Re: data security in "the cloud"

On 5/11/2011 6:27 AM, John Smith wrote:
> That's a neat idea John

Yeah, I know. :)

> I assume each user could protect his/her data on
> their personal server via firewalls, VPN configurations, user
> account, encrypted passwords etc... right?

Basically you'd just NAT the ports on your DSL router to the IP address 
of the personal server that lives somewhere on your LAN. It's actually a 
bit of a tricky problem about how you'd go about configuring the IP 
address on the device. I decided that for my first version I'd have a 
console application that was the configuration manager for low level 
settings like this, and the user would have to connect a monitor and 
keyboard to the device if they wanted to change the network settings. 
I'd default the IP address to 192.168.0.253 or something like that which 
would work in the majority of cases, and if you wanted to change it 
you'd have to stuff around a little bit. There are various ways to 
address this issue but they're all pretty sophisticated and would 
translate into way too much work for me to ship the first version.

I was planning to offer SSL support for users who paid more (I'd need to 
cover the costs I incurred for registering a certificate). Basically 
when you got a Blackbrick Homepage Server you would get a domain 
corresponding to your account name, such as:

  http://jj5.homepage.blackbrick.com/

That would then be your "home page" available from anywhere. If you paid 
for the advanced network services you'd get an SSL certificate (which I 
could register on your behalf because your domain is a subdomain of 
mine) for your home page and you'd be able to use HTTPS without nasty 
warnings. I've given some thought to how I would support using your own 
domain names, and that's something that could be accommodated too, 
although it would present a little bit of an administrative challenge.

So you'd have secure IMAP and HTTPS protocols to your home page server 
from where ever you are on the internet. For the first version I'd just 
write a configuration application that put an entry for the LAN IP 
address of the personal server into the hosts file on workstations on 
the LAN for the sake of getting the home page URL to work on the LAN.

> Did you ever do anything with the idea?

Well I registered the domain name blackbrick.com, and then started a 
company called Blackbrick Pty Ltd, and got $15k of seed funding from a 
mate who is now a part owner. I started putting together all the network 
facilities that I'd need to get the project off the ground, so a source 
control system, a company wiki, email and other network services. Then I 
started experimenting with hardware and software. I got various 
equipment and ended up with a prototype box that would probably to do 
for v1. I spoke to an industrial designer about what would be involved 
in manufacturing a custom case for the box, but that got pretty hard 
pretty quick. I think if I were really to do this I'd just build it with 
commodity equipment (my prototype uses the Artigo case). So I got a 
little way along, but then my life went to the shithouse in a 
spectacular way and I've spent most of the last few years locked up in 
prison and psyc wards. No fun.

I've got a prototype for the network services that the Blackbrick 
Homepage Server would offer in my new club's infrastructure. So 
basically there's email:

  [email protected]

Mailing lists:

  [email protected]

With list archives:

  http://www.progclub.org/pipermail/list/

A wiki:

  http://www.progclub.org/wiki/Main_Page

A blog:

  http://www.progclub.org/blog/

A version control system:

  http://www.progclub.org/pcrepo/

Web mail:

  https://www.progclub.org/webmail/

HTTPS support:

  https://www.progclub.org/

And shell accounts.

That's basically what the Blackbrick Homepage Server would be at first. 
I've probably forgotten a thing or two. I'd probably do something about 
getting a web based news aggregator built in, and then I'd start 
building web apps that provided decentralised versions of what facebook 
does.

> For the 1TB of storage, would that be accessable memory or
> harddrive space? I don't think we have the OS for accessing 1TB of
> addressable memory yet, but that would definately be cool.

The plan was to just have a large drive for storing email and web 
content. There was no plan to offer any real NAS services, I wanted to 
stay focused on the "home page" part of the system, basically it would 
be one big web application (cobbled together from various customised 
open source bits and pieces) and an SMTP/IMAP server. I can up with a 
long list of other products that Blackbrick could offer in addition to 
its flagship product, and came up with a list of about twenty different 
special purpose boxes.

Anyway, I've got most of the infrastructure in place to continue work on 
the idea, so I might pick it up again in a year or two once I've 
finished the other things that I've got on my plate. The company I 
started has pretty much just been running at a loss, but I do my 
consulting work through that now so it'll probably be profitable in a 
year or two, although who knows what the future will bring.

It's a really good idea, and someone is going to make a lot of money off 
something like it in the not too distant future, I'm quite sure.

Eventually everyone will have something like this in their home, and it 
will be considered "rude" to have your email and other data hosted on 
systems that aren't private. I think gmail accounts are the height of 
rudeness, and sooner or later it will be easy enough for everyone to 
agree with me.


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