With all the revelations in the headlines about how exactly our private data is being mined to surveil and manipulate us, I’ve been thinking of more ways to take better control of my information. As they say, the internet is forever, and it’s become clear that once your information is out there all kinds of third parties may have access to it. While there is nothing particularly salacious in my calendar appointments or phone notes app, there is also no guarantee that future uses of this data by future technologies will be so benign. Just look at China’s “social credit” system.
Using the open source NextCloud software, I have deployed a private server that replaces all the common uses of cloud services: calendar, todo lists, files, passwords, bookmarks, contacts, and notes. All synchronized across all my devices on all platforms. Here’s my setup, deployed in Docker.