- Dec 30, 2012
- 4,809
In the two years since Edward Snowden's revelations about pervasive government monitoring of the Internet first made the news, developers have worked to build hardware and software to help Web users reap many of the benefits of cloud-based services while retaining personal control of their data.
But while recent studies indicate that plenty of consumers wish their online activities were more private, even the creators of many of these privacy tools acknowledge that all but the simplest of them are still too complex to win over the majority of the Internet-using public.
"Unless you understand everything from the ground up, it's really, really hard to own your data," says Alex Payne, the creator of a free, open-source, private-cloud toolkit called Sovereign. It equips a stock Linux server with open-source alternatives to standard cloud offerings, including email, calendars, a Dropbox-style file hosting, and even anInstapaper-style Web bookmarking tool.
Payne, who was previously a cofounder and the CTO of Simple, the online banking service, says he created Sovereign in 2013 as a cheaper and more private alternative to Google Apps.
Since it's a privacy-oriented project, he says he hasn't looked very deeply at who the users and open-source contributors are. But Payne believes the project—which has a GitHub page heavy with technical acronyms and command-line transcripts—probably isn't used much by the general public.
"I don't think that this is a realistic solution for most people," he says. "It's technical folks who want to use this for themselves, their businesses, their families and [if] they feel like they can kind of confidently administer a server that's set up with Sovereign, I think it's great."
Further reading
But while recent studies indicate that plenty of consumers wish their online activities were more private, even the creators of many of these privacy tools acknowledge that all but the simplest of them are still too complex to win over the majority of the Internet-using public.
"Unless you understand everything from the ground up, it's really, really hard to own your data," says Alex Payne, the creator of a free, open-source, private-cloud toolkit called Sovereign. It equips a stock Linux server with open-source alternatives to standard cloud offerings, including email, calendars, a Dropbox-style file hosting, and even anInstapaper-style Web bookmarking tool.
Payne, who was previously a cofounder and the CTO of Simple, the online banking service, says he created Sovereign in 2013 as a cheaper and more private alternative to Google Apps.
Since it's a privacy-oriented project, he says he hasn't looked very deeply at who the users and open-source contributors are. But Payne believes the project—which has a GitHub page heavy with technical acronyms and command-line transcripts—probably isn't used much by the general public.
"I don't think that this is a realistic solution for most people," he says. "It's technical folks who want to use this for themselves, their businesses, their families and [if] they feel like they can kind of confidently administer a server that's set up with Sovereign, I think it's great."
Further reading
