
Jun 28, 2026, 3:01 AM@mttaggart @brahms Craigslist and Facebook marketplace too, depending on where you live (I’m within 2 hours of a major metro that always has somebody selling off-lease micro desktops at rock bottom prices)
Jun 28, 2026, 3:20 AM@mttaggart @brahms my personal opinion is biased, but I like old CAD & developer tower workstations. You can frequently get them with Xeon server processors (and I’m sure AMD equivalents, but I last bought nearly a decade ago), and the cooling is set up to be effective without being a menace on/below someone’s desk, plus you can fit a respectable number of 3.5” drives in them. OTOH, if you wanna play with clusters, I’d look at micro desktops or laptops (built in UPS), cooling them can be more situational, and you’re probably limited to fewer & lower capacity internal drives, or using external USB drives.
@ajn142 @mttaggart @brahms I've bought two M720q (16GB, 256GB M.2 + 256 SATA each) as a base for HA proxmox cluster. Power consumption is minimal and it even runs some small LLM for weather-json-to-human-text. Those were probably under 100€ each.
(and yes, that's a shoe rack with thin plywood as a shelf 😅 )
Jun 28, 2026, 3:33 AM@mttaggart @brahms TBF, I’m going to get there, finally deleted my account last month, and it was officially nonrecoverable a week ago.
Jun 28, 2026, 3:34 AM@mttaggart @brahms I think the experience there was better than craigslist, but I hate how it choked out CL via network effects.
@ajn142 @mttaggart @brahms
There's an irony to these replies...
@brahms @mttaggart you can do more than you think with old desktop hardware and 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM. It is also much more energy efficient than server hardware (and much quieter too)
@ithoughtisawa2 @brahms Absolutely, especially for individuals or families. When you need to guarantee reliability for a community, things do get more complicated if you're doing it right.
Jun 27, 2026, 8:55 PM@mttaggart @ithoughtisawa2 @brahms someone who has a friend that converted my shitbox laptop into a server: can confirm shit is amazing, it gave me extra aura, i no longer have to worry that i cant pay the server bill on time and now i can say i have a lot of people in my house (they are in my laptop :3)
Jun 28, 2026, 1:55 AM@ko @_L1vY_ @mttaggart @ithoughtisawa2 @brahms If you are into any small ML stuff, you might be interested in this thing I learned about the other day: https://cocore.dev/
Jun 28, 2026, 1:56 AM@brahms @mttaggart @b_cavello @ithoughtisawa2 @_L1vY_ if you genuinely think i am in any way interested in any AI garbage then i'm gonna assume you rotate the damn square piece in tetris
Jun 28, 2026, 8:57 PM@ko @brahms @mttaggart @b_cavello @ithoughtisawa2 @_L1vY_ Can I quote you on that? :D
Jun 28, 2026, 9:10 PM@drwho @brahms @mttaggart @b_cavello @ithoughtisawa2 @_L1vY_ dunno im not the author
Jun 28, 2026, 9:11 PM@ko @brahms @mttaggart @b_cavello @ithoughtisawa2 @_L1vY_ Quoting as anonymous okay?
Jun 28, 2026, 2:09 AM@b_cavello@mastodon.publicinterest.town @ko@gotosocial.art @_L1vY_@mstdn.social @mttaggart@infosec.exchange @ithoughtisawa2@infosec.exchange @brahms@chaos.social
>Machine Learning
>look inside
>slop
@ithoughtisawa2
An old desktop is a great place to start but if you're buying, don't rule out old servers. They're much better at thermal management very important if you're gonna stuff a few drives into it.
They're surprisingly power efficient. And many of them are whisper quiet with the right config.
I'm running an old Dell T430 and all I hear is the hard drives. It's pulling about 70w with 6 hard drives in it (plus an SSD).
No GPU though.
@brahms @mttaggart
Jun 27, 2026, 8:57 PM@mttaggart FYI "Go to Course" returns 404 for https://taggartinstitute.org/c/wireguard-from-scratch/42
@mttaggart how does one access the book to download, it again when they purchased it a year ago or so and the download link in the email is not working anymore?
@sassdawe @mttaggart There is a link on the updated site under the homelab course that will let you generate a coupon code based on the previous purchase. That will unlock the content and let you download the updated version. I had to do the same.
@mttaggart Is the PDF version indexed?
Edit: I also just noticed under prerequisites where it says "The Linux command line (start here)" the link doesn't seem to work properly
Jun 29, 2026, 7:54 PM@mttaggart I just set up a huge home media server thing. Running all the *arr apps, plex, etc. I’m excited to read what you got here and steal ideas.
@mttaggart I almost gave up reading because you were stacking the odds depressingly high but you (almost) came good in the end 👍
Perhaps an alternative approach is to convince users that ethical, secure and robust services are worth paying for. That would create an alternative market for privacy-conscious users, much like the superannuation market has options for ethical investment.
But we cannot expect other people to run these services at a loss when the mercenary temptation is so high (and relatively frictionless).
Even if a person/group/coop are entirely in it for the right reasons, how can you externally attest to them being "good people" and the service being ethical, secure, robust? What would that attestation look like so people would feel safe _enough_ to pay for them?
The ethical ISO 27k?
@mttaggart this is our belief as well. very glad to be on the same page.
@ireneista Me too! Thinking seriously about reworking my own lab gear for supporting my immediate community. And writing about it, of course.
@mttaggart @ireneista - this is something I very much want to do, for #CambridgeUK. Finding it harder to get started (find other local people who are interested) than I thought though.
Jun 27, 2026, 8:22 PM@philcowans @mttaggart @ireneista
I think the dilemma is accountability/liability - what happens when one of your users does something that results in cops/feds demanding user data (or even seizing an entire server?)
Here in England it seems possible to get nicked for harmless protests and now there's the paranoia about "keeping kids safe"
How many people with a good career and salary in tech are going to risk it for the sake of someone /elses/ freedom, if they aren't making money from the venture?
This could maybe limit involvement to folk who are retired with good savings and less to lose (its already happening with the demographics of protesters)
(that goes for all the current VPN and hosting companies too and is their Achilles Heel).
@vfrmedia @mttaggart @ireneista - this is something to be figured out, but I'm willing to spend some time doing that. Ideally there'd be some kind of network of local co-ops to share best practice in each jurisdiction.
@philcowans @vfrmedia @mttaggart that does sound like the right solution
@vfrmedia @philcowans @mttaggart well, you find a solid lawyer as one of your first steps...
but yes, it's a significant barrier to entry
Jun 27, 2026, 8:34 PM@ireneista @philcowans @mttaggart
I think even a basic hosting service for community organisations /could/ work, but you'd have to set clear boundaries on what it can and can't be used for *and* enforce them - (after all you wouldn't want the local Reform/Restore Britain group or the equivalent in other areas making use of the resources, or its no better than what Mullvad and others are doing and claiming its "free speech")
@vfrmedia @philcowans @mttaggart content policy enforcement is a trap though, if you build a mechanism it will be used against you
@vfrmedia @philcowans @mttaggart what we're hoping is of course that knowing the people involved is some sort of solution, but there's a specific type of adversarial modeling we'd need to work through, for how that sort of thing plays out after the usual asshat bad-faith bullshit and a few rounds of legal threats
@ireneista @vfrmedia @philcowans I don't have the full answer but for sure a component is that small services can and should show bad actors the door with haste.
Jun 27, 2026, 8:49 PM@mttaggart @ireneista @philcowans
one problem is if the bad actor is stubborn and determined, it can be way more than a small group with limited resources is able to cope with, especially if the project isn't providing a full time paid day job for the people involved *and* legal protection for them..
I don't even get deeply involved in the existing community groups round here nowadays, due to the inevitable conflict and drama that occurs and that it turns out to be more stressful than my day job!
@vfrmedia @ireneista @philcowans Worth distinguishing external bad actors causing a headache and internal service users for which a provider may be liable. The latter is, I think, the bigger concern and novel problem for most in this proposal.
Jun 27, 2026, 8:53 PM@mttaggart @ireneista @philcowans
keeping out external threats is normal cybersecurity stuff and relatively easy to deal with (same as making sure your car or house door is locked and carrying out physical checks or using CCTV if required) - but internal users could be more of a proiblem. Particularly if you are providing "private/secure" services and someone wants to use them for something that is blatantly illegal in your country..
@vfrmedia @mttaggart @philcowans the thing we always tell people to consider before creating a corporate entity
which nobody ever wants to do at that stage, and it needs to be then, for all the most realistic mitigations ....
is what will you do if the jurisdiction you operate in makes it illegal, five years from now, to be openly gay or trans?
@ireneista @vfrmedia @philcowans It's an important question, although I'd contend that, much like Mossad, there's no threat modeling against rapacious fascism—certainly not with legal means. Which is to say that yes, you are accepting the risk of targeting by a regime when you offer services, and members should understand that offering the service is no guarantee of safety from said regime.
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans so just to get a little more pointed about it
when that happens, if you're operating as a corporation there are only three options:
corporations exist at the pleasure of the state. there is no fourth choice.
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans if your plan is (2), great. carry on, just make sure you have enough money.
also, as an activist we know what the funding landscape for that looks like right now and it's grim AF
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans if your plan is (1) or (3), why did you go that route in the first place? it completely defeats the purpose
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans our personal conclusion is that any plan that's going to rely on a corporation as a legal shield is a bad plan at this moment in history
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans but as we say, we've had ... it must be close to a hundred iterations of this conversation, at this point
and nobody ever, ever, ever wants to be realistic about that at the outset. everyone wants to wave it off as a concern that if you have that problem, you've already lost, or it's for somebody else to worry about, or nobody could expect more..... regardless of how it's put, the proposed course of action is always denial
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans sorry to be harsh about that. we totally understand that people who are not in groups that will be the first targets for state-sponsored extermination are strongly incentivized to just walk away.
@ireneista @vfrmedia @philcowans Mmm, it defeats a purpose, and probably the noblest one. I'd say the reasons to decorpo are not limited to the extremes of resistance.
I don't think it's really fair to expect small groups to fight the state in that way. It's a risk you accept for other trade-offs.
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans what it comes down to is that as a visible trans person we're not really having the same conversation, which, we get it.
@mttaggart @vfrmedia @philcowans right and like, if you're trying to serve marginalized communities, that's inherently risky because people's existence is politicized and that's beyond their control
and if you're not, what are you even doing