Hiker, software engineer (primarily C++, Java, and Python), Minecraft modder, hunter (of the Hunt Showdown variety), biker, adoptive Akronite, and general doer of assorted things.

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 10th, 2023

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  • s/you/one/ I don’t think it’s really about YOU in particular, just “you” the author or “one that is saying things like this.”

    Another example, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime” isn’t about “you” it’s about the concept of “an individual (that might be the reader).” This phrasing seems to be more agreeable with some people and possibly there’s different tolerances geographically.

    I’ve tried to use “one” in place of “you” to remove this ambiguity but it’s at times uncomfortable to type lol













  • Yes, though it’s increasingly rare because most game developers would rather just integrate with Steam than setup their own account and payment systems … and I can hardly blame them.

    A prime example is Andrew Gower’s new game. The dude started Jagex and RuneScape he surely could make a new account system, billing system, etc for Brighter Shores … he has all the experience necessary at a scale few developers have the experience with. He’s just opting not to and it’s surely because Steam’s offering in terms of game promotion and ease of access is unparalleled.



  • Yes, WireGuard was designed to fix a lot of these issues. It does change the equation quite a bit. I agree with you on that (I kind of hinted at it but didn’t spell that out I suppose).

    That said, WireGuard AFAIK still only works well with static IPs/becomes a PITA once dynamic IPs are in play. I think some of that is mitigated if the device being connected to has a static IP (even if the device being connected from doesn’t). However, that doesn’t cover a lot of self hosting use cases.

    Tailscale/ZeroTier/Nebula etc do transfer some control (Nebula can actually be used with fully internal control and ZeroTier can also be used that way as well though you’re going to have to put more work in with ZeroTier … I don’t know about TailScale’s offering here).

    Though doing things yourself also (in most cases) means transferring some level of control to a cloud/traditional server hosting provider anyways (e.g, AWS, DigitalOcean, NFO, etc).

    Using something like ZeroTier can cutout a cloud provider/VPS entirely in favor of a professionally managed SAS for a lot of folks.

    A lot of this just depends on who you trust – yourself or the team running the service(s) you’re relying on – more and how much time you have to practically devote to maintenance. There’s not a “one size fits all answer” but … I think most people are better off doing SAS to form an internal mesh network and running whatever services they’re interested in running inside of that network. It’s a nice tradeoff.

    You can still setup device firewalls, SSH key-only authorization, fail2ban, and things of that ilk as a precaution in case their networks do get compromised. These are all things you should do if you’re self hosting … but hobbyist/novices will probably stumble through them/get it wrong, which IMO is more okay in the SAS case because you’ve got a professional security team keeping an eye on things.


  • The company Tailscale is a giant target and has a much higher risk in getting compromised than my VPN or even accessible services.

    One must be careful about this mindset. A bunch of smart lightbulbs that are individually operated aren’t a particularly appealing target either. However, in aggregate… If someone can write a script that abuses security flaws in them or their default configuration … even though you’re not part of a big centralized target, you are part of a class that can be targeted automatically at scale.

    Self hosting only yields better security when you are willing to take steps to adequately secure your self hosted services and implement a disaster recovery strategy.