<nettime> A DIY Data Manifesto by Scott Gilbertson

[Rob Myers]

On 07/02/11 21:26, Geert Lovink wrote:

> The question indeed is: what does it mean when we call to run our own
> servers? If they are located somewhere in the 'cloud' then what's the
> difference anyway in comparison to Facebook or Google?
>
> The alternatives we suggest cannot be empty gestures if we propose to
> use 'virtual' servers that are under the same corporate control anyway.

Yes, Amazon volunteered to cut off Wikileaks, which demonstrates that 
the degree of freedom that EC2 instances give you are very limited -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/11/wikileaks-amazon-denial-democracy-lieberman

Eben Moglen gave a very good talk about the issues of privacy and 
control that I think are at the heart of the question you raise, 
recommending that people run servers on computing machinery that they 
physically control -

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2010/feb/10/highlights-eben-moglens-freedom-cloud-talk/

It's possible to implement Moglen's ideas with current technology: 
here's a "wall wart" plug server in the corner of my living room running 
GNU social on Debian -

http://foocorp.org/projects/fooplug/

And here's a project to create a distro specifically for such devices -

http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox

- Rob.


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