That’s pretty annoying.

I had a similar experience today with two other services. The bot detection systems these sites are using is completely broken.

I’ve had my tuta account for a while so never had that issue with them. But I don’t appreciate the way they handled your issue. I wouldn’t use tuta if I was treated like that.

Buy IP PoE cameras like Amcrest or Reolink, hard wire them to a detected hub that is either disconnected from the internet, or firewalled to only allow direct access over your own personal VPN.

AI is the poetic culmination of where society has been heading for decades.

A photocopy of a photocopy.

AI is literally an acceleration of Jean Baudrillard’s theories on modern culture.

Not that I think that excuses it. If anything it’s more depressing.

Take it one step further and host your repo somewhere other than github. Codeberg, perhaps?

I use Minica and it’s insanely simple to use. Terminal based though.

https://github.com/jsha/minica

There’s no certificate at the VPS level. It forwards everything to and from the self hosted reverse proxy.

Now that you mention it though, there may be a slight complication with pinning the reverse proxy to the domain API for cert renewals. I’ll have to check how I have mine configured but I may have given my reverse proxy a IPv6 and configured that for cert renewals.

That would mean some down time as you update the IP if your ISP rotates it.

This is fine unless you have a slightly higher threat model.

Me personally, I dislike the idea that if someone (VPS provider or LE) were to snoop inside my VPS, they would have all of my unencrypted data where TLS ends and wireguard picks it up.

I don’t do anything illegal, but I do have photos, personal files, and deeply personal journals/notes for which I enjoy the comfort of mind when kept private and secure.

My recommendation is always to have your TLS equipped reverse proxy on your own hardware. Then use a VPS as a SSL passthrough proxy that forwards requests to the locally hosted reverse proxy. You can connect the two via wireguard.

This has a few benefits. It keeps encryption end to end. It also allows you to connect to your server via your domain name even in you LAN. You can hijack your domain at the router level DNS menu to reroute to your local reverse proxy. And it keeps the TLS connection.

I believe this is the original whitepaper: https://ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/Research/double.pdf

And here’s an implemention I found on github: https://github.com/andrewlewis/camera-id

With that repo you should be able to test ways to obfuscate the noise signal.

Most people don’t know your photos can be cross profiled and identified by the unique noise signature of your camera.

I’ve never heard of it being used in practice though. There’s a github repo somewhere if you’re interested in trying it yourself.

Partly true but Amazon has been known to make dupes of a product and sell it at a loss to drive the competitor out of business. I’m sure that threat lingers in some peoples’ minds.

They probably also promise the management team “you’ll still have creative control after we buy you”. Then turn around and replace each of them one by one

This has been such a depressing trend over the last few decades.

Fresh bright-eyed startup with a passionate creator develops some interesting and innovative product.

Gets bought out by FAANG, turns to shit and stops working properly or gets discontinued, and primarily functions as a spyware device.

This is amazing. Thank you!

This is fine if the post is something insanely low effort.

But I do worry if this ends up being too aggressive.

One of the things that made reddit so awful is how over moderated it was.

I don’t really take issue with dozens of posts by newbies asking the same basic question over and over. I used to be one and am occasionally back there again if I start a new hobby. Hopefully newcomers don’t get pushed off by overly sensitive moderation.

It would be helpful if you could provide a hypothetical example of what is considered a “low effort” post.

I’ve tried close to a hundred various devices, both ZigBee and Z-wave, and I’ve never had an issue with a Z-wave device but many with ZigBee.

I still use them here and there (mainly Hue bulbs), but I prefer Z-wave whenever possible.

Another factor is ZigBee devices tend to respond much slower. Z-wave light switches are instant on/off when instructed whereas my ZigBee lights always have a delay between 1-4 seconds.

It’s fairly universal throughout developed countries. Might be called something different than GFCI though.

This is something I’ve been eyeing for the same use case: https://www.getzooz.com/zooz-zen15-power-switch/

Ive had great experiences with Zooz products in general, but haven’t used this one (yet).

It does also control, but I’m sure if it’s anything like their wall switches it has a setting to default to ON.

EDIT: Didn’t see the ZigBee part of your post. Adding a z-wave dongle isn’t too difficult if you’re open to it. ZigBee sucks IMO.

True. Also in newer homes the GFCI might be at the circuit breaker.

Either way, as long as it’s GFCI you shouldn’t have any concerns.

Your bathroom receptacles are protected by a GFCI safety mechanism. You can confirm by noticing if the receptacle has two small buttons usually stamped with “Test” and “Reset”.

If the smart plug had a malfunction due to humidity (unlikely), the GFCI receptacle it’s plugged into would instantly cut power.

You can toss a toaster in your bathtub as long as it’s plugged into a GFCI and 99.99999% chance you would be totally fine. Don’t try this at home.

+1 for Amcrest PoE.

I also use a Reolink Doorbell PoE and it’s better than any Nest or Ring doorbell, without the cloud bullshit attached.

My only issue with the amcrest is that they get bad IR pollution at night and are sometimes unusable. But that’s apparently an issue with most dome cameras at night.

Electrical code and common practice has changed and improved drastically since ungrounded wiring was the norm.

I’ve worked on many houses and each one was a potential disaster waiting to happen.

Just sayin. Be safe.