Some cloud backups offer lifetime deals which can be a good second backup.

As for self hosting. You should buy a domain, use a dynamic DNS service. This doesn’t cost much but is very useful. Get a decent router that isn’t superhackable. Get something like fedora for your servers, the os.tree file system is good because if you break your machine with updates you can just roll back.

Randomize your ports, be careful what you expose behind open ports, be careful what you install on your server, and run stuff in containers. Also block port scanning.

As for learning you are just going to have to research. For servers you need to open ports for whatever you are using, like a webserver, file server, etc. you need to be mindful of security. Keep it updated. You should keep your server separate from your main machines if possible and disable your main machines ability to port scan your server by using a VPN or something on your server.

It’s not all that difficult. Just watch some videos and passively absorb this knowledge.

As for backups, you should invest in one of these lifetime plans from a cloud provider. Maybe create separate accounts that you only use for your server stuff to help keep the details from getting leaked. (Email accounts, passwords, etc) On top of this you should have a second backup which I recommend hosting yourself so you can learn. This way your data should be safe.

In your backup server, you should run mirror raid, this way if you lose a drive, you won’t lose your data. Parity raid is t quite as good because you could lose a second drive while rebuilding. It’s cheaper for the amount of space, but you can just invest in a couple of high density, enterprise level drives from a reputable brand. Run mirror raid, and backup your files. Throw in a small SSD for the OS, and a medium SSD for cache. You can go as cheap or expensive as you want.

Get some remote management software. Since you aren’t super technical, use a remote desktop system. Just make sure it’s a good one that is well maintained because this is a big single point of failure in your security.

If you install a web browser on your server, disable scripts and ads, and only use it to download stuff you need from GitHub or something. Try to avoid exposure to sites which may have vulnerabilities.

As for the server. Using VMs and containers, you can use it relatively safely for many things. You could even use cloudfare if you wanted for additional security so your servers actual IP is not ever in the wild. People will only see an IP for that particular port and server VM. This is a bit overkill maybe.

You can run a backup server, web servers, game servers, you can host your own DNS, you can run media servers, and even your own private VPN or local AI models. There is tons of stuff you can do with a server.

Also don’t forget to set a reminder to reregister your domain name!

The simplest setup would be an old computer with a bunch of hard drives attached, maybe an old desktop, maybe a laptop with a powered USB hub. This is all you really need to get started.

Nice I ordered a pinephone but I may get that some day.

Many of these don’t work in the U.S and the best option they really have in the U.S is to get something like a pixel and put Linux on it, but I ordered a pinephone and a bigger battery. I should have it in a month. I’m going to try my hardest to use it as my daily so I can break out of the android/iPhone monopoly. The enshitification of operating systems has become ridiculous. They make it as hard as possible to do these things in the U.S. (zero regulation from the government) zero antitrust or pro consumer laws. Zero thought from the government to actually protect citizens right to use the airwaves and infrastructure that is probably majority funded by tax payers, especially after you account for inflation and fake stock market growth. The U.S is in a terrible state when it comes to tech, and I see why China is starting to surge ahead of us. Also the nickel and diming U.S companies do and get away with, while not even offering decent options for anything no matter how much you pay. Not even counting the mass surveillance and propaganda via algorithms and bots they do, is destroying American society. There is so much false advertising and corporate finance and bribery of elections. I think the U.S might be even more corrupt the Russia at this point. We can barely make anything anymore. My dream is the flee the U.S someday and come to one of the free countries in Europe where a person can own devices without corporate lawyers and pedos gatekeeping everything.

Get Linux phone. There are some decent ones coming out.

Cool, I have some ideas as well, like maybe write a script that hashes configuration files that needs a secret password to put into edit mode, if the config changes without being out into edit mode first, disconnect the server. Maybe use a raspberry pi that’s hidden from the network to do this. I know that wouldn’t work for large websites maybe because they can’t afford to go down for hours at a time, but it would give you an additional layer of security for sensitive stuff. I’m more into game programming but I know how exploits work and stuff. I’m pretty sure many types of things like this already exist in the market. One idea I had was pretty neat. Basically in your eula you reserve the right to hack back people that try to hack you, and you have an automated system that uses some known exploits to get a ping or maybe install a rootkit on anyone who is trying to mess around in your system. Later you can just get on and deanonymize them. This requires you actually spend time researching your own zero days. People in defcon hacking competitions do this. They are sort of masters with decompilers and hex editors.

It helps, honestly one of the best defensive strategies is defence in depth.

Also doing basic things like running your webserver in a VM, and you can write some script or something to just block any IP that is port scanning I’m pretty sure. I would do that if I was hosting. Also remember to block port scanning in Firefox. It’s not enabled by default. This helps to keep you safe when you land on a scanning webpage.

This is why I use emby.

Thxs I’m glad someone appreciates it. I feel like I’m insane sometimes in this world, because most people don’t really seem to care about any of the things I care about.

I would never want a verified bootloader on my device. I’d much rather have an open user friendly bootloader. All you need is for sd cards to not be the default option and not allowing the boot to be written to except in the bios. Verified bootloaders mostly exist to keep people out of their own devices and to get rid of freedom with software. They do it because at first they wanted to protect their DRM and now because they want to make sure you can only access stuff Google or apple approves of. Everyone knew that’s what they were doing and they denied it and they knew what they were doing anyways. Corporations just do not want people to be able to make their own decisions about stuff. Platforms like YouTube used to be amazing in the early internet days. A treasure trove of knowledge and perspectives and amazing mature content. Now it’s algorithmically controlled brainwashing and corporate gatekeeping of knowledge.

Really the only security you need is to have up-to-date patched web resources, and port blocking if you are t completely unaware of computer security. It’s not bad to have an option for a safer level of access for people who don’t know, but they went way beyond this to keep actual tech literate people out of their devices. Anything beyond those basic security measures are essentially useless anyways because they are going to rely on zero day exploits which people cannot anticipate. In fact most developer tools that arent android studio on a pixel device or something rely heavily on zero days and hardware bugs to get root access. What did Google do? They tried to redesign Linux to be a rootless and immutable file system. I honestly hate all of that and I just want to put Debian on a phone with working cell radios so I can use it as a cell phone. I don’t even care about YouTube anymore it’s essentially useless now. I’m just going to get the cheapest phone I can and leave it in the car with no data plan and build my own portable device running Linux so I can download stuff I want to listen to at work instead of using their trash. That will piss them off anyways if you leave your phone in the truck because the government will get paranoid that you are talking about something they don’t want you to talk about and it will piss off Google because your data will be less valuable to them. If many people start doing this, leaving their phones in their vehicles at work, or in the house instead of carrying them, because they have become almost entirely useless unless you want to consume tictok brain rot, they might actually realize that they went to far. Since I know people can’t be bothered to protest, I realize that they only thing I can do is just try to create my own solutions. I bought some raspberry pis a few years ago for this very reason just in case the UnS went full fascist. I keep old cell phones around that I know have exploits so I can install what I want on them and not get stuck in the big tech cartel of mind control and surveillance.

What kind of ideology is not wanting corporations to control your access information and stuff you buy? That doesn’t make any sense. That’s not an ideology that’s just something everyone wants.

Also there is nothing unsafe about the network idea if you use encryption like every other computer for the past 30 years.

I have considered getting a pixel phone. I had one but the screen broke in my pocket I think which annoyed me. I have a Motorola phone with an unlockable bootloader but the chip set is dumb so it makes getting the one ROM available for it, difficult to put on there, and also you have to do a lot of stuff to get the ROM to have most of its basic features working.

You are using the word ideology incorrectly. An ideology is an overarching vague and large idea that encompasses political systems. It’s things like fascism or capitalism or socialism. I don’t see how any of that has anything to do with things like human rights and freedom which is universally desired by all people. Even fascists want privacy they are just too dumb to realize a total state isn’t going to give it to them.

Hard if you don’t have a snapdragon device. Mediatek processors have all kinds of stupid bullshit that makes it really hard to flash a file without their key. We really need to start sharing key generators for things again, especially for the bootloaders for our computers we buy.

Literally a government backed monopoly funded with trillions of take payer dollars at this point. When I run for president one day, besides things like completely banning 100% private political campaigns and proganda, one of the first things im going to do is force the FCC to create a wide pocket of bandwidth for a open source and private mesh networks with a range of around 20-50 miles between devices with fallback modes of hundreds of miles, and maybe another fall back mode for thousands if antenna size allows for this inside cell phones. That way we can control our own cell phones and have a citizen licensed cell network.

No you can’t use graphene is because almost no device supports it anymore. Very few devices have an unlocked bootloader, and commands don’t work on devices that don’t have a snapdragon chip set.

Also using airplane mode completly defeats the purpose of having a cell phone.

I have been trying to find a single open device to replace my android phone with for over a month now. Every single one of these devices are only sold with support for European cell networks. The radios inside American cells phones are controlled by parents and property standards so that you literally cannot buy a device that can access the network without one of their radios(which is a fully programmable tracking device almost hidden to the OS BTW) you cannot reproduce or even modify the radios due to this horrible law in the U.S called DMCA, which means if a device has any drm software on it at all, which is basically everything nowadays you can get sued by the company that made it by making any modifications to the device that they don’t approve of.

It’s not disinfo, I know the facts and I don’t deal in lies and disinfo. I research everything I say extensively and verify it myself.

In the U.S you can’t buy any of these devices because the cell networks are privately owned and one of the unofficial conditions of you getting access is that you have to have government surveillance and soon censorship on your device, as well as locked bootloaders with signing and stuff. They are currently spending tons of money in Europe to get rid of freedom of thought over there as well. You guys might have 10 more years.

They are going to get rid of those too, at least ones without gps and stuff. The age of cell phones is just over until we can get back control of our state from the superpacs and internationalist psychos who want to control everyone.

It’s nearly impossible to even flash a rom these days, they made sure to cover that first. They want to make sure you are only allowed to watch or read what they approve of. That’s what it’s all about. Next time they get a democratic in, they won’t even give trans people their rights back, they are just going to go after gun rights hard. Mark my words.