Hey, howdy, hallo,
First off, welcome to all the new subscribers. I posted a status update on Mastodon and received quite a few new signups, so thanks for being here.
I’ll be at DEF CON in Las Vegas next week. Let me know if you’ll be there and would like to meet up.
I’ve written about this topic before, but I wanted to mention it again. Notes.
I was reminded of this because someone emailed me yesterday asking what note-taking app I use with GrapheneOS. Funny enough, my offline subscription for Standard Notes came due the day before.
I just checked my Standard Notes app, and I have 298 notes. I keep everything in there, from guides, video notes, and tech notes to grocery lists, ideas, ramblings, and a whole heap of other stuff. I think people mostly understand the importance of keeping their communication secure and private. However, I don’t think enough people consider their notes. How much private information is kept in yours? Where do you store them? Is that data encrypted? Is it secure? These are important questions that need to be asked.
As I already mentioned, I use Standard Notes. This isn’t an advertisement; I’m just sharing what works well for me. I’ve been self-hosting the Standard Notes backend on a Raspberry Pi for the past year. Despite a few hiccups, it’s been solid overall, and I highly recommend it. It offers end-to-end encryption and has extensive editors that work well for most types of content. You can even store files in it.
They recently launched Standard Notes Home Server which makes it even easier to deploy Standard Notes server on your home network.
Over the past few years, self-hosting has become more accessible than ever. While I still don’t think it’s for everyone, I think it’s possible for a larger number of people now than ever before. So this is your reminder to think about how you currently store your private information and documents. If it’s currently stored in a way that you don’t feel comfortable with, and you’ve been looking for the motivation to change, I hope this email can be that.
I’m running short on time finishing up some last-minute changes to the service I’ve been building (which I’ll be announcing here next week), so this email is a bit less detailed than usual.
I also published an archive of a few of my previous newsletters if you’re new here and want to check those out.
Hopefully, your summer isn’t too hot, and I’ll see you in August.
-Josh
This site shows the vast scale of shipping container ships in the world (2012).
“Knowledge is one of the few things you can give away but it doesn’t lessen your standing, it only makes you a bigger person.”
I intentionally don’t include any tracking or analytics in my emails, which makes it tough to tell if anyone actually reads them. If you enjoyed this email, feel free to reply with a 🦩 and if you didn’t 💩.