Post by @JessTheUnstill@infosec.exchange

@JessTheUnstill You are describing my dream career 😞

@uastronomer @JessTheUnstill

Yeah, mine too.

@passenger @JessTheUnstill In fact... this is what our company was always supposed to be.

I do services like that, and make enough money from them to buy myself (just me, not my co-director) lunch once a month. Everything else we earn comes from full-time-job levels of consulting, one gig per director, and... look I love the work, I have been very lucky to land with my bum square in the butter, but... my retirement plan kinda relies on this thing being self-sustaining with enough of the small services.

Ah well, there's still time :)

@JessTheUnstill if anyone in your sphere decides to do this, I'll happily apply to be the multi-hat wearing Staff Security Engineer / Security Director / whatever, for a steal. 😛

@JessTheUnstill Yes, more of this, please!

Also, I'm just now dropping out of web development to become a bartender, but if someone _does_ start a thing like this, and wants a front-end web dev who cares about accessibility and user experience (and can code vanilla JS)... hey, get in touch! I'd love to make web sites/apps with _craft and care_ again, instead of these awful, React monstrosities.

@JessTheUnstill This was my dream on exiting Big Tech. Still somewhat tempting.

If it weren't for the fact that I don't know the first damn thing about starting or running a corp, and it'd liquidate my retirement funds to even start buying infrastructure and hiring people...

Also, I'm American, so the fash could just walk up to the door, stick a subpoena in my face, and demand I hand over customer data or go to jail forever.

@JessTheUnstill with bonus "can't tell anyone" national security letter

@arrjay @JessTheUnstill
That's what Warrant Canaries are for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

@RealGene @arrjay Sure, but once you trigger your warrant canary, anyone privacy sensitive considers you compromised and abandons your service.

@JessTheUnstill @RealGene @arrjay Hey that's my sign! I would be happy to do email support and small web tweaks and copy editing for this hypothetical enterprise.

@jessamyn @JessTheUnstill @RealGene @arrjay I'll be happy to help with database/OS work on said theoretical enterprise :D

@JessTheUnstill @RealGene @arrjay

Perfectly describes AI, once they raise the AI flag, the canary is dead, run!

@RealGene @arrjay @JessTheUnstill Is it even clear yet that warrant canaries are legally functional, and not just an extra line-item on warrants?

@patrick @arrjay @JessTheUnstill

A canary doesn't have to be "legally" anything.

It's a warning that doesn't violate the letter of the double-secret probation.

@RealGene @arrjay @JessTheUnstill I haven't seen a National Security Letter, so I don't know if it merely says not to tell about it, or not to communicate about it.

@patrick @arrjay @JessTheUnstill

Did you read the linked wiki article?

@patrick @RealGene @arrjay Besides, a small service provider co-op that doesn't seek profit won't be able to afford enough lawyers to take on the secret courts.

@JessTheUnstill @patrick @arrjay

…in which case, it doesn't really matter if you disclose the letter, because either way, you're getting renditioned or sent to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison.

@RealGene doesn't help if the canary dies in the first month

@JessTheUnstill Even still, there are benefits to working with a company that the fash have to ask if they want info, rather than a company that is actively providing that info...

@Epic_Null @JessTheUnstill Not as ideal as a company that *can* deny the fash the info without going to jail, because they're technically in a non-fash country.

@AT1ST @JessTheUnstill Yeah... but you gotta work up to a non-fash country. A good portion of how we got here was a total market control over certain industries by a handful of companies. Breaking out of that would go a long way towards re-establishing ourselves.

@JessTheUnstill Hard to give data you never collected in the first place. Remember that time Signal was ordered to give all their data on a specific user and they gave them everything, which was their name (already known to the state), their phone number (trivial for them to check as well anyway), and the date the account was created, that's it. They complied with the law without violating customer privacy.

If the law changes to require companies to collect user data, that's a different story, and I think that heavily depends on what kind of service we're talking about.

@JessTheUnstill this part is one of the reasons why smol centralized hosts won't take off at large scale, and why we need full p2p instead

@JessTheUnstill which service are you imagining is needed most? cc @cynicalsecurity

@JessTheUnstill @cynicalsecurity I ask because I already run my own consulting Sàrl (LLC) so I know how to run a company.

In Switzerland but that's not a magic bullet.

Pragmatically speaking there are a bunch of email providers already, although I can guess the proximate cause of this.

I run my own email and so does Mr Cynical. I'm not 50+ but I'd like something like this to exist for when I am.

@diagprov I even have DR for mine …

@JessTheUnstill

@JessTheUnstill come to Europe. We do have it all.

@JessTheUnstill yeah pretty much the problem, and also assume that the more someone gives to a project the more control they want in it.

there is a lot to make it something worthwhile and not just a drain. would love to be a part of something like that but in terms of my own abilities, i don't think i would do myself or someone else any favors by running such a place.

@JessTheUnstill no, yeah, if we were in the same city and had the capital we'd start this with you. we've been closely involved with starting things enough times to have gotten the idea.

@ireneista Unfortunately, I think we're on literally opposite sides of the continent 🫠

@JessTheUnstill
Same

Except that I’m taking business management classes at the local college, so in theory, I might be able to do this in the future.

@JessTheUnstill I'm friends w/ some of the riseup folks, and this continues to be at the back of my mind as something I've wanted to do (especially since I'm already hosting random stuff for family). However, watching what the US did to Autistici has made me very much wonder if it's something I'd ever want to wade into.

@JessTheUnstill I'm reminded of Cruzio, who started up in the mid-90s when I was living in Santa Cruz.

https://www.cruzio.com/about/

@stacey_campbell Cool!

@JessTheUnstill

Yes. This is the way; there's plenty of evidence and research that this kind of cooperative model works and can thrive even in a capitalist hellscape.

@StevenSaus Yeah. Even in a world of behemoths, there's always going to be niches of the market where customers are underserved by the mainstream and may even be willing to pay a price premium for a trusted partner who knows their customers well. Live within your means, only grow when you can afford to, don't take on unsustainable debt, and your niche will stay loyal.

@JessTheUnstill @PastaThief This is one of my fantasies. Helping people upgrade things with ancient dependencies, cleaning up slop after the collapse, moving things out of the cloud to on-prem or a local colo.

@JessTheUnstill

Love it. Sign me up.

#genX #retired

@JessTheUnstill one thing I would recommend such a co-op do is ensure that they collaborate with colleges to provide co-operative work terms (the computer industry equivalent of practicums). This helps the students a ton, but most importantly it helps bring fresh ideas and perspectives into the org.

@JessTheUnstill
hear, hear!

"hey Taylor! good to hear your voice! yeah, just need a little tech support, we changed servers and are getting some errors. Kids all right? oh my gosh they grow up so fast! yeah, just call me back when Sandy is back from lunch. bye!"

@JessTheUnstill literally wanna start a company like this but not alone and can't find folks to do it with.

@qkslvrwolf @JessTheUnstill I'm seeing quite a bit of interest in this thread. Think we could bootstrap it fully remote?

@dpflug @JessTheUnstill Jess lemme know if you wanna be removed from replies.

I think the "bare metal" part is probably real hard fully remote unless the first thing you work on is like...roll your own ISP or someone lives somewhere with very cheap real estate and business internet.

Other than that, yes, I think remote is totally possible.

@qkslvrwolf @dpflug I wasn't thinking bare metal like start my own data center, more like just renting out space in colos. Start with 2-3 servers in 2 data centers and grow from there.

@JessTheUnstill @dpflug I mean, i've daydreamed about using surplus boxes from pcliquidators or whatever to provide some services, but that requires access to a data center or creating a closet in a something cheap near me.

@JessTheUnstill this sounds great! i saw @jonah was mentioning a similar kind of thing

@JessTheUnstill This is pretty much my plan when I inevitably get fired

@JessTheUnstill my email hoster is like that - a side gig for a couple of guys who have other jobs in tech.

I’ve been with them since around 2010. During that time, they may have added a few features, or not - I wouldn’t know. There’s a wiki for documentation. Support is by email to the support address, where one of the two will respond in due course.

It’s definitely in my top 5 for customer experience. I think about them the way I think about my electricity company, which is not very much

@JessTheUnstill I'd like to build some small energy efficient hosting in Ukraine, that works on solar and maybe some other green energy sources.

But we'll have to do that after the war.

For now, I'd like to tell people about libro.fm - employee owned corporation that sells audiobooks, and shares part of the profit with local bookshops (you can select which ones). I really like them.

@JessTheUnstill 100% this. Tech companies run like small, independent bookshops. The owner makes just enough profit to not have to get a regular job, and has no aspirations beyond that because they're not a greedy bastard.

Meanwhile, customers can actually find the books they want because the owner knows and cares about books.

@JessTheUnstill whoever does that and has a need for a UX position, color me interested 😊

@JessTheUnstill look to lobby local governments. The idea isn't there yet, but they are the institution's small enough to be understood, with a potential interest in running in-house IT operations and services, and a stable tax base that makes small/non profit initiatives aligned with community benefit viable.

@JessTheUnstill @brainwane As a tech veteran closing in on 50 who’s feeling increasingly vulnerable in the industry, this seems like something I could be into.

@JessTheUnstill Fuck. Yes.

@JessTheUnstill Honestly, as a fifty-five year old former tech person, I can’t imagine going back into that hellscape.

@JessTheUnstill Something like what @nextcloud did.

https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud/

@JessTheUnstill I also want this to exist, but have minimal financials to make it happen. I’m unsure what services others would be most likely to financially support.

There has to be a technical design that allows compliance while also only having minimal data that can be provided. I feel @signal has taken an approach that might be usable for such an organization.

@JessTheUnstill This reminds me of my latest musing on FileZilla.
I've been using it as an FTP client for almost 20 years now. And in all that time, it has pretty looked and worked the exact same way. There is always typically an update to install when I open it, but it is usually just a couple of seconds and everything still works after.

@JessTheUnstill we'd actually want this job out of conviction and not just to make due or because we'd be left behind.

there's a whole bunch of us and not just over 50 who'd love that sort of job.

@JessTheUnstill shut up and take my CV!

@JessTheUnstill I'd be happy to work there (PHP webdev for the last 27 years).

@JessTheUnstill
Sounds a little bit like @hostsharing co-op. It's in Germany and has GDPR rules, although there's still the risk of a "richterlicher Beschluss" which might be similar to a subpoena.

@JessTheUnstill seriously -- i see so many job-seeking posts these days and it just makes me weep. "does anyone need a [tech person] with X years of experience in [languages, environments, devops] somewhere that doesn't involve AI?" etc etc and i'm like oh i'm so sorry, good luck.

i hope your idea gets off the ground, there are so many people out there hungry for exactly what you're describing.

@JessTheUnstill that's why I love afraid.org 💕

@JessTheUnstill 👋

Two people (50% ownership each), services hosted on bare metal (not ours so far, though). And yes, feature development takes time, but a regex engine beating Hyperscan doesn't write itself over night (or with LLMs).

@JessTheUnstill i would fucking love to work on a non profit VPS. Hosting stuff for the sake of hosting it.