spaghettiwestern
@spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on What are your VPN recommendations for accessing self-hosted applications from the outside? 5 days ago:
I have everything route through the tunnel and my router. Along with allowing instant access to everything I self-host and my home server through VNC, it allows me to use Adguard Home for phone DNS lookups no matter where I am. Theoretically my cell carrier should no longer be able to see any of my Internet traffic which I consider an added bonus. I’ve found no downside so far except some weirdness from Google if I’m out of the country for an extended period.
- Comment on What are your VPN recommendations for accessing self-hosted applications from the outside? 6 days ago:
I self-host various applications and have been really happy with Wireguard. After watching just how hard my firewall gets hammered when I have any detectable open ports, I finally shut down everything else. The WG protocol is designed to be as silent as possible and doesn’t respond to remote traffic unless it receives the correct key. The open WG port is difficult to detect when the firewall is configured correctly.
If I want to connect to a device using SSH, HTTP, VNC or any other protocol it must first go through my WG tunnel. Running it on an OpenWRT router instead of a server means if the router is working, WG is working. It’s been rock solid. Using Tasker on Android I’ve set it up to automatically connect whenever I leave my house. It makes everything in my home instantly accessible no matter what I’m doing.
Another thing to consider is there’s no corporation involved with WG. So many companies have suddenly decided to start charging for “free for personal use” products and services it has IMO made anything involving an account worth avoiding…
- Comment on Adblockers stop publishers serving ads to (or even seeing) 1bn web users - Press Gazette 1 week ago:
Besides the miserable experience unchecked advertisements cause, it is simply not safe to allow those advertisements to load these days.
A few years ago (before SSDs were common) there was unusual PC hard disk activity when loading a popular link aggregation site. A bit of investigation turned up a Trojan on my system. After removing it and reloading that site, my PC was immediately reinfected. The site owner denied any responsibility and said it was the advertising company’s fault.
The way the Internet operates now means no one is responsible for the content their site provides or the damage they cause. Imagine if restaurant owners were able to deny responsibility for the atmosphere in their establishments or food poisoning episodes they caused? IMO it’s the same thing.
Advertisers and websites have created the “dark traffic” mentioned here by repeatedly poisoning the public and they deserve the massive loss of revenue their behavior has caused.
- Comment on Amazon Ring Cashes in on Techno-Authoritarianism and Mass Surveillance 1 week ago:
2nd this configuration. My firewall rules block all camera external access and Frigate (once configured) is superb at detecting people without false alerts. It is disturbing just how much traffic smart devices try to send to China and Amazon even when not subscribed to cloud services. The open Wireguard ports appear closed to scanners so I’m also reasonably comfortable with network security.
- Comment on $440 Charge For A Wheel Scuff Raises Questions About Hertz's AI Rental Car Damage Scanner 4 weeks ago:
Returned a multi-week Hertz rental a couple of days ago and had to fight with the staff to get to get a written acknowledgement of no damage.
Customers are supposed to just trust Hertz employees will self-report damaging the car after it has been turned in? Absolutely laughable considering how many times rental companies try to screw over their customers.
This is great info and I won’t be renting from Hertz again.
- Comment on Plex has paywalled my server! 5 weeks ago:
Holy shit! Please take your pill.
- Comment on Plex has paywalled my server! 5 weeks ago:
That’s not going to scale…
How many mothers do you have?
- Comment on Plex has paywalled my server! 5 weeks ago:
It’s possible. I’ve done it for a friend who can barely turn on his PC.
The OpenWRT router was fully configured before shipping it to him and the existing router’s needed Wireguard port was opened by me using the Comcast Android app. All he had to do was connect his TV to a new wifi network. That was difficult, but he ultimately succeeded.
- Comment on Plex has paywalled my server! 5 weeks ago:
#3 - An OpenWRT router with Wireguard connecting to another router 1000 miles away will do the trick.
- Comment on 109 children rescued, 244 arrested in Operation Soteria Shield, exposing widespread child exploitation in North Texas 1 month ago:
I’d give you 10 to 1 odds that 100% of these criminals are strident Maga Trump supporters.
- Comment on AOSP isn't dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers 1 month ago:
Have a couple OP 9pros and they’ll be the last OP devices I buy.
There are severe bugs that OP never fixes and make using the phone for something like navigation unreliable. Battery life can be great one day and terrible the next when not even using the phone. Also OP sells carrier specific hardware. My TMO phones can’t be used at AT&T or Verizon, severely limiting our options. My understanding is unlocked Pixel phones can be used on any carrier.
I really wanted to load Graphene, but even without it I’ll consider a Pixel device.
- Comment on ICE Taps into Nationwide AI-Enabled Camera Network, Data Shows 1 month ago:
It is surprising how difficult most camera companies have made it to avoid their subscription services.
Multiple companies that used to offer local rstp streaming have summarily removed support in firmware upgrades without notifying their customers. Even companies that support it (like Foscam) demand developer agreements be signed to get basic camera command information. Tp-link supports rstp but requires an phone app and Internet connection to configure their cameras.
Like you, I will never connect my cameras to the Internet, but we are slowly approaching a time when that by itself will be a cause for police investigation.
- Comment on Is Washington state falling out of love with Tesla? 1 month ago:
Musk did the equivalent of full on grabbing and squeezing the boob and now he’s claiming it was just a gesture of respect.
- Comment on Is Washington state falling out of love with Tesla? 1 month ago:
But many of the signs target Elon Musk specifically, and his most famous brand, Tesla, calling the vehicles “Swasticars” and comparing Musk to a Nazi.
- Comment on The technology to end traffic deaths exists. Why aren’t we using it? 2 months ago:
Impaired driving is also solvable. On-demand breathalyzers, smartphone saliva tests, and eye-tracking sensors are all tools that already exist to stop drunk and high drivers before they even start the ignition. Uber is already testing real-time driver sobriety verification. Why aren’t carmakers racing to put similar tech in every new vehicle?
There’s no fucking way people will buy those cars is why. I will never buy a car that required a saliva test or blowing into a tube before starting. IMO any car that includes that requirement would be a flop before it even hit the showroom floors.
- Comment on “How you design the beep is important.” Behind the movement for calmer gadgets. 2 months ago:
Bad design goes both ways. I have a couple of small kitchen appliances (coffee machine & toaster oven) and their beeps are impossible to hear if there’s the slightest bit of background noise. It makes using them a PITA.
- Comment on When will all the folks complaining about loss of Snap and health insurance realize the GOP wants us to die and has ZERO empathy for fellow Americans? 2 months ago:
The lack of empathy is a conservative hallmark.
Elon Musk , “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,”
- Comment on We Study Fascism at Yale. We’re Leaving the U.S. 2 months ago:
- Comment on Selfhosting Sunday - What's up? 3 months ago:
Power loss protection on SSDs is an interesting addition I hadn’t come across before.
We live in a very windy area and power blinks are common. A high endurance MicroSD was in use the first time the Pi wouldn’t boot, but I was in town and it was just annoying. It was a big issue when the Pi wouldn’t boot from the SSD while I was out of the country.
We don’t have high bandwidth demands so any decent OpenWRT router works fine and supports both Adguard Home and Wireguard. What I really like about putting WG in particular on the router is that if the router is up, WG is working, and the routers come back up without fail after every power outage. A 2nd Wireguard instance still runs on my Pi but since switching to WG on the router a year ago there hasn’t been a reason to even connect to it.
My problems with the Pi had me looking for other solutions and I ended up with a mini Dell laptop running Debian. (Can’t easily run WG on it due to some software conflicts.) It alleviates the need for a UPS and runs for 6+ hours if the power goes out, rather the minutes provided by my small UPS.
One of these days I’ll find a bogus reason to talk myself into upgrading the router with more powerful hardware. Mikrotik looks like a great option and I’ll take a look at RouterOS. Thanks for the info.
- Comment on Selfhosting Sunday - What's up? 3 months ago:
In my experience mini computers don’t handle power failures nearly as well as purpose-built hardware.
After several power failures the SSD on my Raspberry Pi became so corrupted it wouldn’t boot, and I was 250 miles away at the time. Overlay file systems work but are a PITA to maintain. By contrast my routers have never had a problem even with repeated power failures, so instead of relying on the Pi I’ve moved my DNS and Wireguard servers to my router.
Besides adding a UPS, how do you deal with power failures? Are you somewhere where they’re not much of a problem?
- Comment on Selfhosting Sunday - What's up? 3 months ago:
I’ve been using DuckDNS on a multiple platforms for a couple of years and it works great. Never had a problem.
- Comment on Elon Musk pressured Reddit’s CEO on content moderation 3 months ago:
So Musk wants the content he, personally finds objectionable to be moderated. Racist Nazi shit and hateful GQP posts are perfectly fine, just like on Twitter.
- Comment on Sergey Brin: We need you working 60 hours a week so we can replace you as soon as possible 4 months ago:
Have had espresso machines for years and can confirm it can be very difficult to find shops that do repairs and have replacement parts. Good luck with the startup.
- Comment on Differences between humans and AI: Why The CAPTCHA May Be The Ultimate Battleground Between AI And Humans. 4 months ago:
Is anyone else just done with CAPTCHAS? I refuse to deal with them at all anymore unless I absolutely need to get to the content they’re blocking.
- Comment on Battle of the dirt-cheap tablets: Amazon Fire HD 8 vs. Walmart Onn 8 4 months ago:
Icons cannot be removed from the launcher screen, they can only be combined into folder. The folders cannot be hidden or removed. Preinstalled programs cannot be uninstalled or disabled. Nothing works until the tablet is registered with Amazon. There is no app drawer. It’s possible to install another launcher, but it’s not possible to use it because Amazon has hardwired the home button to their launcher. (There used to be ways around that but Amazon has systematically disabled each of them.) Their Silk browser is terrible. Most every Amazon app provided is terrible.
I get that it’s cheap and there will be significant compromises, but at least some of Amazon’s apps should be somewhat comparable to non-Amazon apps.
I’ve gotten around some of this by loading the Play store and F-Droid, but it’s clear that Amazon’s tablets are not only cheap but they’re low effort products.
- Comment on Plex is increasing Plex Pass prices and paywalling remote playback for personal media at $1.99/month or $19.99/year. 4 months ago:
I installed Plex a couple years ago and when I found I actually had to sign into their servers to access my own media it was immediately uninstalled. It was only a matter of time before they pulled this kind of shit.
- Comment on How Tesla blew its lead. 4 months ago:
Anyone arguing that Musk didn’t know exactly what he was doing is just another Nazi pissing in the wind and deserves every bit of blow back they get.
The only thing Musk didn’t understand is that he was branding himself and everything he touches as nothing more than Nazi scum for the rest of his miserable life.
- Comment on Battle of the dirt-cheap tablets: Amazon Fire HD 8 vs. Walmart Onn 8 4 months ago:
I recently bought cheap refurbished 10" Amazon Fire specifically for web browsing, and the author is spot on when he says it’s “obnoxious to the point of hostility.”
Amazon places a huge “Register now” nag across the launcher that can’t be removed without registering, and even the calculator won’t work until you do. Wigets aren’t supported by Amazon’s launcher and it is impossible to load an alternative. There are a host of other deliberate annoyances Amazon has created to make sure the tablet is used for their purpose rather than your own.
It was only $35, but it’s not worth even that much. Amazon has truly made enshittification an art form.
- Comment on Meta claims torrenting pirated books isn’t illegal without proof of seeding 5 months ago:
I want to know how to switch groups.
- Comment on HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback' 5 months ago:
How about a bot that types slowly, so it can have time to consider what it’s going to say? Or perhaps a web page with an “Analyzing problem” status bar that takes several minutes to complete, because computers just do better if they’re given time to work on a problem?
