elmussol

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 06:13:46 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

My upstream hosting provider (Linode) is carring out some server maintenance on bowland.

I am expecting downtime of approximately one hour at 2020-08-08 02:00:00 UTC.

Given the time of day, I may not reboot until I get up later that morning.

This will affect Matrix and Jitsi. Hubzilla, Nextcloud and email will be unaffected as they live on pendle.

tech

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 04:06:33 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

Went well. Everything is back up.

head-table-head-table

Thu, 07 May 2020 13:08:51 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

An acquaintance has just asked me to join their WhatsApp group on wait for it... Combatting the Rise of the Surveillance State (the rebels also have a Facebook page, of course).

And no I didn't, but offered them an account on my Matrix and Hubzilla servers. They have not availed themselves as yet.

tech

show all 15 comments

Thu, 07 May 2020 14:29:27 -0400

Thu, 07 May 2020 15:19:02 -0400

I bet also instagram...

Thu, 07 May 2020 15:27:25 -0400

Michael

mike@narrow.world

:facepalm

How are you liking Matrix?

Thu, 07 May 2020 16:25:45 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@Michael I am liking it.

Thu, 07 May 2020 17:21:53 -0400

Bob Mottram

bashrc@zap.freedombone.net

Matrix is quite good. Now has E2EE by default.

Thu, 07 May 2020 17:27:05 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

I'm liking the self-hosting. I'm liking the Telegram and IRC bridging. I hope, if I find time in the chaos that seems to be my life at the moment, to have Jitsi attached to it very soon.

Thu, 07 May 2020 18:21:37 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

Oh and for reference, I am @elmussol:elsmussols.net if anyone is inclined to contact me there.

Thu, 07 May 2020 19:21:10 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

And Jitsi is up.

Sat, 09 May 2020 08:58:02 -0400

The first part of the problem is the lack of a functional and testable definition commonly agreed on, so several years ago I made one:

Privacy and information security is when the right data and services are available to the right person.

By functional and testable definition, my definition frames privacy and information security as a state or situation limited to the right data and services being available to the right person.

This defintion is short, a single sentence, and quite subtle, first because it allows the different parts to be on or off, in other words testable, second because it uses normal words, third because the important words are legally defined.

Who is the right person? In many countries, a person is legally defined by law as either a physical person like yourself or a legal entity, like the government, an organisation or a business. The right person is then the person with the law on their side saying they are the right person. You can then test if the law says that is only you, only you and your doctor, or only you and the police if they have a warrant. Either way, that part of my definition is still rock solid under a rule of law, and if you lack that you can forget about any definition. A thief, spy or cracker with a cryptovirus is obviously not the right person, except when that is you. Also, we avoid the technical word confidentiality, or similar, which normal people do not know and thus cannot understand.

Given we know who the right person is, if the wanted state is unavailable to the right person, which is testable, then something is wrong, so it makes sense to define the wanted state as a positive, and ask if the wanted state is available, because then the state is okay. This also prevents the wanted state to be described along the confidentiality axis, which crazy and paranoid people are prone to do - their needs are taken care of by the definition, but they cannot be allowed to have the only say, making the world unworkable for normal people. We need a balanced definition.

Having the wrong data and services available to the right person is obviously not the wanted state, so we should ask and test if our current state is to have the right data and services available to the right person. We also avoid using the technical word integrity in our definition, so that normal people can understand what we are saying.

Taken all together, the definition allows normal people, legal and technical people to talk sensibly together about the current state of our privacy and information security.

This was the first part. ;-)

Sat, 09 May 2020 12:24:15 -0400

The second part of the problem is the lack of any real world consequence to most people if they lost privacy or information security, either partially or fully.

As Andrew writes, this is similar to understanding environmental issues. It is hard to understand all the air around our planet is as thin as apple peel. It is even harder to understand how less than 1% of this peel, CO2, if increased, can increase the green house effect and warm our planet too much.

Sat, 09 May 2020 14:51:42 -0400

I think that this is the 1st part :-D

Sat, 09 May 2020 21:38:34 -0400

do you know
#^https://github.com/havfo/multiparty-meeting
?

Sat, 09 May 2020 21:39:14 -0400

#^https://iorestoacasa.work/server.html

Sun, 10 May 2020 05:06:02 -0400 last edited: Sun, 10 May 2020 05:06:40 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@Andrew It means that I've installed Jitsi on the server next to the Matrix stuff, so if a Matrix user uses the call function in a suitable client it goes through jitsi.elsmussols not matrix.org (or wherever the default is).

Sun, 10 May 2020 12:38:13 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

I was using this blog post: #^Running your own secure communication service with Matrix and Jitsi as the basis for my installation (and referenced other bits of the documentation on github). I've actually wiki'ed the whole process and once I've neatened it up, I will make that public.

lightbulb

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 14:09:01 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

That moment when you puzzle out that thing that you've not understood and been actively thinking about for days. Just happened.

life tech dns

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 14:15:41 -0400

congrats! I know the feeling well.

The Free Tech Manifesto for Off-Gridders in a Crisis

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 13:10:05 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

So I wrote the following for a Facebirk group I'm in (off-grid lunatics like me and Ben who live locally). It will be posted there tomorrow. Comments appreciated.

Me in another place wrote:

The Free Tech Manifesto for Off-Gridders in a Crisis
======================================

Introductory note
--------------
This manifesto was written in and for a very specific context -- the Covid-19 lockdown in Catalunya (starting in March 2020) and its implications for the online community around the Facebook group "Off Grid Friends Tarragona" (OGFT). However, the issues it brings up and the solutions it proposes are applicable more generally to any individuals or groups of people wishing to communicate online in a safe, secure and private way. It is written from my own perspective -- I believe in Free and Open Source (FOSS) software, I believe that being able to host your own services is a good thing and I believe that my data is my data and your data is your data.

Preamble
---------------
The current crisis (and previous ones like last May's fire near Flix) have set all our minds in a number of directions. Questions like "How can I be more self-reliant?", " How can I be a good neighbour?", "What and who do I rely on?", " How do I communicate quickly and reliably with my neighbours?" and so on.

One of the aspects that has struck me is how reliant us off-gridders are on the internet. Groups like the aforementioned OGFT or "Ebro Chat" on Facebook, Twitter feeds of important services and instant messaging (like WhatsApp or Telegram) have become part of our networks and real mechanisms of support, reassurance and help. This is a Good Thing™ in my book, but I have some problems with it.

The major one is depending on corporations that don't have our privacy, security and priorities as their priorities. I have written elsewhere at other times of the dangerous (and illegal in many jurisdictions) behaviour of the WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram triumvirate with respect to data harvesting and other such issues, to name just one example. Google and Apple are not in anyway better in this regard.

I have tried in the past to steer folks in the direction of alternatives, but I started thinking a little bigger. What is it that people need? So I donned my anarcho-techy hat of freedom to work out what would be needed, what would be useful and whether this utopian vision is possible. This manifesto is a modest first step in that direction.

What is needed?
-------------------------
I am happy to talk about the technical aspects of any of the following, but the primary focus is non-technical and I am trying to write for a non- or marginally-geeky audience.

1: email
If you don't own a mobile phone network (and I don't), email is your base -- where do you getting password resets sent, for example?

I already run an email server at elsmussols.net. It is not as fully functioned as I'd like -- I don't provide webmail for example -- but it works, people use it and I have a plan for making it more capable of fulfilling others' needs and wants rather than just my own.

2: social networking
Facebook and Twitter alternatives are required. The ability to have conversations with each other, to organize in groups, run events, share information, insights and kitten/puppy/baby goat pictures.

Such a thing exists: it's called Hubzilla and I have been a user and "hub" administrator for it and its antecedents since 2011(ish). It is premised on security and privacy -- your data is your data. Who you share it with is not only your business and no-one else's, but also within your control.

You can look at my page here:

#^https://narrow.world/channel/elmussol

Hubzilla is fully-featured and mature, it has many other aspects that are not strictly relevant to this text, but include communication with other social media platforms, building webpages and wikis, file sharing, calendars and the like.

3: instant communication
There are no perfect solutions to this problem as the two obvious solutions are both flawed but in different ways (please note that I consider WhatsApp to be fundamentally flawed).

The obvious WhatsApp replacement is called Telegram. As a drop-in replacement it's arguably better than (and at least as good as) WhatsApp in feature set but has two great advantages: security and privacy. Security: 0 critical security flaws in the last 6 years, WhatsApp had 7 in the last 12 months, for example. Privacy: strong policy statements (backed with action) on backdoors into the software and explicit and clear data protection policies.

The disadvantage: still a centralized service. Self hosting is not an option.

Matrix (the network) and Riot (the software) is actually the solution. It does it all. You can run it on laptop or a mobile. It's a great messenger system, it's self-hostable and most important in this context can talk to other services (like Telegram amongst others). The downside: it's a bit geeky at the moment. The development strategy was to built the system to work properly first and then file off the rough edges and make it more user friendly. The developers are in the polishing and refining stage.

I do not host a Matrix server at the moment, but would really like to.

4: data security
If your data is important to you, it is important to make sure it's safe. Automatic and seamless back up of important photos, contacts, calendars, documents (and kitten pics) is easy. Of course there is iCloud and there is Google Drive, but in the drive for self-reliance we look to Nextcloud.

I have run a Nextcloud instance since 2013.

#^https://nextcloud.elsmussols.net/

Addons a plenty that I haven't investigated.

What is to be done?
------------------------------
It is worth pointing out at this point that this manifesto is not slamming anyone (except perhaps Facebook, Google and Apple) -- it is specifically not having a go at the admins who put time and effort into running OGFT successfully. It is also not denigrating users of the software and services I have problems with -- the network effect ("I'm only there because everyone else is") is very strong. Most people are not aware of the options available, nor the extent of the bad behaviour the corporations and the software and services they push.

So, I want to run an experiment. I want to investigate how self-reliant we can be. I am looking for testers, for people who are willing to take a flier on learning something and expanding their horizons.

The folks I would need would need to be low-end-of-medium technically proficient (for example, can you install an app on your phone or a program on your computer unassisted?).

I would need folks to contribute and engage with content in the same way they do now, but in different places.

From the "What is needed?" section above, it will be noted that most of the bits are somewhat in place, apart from a Matrix server. I would need to take out another server to do this (Matrix's needs are particular and wouldn't play well with what is already in place).

If enough people show interest, I will do this. I will also set up a donation system to pay server costs it comes to that.

Questions, discussions and comments are welcomed. Thank you for reading.

tech offgrid

show all 11 comments

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 15:02:17 -0400

Okay, I like the end goal here - as I understand it, allowing local off-griders to communicate at a distance with something other than smoke signals or Clacks (see going Postal by Terry Pratchett as needed).

I think I would turn this around, and start with local off-griders actual communication needs, then select a solution that fits.

For instance, while digital privacy might be a need for some local off-griders, others probably do not care that much. Then your safer solutions will fall on deaf ears, because they already feel safe enough. In a crisis, there really is no need to make people feel less safe. There is quite a distance from heaving for breath due Covid-19, because some smuck did not wash their hands before they went to the local store, or forgot or neglected to wash them right after they get back home, and GAFAM's bad privacy record, which is mentally 'too far away' to do actual harm for most people.

In others words, focus on solving say Covid-19 communication for local off-griders without Internet, starting what needs to be said, ending with two electronic / digital options - local radio services or mesh network. Now if you only had someone like @Bob Mottram or @David Sugar to ask about these things, because the rest you already know. :-)

Tue, 12 May 2020 18:55:38 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

Just sent this to the relevant parties:

I have been promising an update for some time, so here we go.

Hubzilla: open for registration:

#^https://elsmussols.net/

If you take an account, please connect to my channel and we'll take it from there.

#^https://elsmussols.net/channel/elmussol

Email: if you would like an @elsmussols.net email address, please send an email to pault@elsmussols.net and I will set one up for you.

Telegram: there is a group chat called "Off Gridders Off Facebook". If you are already on Telegram, you can join via this link:

#^https://t.me/joinchat/C2Wm9RKs79VP5w_CfPimIA

It is "bridged" to a Matrix room (see below).

Matrix: there is now an elsmussols.net Matrix server and registration is open at the moment. There is a web interface at:

#^https://riot.elsmussols.net/

Apps are available for Android and iOS. Desktop applications are available for Linux, macOS and Windows.

If you register, you will be automatically a member of the els Mussols. Say hi.

Jitsi: is a voice and video call system. Matrix uses it for its services. It can do 1 to 1 and group chat.

Also available not at:

#^https://jitsi.elsmussols.net/

Nextcloud: also open for registration at:

#^https://nextcloud.elsmussols.net/

Nothing to update you on, but worth a look at. It does loads that's useful to any computer/mobile/tablet user.

Next to do:
Install self-hosted Matrix<>Telegram bridge instead of using a public one.
Plan email service broadening (including webmail).
What others would like to see.

Wed, 13 May 2020 21:53:16 -0400

That is very generous of you to contribute your time and effort to this project. I have tried a few times and failed, but the crowd I pitched it to was (at the time) looking for convenience and ease-of-use more than anything.

Hopefully one day I will be part of a local group that will be interested in such things.

Wed, 13 May 2020 23:41:11 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@whistlewright (zap) good point. I have to manually register folks. PM me the email address you would like it attached to.

Wed, 13 May 2020 23:56:04 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

@Adam Robertson There is an element of self-interest, I need to up my sysadmin skills. Folks stopped paying to have websites done some time ago. I am enjoying the process though.

Thu, 14 May 2020 14:30:38 -0400

Nextcloud: also open for registration at:

#^https://nextcloud.elsmussols.net/

it seems that there is not page registration in this moment

Thu, 14 May 2020 14:55:44 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

See my reply to @whistlewright (zap).

Thu, 14 May 2020 15:00:13 -0400

I cannot see the whistlewright (zap) comment in true

Thu, 14 May 2020 15:03:34 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

[quote=me]...good point. I have to manually register folks. PM me the email address you would like it attached to.[/quote.]

Thu, 14 May 2020 15:06:20 -0400

in true also in your page we can not see the whistlewright (zap) comment ;-)
I think is the known problem with zap

Thu, 14 May 2020 23:54:39 -0400

now I can see the comment

the things you do for money

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 10:25:34 -0400 last edited: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 10:57:11 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

All income has disappeared due to lockdown and a couple of friends have given me a fair pile of computers for repair. I have a Windows 10 laptop with Windows Update problems, An update consistently fails with a 0x80070017 error which led me to #^windows 10 update error code 0x80070017 ??. Essentially the answer is:

Open administrative Command Prompt and type following commands one-by-one followed by Enter key.

net stop wuauserv
net stop cryptSvc
net stop bits
net stop msiserver
ren C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old
ren C:\Windows\System32\catroot2 Catroot2.old
net start wuauserv
net start cryptSvc
net start bits
net start msiserver

But I get access denied when I try to run the two ren commands. Why's that? I am running an admin shell (which is the same as root right).

tech windows life tech

show all 4 comments

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 12:03:11 -0400

elmussol

elmussol@elsmussols.net

Ah! The wrinkle! Take the box offline before doing this.

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 13:21:42 -0400

A couple of years ago I ran into a weird issue with Windows 7 not updating correctly (failed with errors) and the solution was to not have any USB wifi or storage devices plugged in while trying to run the updates..
I am not sure why it worked, but I was not the only person who had the problem. it took me hours to find the solution.