Arguments against cloud services, part three
I started a small series of articles where I try to reason about quitting “the cloud”. And when we talk about the cloud we mean the services that several companies provide, usually at no cost, but that do require you to create an account with the service provider. In order to quit these services, you need a personal alternative. The alternative to having services and files all over the Internet is to have them stored locally in your home network. And as there are many online services these days, I split my argument in several articles: here I explain how to store your photos, music and videos and here I wrote about email, contacts and calendars.
So what’s left? By now you should have some general idea about a simple and ready to use alternative to cloud services: the Network Attached Storage (NAS) that you can buy and install in your home network. There is another, much cheaper way I will explain in a future article. But usually a NAS is very easy to setup and it covers excellent, ready made alternatives to all Google or Microsoft online services. They even provide office productivity apps for writing documents and create spreadsheets. It’s all covered, just take a look.
In this article I wanted to cover even more online services that you can move to your personal network. Let’s see what they are, shall we?
Code
When you think about your photos and documents, there’s an easy argument for storing these files in your perosonal home network: they are private. And I don’t mean private as in suspicious, as in “I have something to hide”. No, I mean private as in you wouldn’t show some of those photos to your best friend because it wouldn’t be their concern. Grocery lists scribbled on a paper which you photographed to take with you, bills, random notes, photos of your family where everybody behaves like in the confort of their private environment. Of course private means secret and it should. And the reality is a family holds many secrets from people outside of it. There are moments that you will always remember as being just yours and your partner’s alone. Same with documents. Same with calendars and contacts.
What about code then? This subject is a bit more specific. When I say code, I mean stuff that software developers write and usually store on Github or Gitlab or Bitbucket. It’s even a sort of professional etiquette to have code published somewhere. Some people don’t even think about having personal repositories for code, they just create an online account somewhere, link it to their Linkedin and Facebook profile and start writing. It’s considered hip. You are part of the good crowd. You don’t deny others the right to your code. It’s open source. No matter what you write, even if it’s your password list, it’s becoming custom to just store everything in Github. What’s the problem? It’s encrypted. I just git commit and git push and I’m done.
Of course. Git is a good versioning system. But git is not Github or Bitbucket. I myself was shocked when I made my own home repository for stuff I didn’t want to put online. I am already imagining the loud gasps of many readers. But just as I have public code that I want to share, I also have private code that I need to be just mine.
One more argument, which many will find silly, too political, irrelevant to first world countries or simply boring: because times inevitably change, just like with music where this month I have an artist present in my streaming list and the next month they decide to quit streaming, or their publisher switches to a different streaming service, all cloud services face the same issue. This week Github is available in your country, next week something might happen and Microsoft decides they don’t want to do business anymore with you. You might laugh at this, but it did happen before. When I read those articles back in 2021 immediately it hit me. Something I suspected and could hint at, but could never explain, now was made clear and simple: cloud services are transient.
The statement is maliciously exaggerated of course. Github recovered to full functionality in those countries eventually and all is well now. But if you think about it, it’s just like with music. There are global contracts made with powers and shareholders outside of your control. And yes they sometimes get political and sometimes they have to follow rules they cannot control. Before the GDPR law all US news outlets were allowing EU countries to access their web sites. After? Some of them just got sick of adding support for the law because the changes it required made no financial sense to them and long story short if you were in EU two years back and wanted to access Times, you would have been greeted with a full page blocking notification saying you cannot visit the page due to EU regulation. It changed since then, but there are many others that didn’t. There are worldwide reaching acts, contracts, exclusivity deals, laws and money turning decisions that you are not a part of. You are just the inflicted party. And online code repositories are a part of this too.
So, how do you create your own local repository? Easy. I explain this in more detail here, but you start by creating a folder on your NAS called Projects for example. In that folder you create a new folder called my-calendar-test.git for example (let’s say you want to build a calendar app). Then you open your terminal, go to my-calendar-test.git folder and run
#git init --bareThat’s it. You have a local repository. Local as in accessible only to your home network. As long as your NAS and home network is alive, no matter the law, policy, rules and regulations, this git repository will be accessible to you. Now you go to your coding laptop, create a folder there called Projects with a MyCalendarTest subfolder. Run this to initialize the folder as a git folder:
#git initWrite some code and when doing your first commit, establish the link to your local network Git repository:
#git commit -am "Initial commit. "
#git remote add origin /nas/location/Projects/my-calendar-test.git
#git push --set-upstream origin masterThis basically links your local git folder to push code to the NAS git repository. After you establish this link, everything else you do with git, you do as you did with any other project. This is just a one time configuration. You can go to your NAS my-calendar-test.git folder to see what’s in it if you are curios. I know I was surprised the first time I saw how a repository looks.
Passwords
Another very specific subject. Some of you already use a password manager for safely storing your passwords. For the ones that don’t, this article is not the scope for explaining why you should do it but I cannot stress this more: use a password manager. You have a lot of online accounts, you should use different passwords for all of them, you cannot do that on your own so let a password manager help you. Your online security will be many times improved.
But of all the password managers, the most convenient ones are again cloud services like LastPass and BitWarden. If you use one of these, you already know what I’m talking about. It’s easy to sync your passwords between devices and your passwords are always there. As long as your Internet connection is viable. And as long as the service is online. Otherwise your passwords should be safe online right? At lease as long as your favorite online password manager is not hacked to pieces.
If you care about your privacy and security online, there is of course an offline solution for your passwords. Actually there are many. KeePass and others will happily store your passwords in a local file, on your home network where they belong. These applications are usually available on your phone as well and as browser extensions if you want more convenience. Just as with your photos and everything else private, your passwords are of no one’s business but yours.
I think that’s it. We covered many subjects in these three articles about online services and I hope you end your lecture with a better understanding of what is a cloud service and what are the reasons you should store your personal and private files in your home network. Even if you are not ready to make the jump, I hope that these articles at least explained the options you have and I hope you are walking away with hope and enthusiasm. Yes we can argue endlessly about the features of the cloud and I am not denying them. I am also not denying using the cloud for other not so personal aspects of your life. But I just want to showcase the small, unsung and unheard hero that your home network already has: the ability to store your files and share them internally. And with the help of a NAS device, to share them with you securely wherever you are, whatever device you use.
As always, for any questions or if you want further details and explanations, we have the trusty comments section. See you in the next article!
