"there is one place where you can still host your content anonymously. That place is the Super Dimension Fortress or SDF. SDF lets you register an anonymous user over ssh (which is accessible via the Tor network) and takes cash over mail in order to validate the user."
"I challenge you to send me a postcard to my mailing address with the content that says "I see you voidnull" and a self-addressed postage-paid envelope. I will then send you a $10 bill back as a prize."
I think most people who use SDF are aware that it is a public good whose existence depends on its users not drawing too much fire to it. If you want to do evil and/or illegal things, there are better places to host content.
SDF has a free streaming music service called aNONradio with live (including daily openmic) and archived content. A handful of its members produce original content shows available at http://anonradio.net
Celebrating 30 years right now at the Vintage Computer Festival being held at Computer History Museum in Mountain View California. Can't be there? join virtually: ssh vcf@tty.livingcomputers.org and choose option 1.
"Nyx, the world's oldest Internet Service Provider, is a free public-access ISP that free e-mail, (including webmail), web space, web/domain hosting, a full, uncensored Usenet newsfeed, Linux shell accounts and the usual Unix/linux programming and development tools."
I've always been interested in this and other online communities. I guess there's some piece I am missing, though, because while interesting, I am also underwhelmed by it.
Is there anyone who is a member that could tell me what it's like or why you joined?
Note: this is not an aggressive post. I want to know more and would love to be induced to joining this community. I just don't get it.
"Back in the day" these were popular because you might have a modem, but not IP internet access. So places that provided a dial up Unix shell had value. That is, a plain terminal dial up. Dial up to their shell, ftp a copy of some software, then download via zmodem or Kermit.
After slip and ppp became popular some still used these as a home base of sorts. Like you might keep files there so you could get to them from different client machines when traveling. There was also typically a community there that would help with questions, share news, etc, not too unlike HN.
> I guess there's some piece I am missing, though, because while interesting, I am also underwhelmed by it.
I'm a relatively new member of SDF, and I can tell you my experience and rationale.
From the "underwhelming" perspective, SDF and anything like it is what you make of it. If you aren't the sort to see a system like this and question the possibilities, then really nothing other than the relatively sparse (but very colorful) community will hold your interest.
The actual kinetic experience is humorously nostalgic. I need a .kshrc file and a .profile. I need to remember how to work with terminals that still assume in some universe ^H is useful. I need to be careful about structuring and writing data because SDF sometimes has pretty bad I/O issues.
For me, not only is it interesting to see this sort of social media platform (loosely bound by legacy services and shared hardware, not a more manufactured theme park like this website), but it's a challenge. I'd like to host some writing content and I'd like to do that from the ground up in a way that is possible from SDF.
Maybe that's just an exercise in nostalgia (certainly it reminds me of the first blog software I wrote in 2001, a series of perl scripts using the file system as a database, to share stories with my university classmates). Maybe it's a technical challenge worth walking through (we're so used to... you know... unlimited space and hardware dynamically scaled and readily available to first world budgets). Making something work on SDF demands consideration to the system. If it breaks anything you'll be thrown off. That used to be the norm for shared computing when I was a kid (and I was nowhere near the programmer I am now; I got thrown off a few systems for tight loops without backoff), and I'd like to see how capable I am now.
So maybe you'll also like watchbuilding. It's a nice change of pace from tankbuilding. And one of the locals is talking to me about how they're a hobbyist radio operator working on mesh networks via radio and the entire subject is fascinating. So there is that.
I joined because it offered server access similar to what I received at University and I've moved a bit and this allows me to keep my internet presence stable. It's a great set-up and community. These days it is less necessary due to the rise of cloud based VPS providers, but it offers more of a community compared to those. the other thing is commercial operators come and go. SDF has been around for a long time and because it is community driven it is likely to stay. The fact that it has been around longer than any other alternative also attracted me to it.
I signed up in 1999 or 2000 to get shell access and a bit of online space on a system less restrictive than my university. I've been a MetaARPA member for almost all this time and added DBA a few years ago.
I don't really engage with the community, but its members do interesting things that frequently turn up here, which is cool. I'm just happy to pay my dues as patronage for the community and occasionally use my disk quota and services for personal projects.
I'm wondering how these shell providers deal with malicious users. In security the standard response to an untrusted person getting shell access/code execution is to reinstall the entire server due to the risks of kernel privilege-escalation exploits. How do those people manage this risk given they're allowing shell access on purpose? Or are they already pwned and just not know it?
BSD derivative systems have a lot better isolation than mondern Linux systems. In fact, one Docker "port" for FreeBSD is an interface over their jails functionality and it can be difficult to tell uourr even in a jail at first. They all have a much richer history of supporting multi-user machines.
Linux's route to multi-user is a very different history with very different use cases. It's also got a much richer history around single user machines (and the performance, efficiency and support gains you get from focusing there).
I've been on SDF for a number of years and have never had any problems, it's very stable and secure. The only issue has been a bit of spam with the e-mail system, a couple of years back but they tightened the filtering up after a bit and that solved that problem.
I would guess they use BSD jails, but I can't find any info. Alot of web hosting companies allow ssh access on shared hosting servers, it's pretty common.
One of the big features of SDF is the MetaArray. it gives members around 800GB per account of storage both NextCloud and direct shell access https://sdf.org/?tutorials/metaarray
I played with TECO on Unix for a while many years ago as well as a similar character editor (I think it was called SPEED) on the Data General MV8000 Eagle at Texas A&M. Editing with those editors is like solving a puzzle. It was fun, but I always moved back to a screen editor to be more productive. However, I imagine on a slow Teletype, TECO was a good way to go because it is so terse.
http://voidnull.sdf.org/
"there is one place where you can still host your content anonymously. That place is the Super Dimension Fortress or SDF. SDF lets you register an anonymous user over ssh (which is accessible via the Tor network) and takes cash over mail in order to validate the user."
"I challenge you to send me a postcard to my mailing address with the content that says "I see you voidnull" and a self-addressed postage-paid envelope. I will then send you a $10 bill back as a prize."
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SDF – Public Access Unix System | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14134798 (4 months ago)