For all of us who hate Google spying on us.....

[Dan Dubeau]

Everything is there to do so, except the laws. I have no doubt "they" (somebody is, no idea who?) are collecting that data already. I will guarantee it's coming to school zones first (think of the children.....). Construction zones 2nd (think of the workers...). Then the gates will be wide open for enforcement everywhere. You can say, well I'm going to hold onto my old dumb vehicle because it won't tattle on me. Well, it'll be outlawed too due to age and emissions (think of the environment/climate change.....). All for the greater good, all swallowed whole.

I'm heading back out to the shop to do some welding (plates on my dozer....lol)

 

[YotaBota]

I get a monthly "Status Report" about my car. How far I've driven, how many times the car has been started, how much energy it's used, how much energy has been regenerated an so on. I imagine the company is also collecting gps info as well that they don't tell me about. How fast I'm driving and what speed zone I'm in is probably there as well.

I think a lot, if not all, of this data collection started innocently(?) with rewards programs for companies to keep better track of what sells and what doesn't. You know, the stuff the warehouse people and buyers are supposed to monitor for the companies benefit and it morphed from there into what it is today. Now it just tracks what I buy, how much I buy, where I buy and "they" sell that info for what ever purpose makes somebody more money. I avoid most of the rewards programs because I hate having my every purchase go into a database somewhere in the world.

Do I have anything to hide? no but that's not the point, being tracked and social media are big steps in identity theft and collecting info on you for the scammers. I don't want to be watching tv and have the sheriff show up with an eviction notice because my house has been sold, I'm not me anymore and now I have to prove otherwise.

 

[slow-poke]

I forget the name of the google tracker that let's you look back at where you have been the last 10 years or so. The first time I looked I was not even aware google was tracking my movement. I would think wait a minute I never went to such and such, but then you think about the time frame and then look at a street view of where you were tracked and sure enough you did go there and just forgot about it. Kinda scary.

 

[Susquatch]

I forget the name of the google tracker that let's you look back at where you have been the last 10 years or so.

Location History.

 

[Dabbler]

FYI I use Firefox 102.0.1, which I have configured so it cannot call home for updates or originate any connections that are not click based. It has the following security software running: Canvas Defender, Ghostery, NoScript, Restricted Remove, TamperMonkey, Ublock Origin.

Before anyone thinks that there is duplicate functionality, it turns out that leakage on one add-in seems to be caught by some of the others. For instance If Ghostery lets some ads through, Ublock Origin stops them. This happens quite regularly. The most important one is NoScript. Every web site has a unique configuration of what external scripts are allowed.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

FYI I use Firefox 102.0.1, which I have configured so it cannot call home for updates or originate any connections that are not click based. It has the following security software running: Canvas Defender, Ghostery, NoScript, Restricted Remove, TamperMonkey, Ublock Origin.

Before anyone thinks that there is duplicate functionality, it turns out that leakage on one add-in seems to be caught by some of the others. For instance If Ghostery lets some ads through, Ublock Origin stops them. This happens quite regularly. The most important one is NoScript. Every web site has a unique configuration of what external scripts are allowed.

I'll have to check out tampermonkey just because of the name alone. That and noscript. I also use an entire bitedefender security suite and vpn.

 

[JustaDB]

Other devices that can listen include:...

And among that extensive list we have precisely...none. Save, perhaps, for a 2007 GMC pickup where the tunes are usually cranked where nobody could hear what was being said anyways. And if they could, all they'd hear is me swearing at the gov't.

I'm not saying we have none of those items/appliances in our house, we just don't have any smart versions of them. And I will avoid them at all costs. Lots of good, old used gear out there.

All of these smart devices, do they not have an IP address that can be blocked at the router?

 

[TorontoBuilder]

And among that extensive list we have precisely...none. Save, perhaps, for a 2007 GMC pickup where the tunes are usually cranked where nobody could hear what was being said anyways. And if they could, all they'd hear is me swearing at the gov't.

I'm not saying we have none of those items/appliances in our house, we just don't have any smart versions of them. And I will avoid them at all costs. Lots of good, old used gear out there.

All of these smart devices, do they not have an IP address that can be blocked at the router?

The software demands communication or it ceases to function. For instance every time I turn on my TV it updates and wont do anything else until update is completed. I think the update is BS but rather it is doing data dump of its spying activities

 

[Dabbler]

Neither of our TVs have ever been network connected. If I decide to cast a movie to either, it will be on an isolated VPN used only for that purpose.

 

[Susquatch]

All of these smart devices, do they not have an IP address that can be blocked at the router?

Well, not really. One of the purposes of a router is to assign an IP Address to all devices on the network. So quite obviously,, it has to know the IP address cuz it assigned it. There is no point in trying to block it.

Also, most routers will allow you to reserve an IP address for a device but that isn't the norm. The norm is to assign addresses dynamically. Which means they can change from time to time.

Less well known is the fact that all network devices also have a MAC address. This is a unique hardware address. It never changes and is not assigned by the router. This is the best way to block a network device if desired.

 

[architect]

I'm not as dedicated to keeping big data away as some of you but the one thing I've enjoy is setting up a home file server using TrueNAS (formerly FreeNAS) instead of relying too much on any cloud storage. My phone will automatically send off photos (or any files) to the file server where it's accessible to my many home computers/laptops. Google still bugs me about backing my photos up onto their service periodically that I can't disable...

Highly recommend TrueNAS for anyone who has an old computer lying around (mine is 14 years old) and wants to try to do their own cloud storage.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

I'm not as dedicated to keeping big data away as some of you but the one thing I've enjoy is setting up a home file server using TrueNAS (formerly FreeNAS) instead of relying too much on any cloud storage. My phone will automatically send off photos (or any files) to the file server where it's accessible to my many home computers/laptops. Google still bugs me about backing my photos up onto their service periodically that I can't disable...

Highly recommend TrueNAS for anyone who has an old computer lying around (mine is 14 years old) and wants to try to do their own cloud storage.

I have a dell server with dual raid arrays I keep meaning to set up fresh as a home network to store my masses of media.. one day...

But the hoarder in me knows that the only copy of my old proprietary software resides on that computer and it would have to be wiped to change the set up

 

[Susquatch]

Highly recommend TrueNAS for anyone who has an old computer lying around (mine is 14 years old) and wants to try to do their own cloud storage.

Many years ago I encountered the Fatal RAID error nobody ever tells you about.

We all think RAID in all its many different kinds gives us way better than average file backup or even regular file storage redundancy. And it does for about 90% of the failures that happen. However, it's all useless when the RAID controller fails. The software on most of those controllers is proprietary. That means you can't just pull a drive and rebuild its contents using disk recovery programs. It means the data is gone - RAID or no RAID, it is all gone.

Today, my backup servers are all done with Windows Formatting and Windows Drivers. If a disk fails, I can pull a drive and replace it, copy the files to the new drive and I'm done. I only have trouble if both drives fail. But even then, because the Disks are formatted in Windows, I can use disk recovery software to recover the contents of both drives, compare them and keep the most valid data.

All this is to say that I think that a software RAID (or any other NAS backup system) running on an old Computer is a much more reliable backup file system than most of the NAS Systems you can buy that are ready to go. They all work great until they don't!

 

[Dabbler]

I was using Adaptec Profesional line in my Raid5 configuration, with 5.8 TB net -in the days when a 2TB server drive was north of 1K$. (Win 2k Server edition)

The card failed in such a way that 3TB was unreadable. After dozens of reboots, and using cold spray I managed to get the card to recognize the 2 (or 3) drkves necessary to read the data. after 3 days of nail biting, and copying to 500GB portable drives, I got about 70-80% of the 3TB.

That was the last time I used any raid. I now do full mirror on a scheduled basis to back up my 22 TB of data.

If I go TrueNAS for my next big server, I'd do it non-raid, with rsync backup to another machine on a dedicated 1gb link. (unless there is a better way to copy the files intact without compression)

 

[Susquatch]

I'd do it non-raid, with rsync backup to another machine on a dedicated 1gb link.

This is how I do it now too but without the dedicated link. Everything is done over my regular "wired" network. I do both real-time backups and rotated phased backups (daily, weekly monthly etc). But I don't have 22TB of data! Wow!

 

[architect]

I don't run RAID but I forgot to mention that the key to my workflow is Syncthing. It syncs files across all my devices, using the dedicated server as central node everything else connects to. Whatever file I work on, from any device, will be pushed live to all computers. It's not "true backup" in the sense because mistakes will be synced, but this method works well for me. TrueNAS does a nightly backup of incremental changes so if there was ever a mistake with Syncthing than I can always go back to the previous day.

 

[TorontoBuilder]

I was using Adaptec Profesional line in my Raid5 configuration, with 5.8 TB net -in the days when a 2TB server drive was north of 1K$. (Win 2k Server edition)

The card failed in such a way that 3TB was unreadable. After dozens of reboots, and using cold spray I managed to get the card to recognize the 2 (or 3) drkves necessary to read the data. after 3 days of nail biting, and copying to 500GB portable drives, I got about 70-80% of the 3TB.

That was the last time I used any raid. I now do full mirror on a scheduled basis to back up my 22 TB of data.

If I go TrueNAS for my next big server, I'd do it non-raid, with rsync backup to another machine on a dedicated 1gb link. (unless there is a better way to copy the files intact without compression)

so sounds like I know who to ask for help if I go the server route rather than my portable hard drives

 

[architect]

I have a dell server with dual raid arrays I keep meaning to set up fresh as a home network to store my masses of media.. one day...

But the hoarder in me knows that the only copy of my old proprietary software resides on that computer and it would have to be wiped to change the set up

Just use a new harddrive!

The good thing about the software raid like TrueNAS is that it's very light-weight and can run off a USB. If your sever dies, just throw the harddrives into another computer along with the USB and it boots up and recognizes everything again. I run TrueNAS off a dedicated small SSD that's like $20.

 

[Susquatch]

I run TrueNAS off a dedicated small SSD that's like $20.

I just read a report that said the average life of an SSD is only 18 months before errors start accumulating. The trouble is that we don't notice the isolated errors until they matter. I just copied some files off of an SSD for my son to give a buddy. He hadn't had any problems with it, but it was full of errors.

It has me rethinking the whole idea of SSDs. Sure, they are fast. But I am quickly realizing that there might be a hefty price to pay that I didn't know about.

 

[gerritv]

Windows with Drivebender doing a background mirror. No wierd file systems, just windows drives. 12 Tb total. Windows server 2012R2 does nightly backup of our 2 desktops, the laptops sync their work with OneDrive so no point backing them up as well. Raid sounds great until you need to recover a failed array.