I want to set up a small, off-the-grid server farm but am having trouble with finding an out of the way area with decent internet connectivity. Any tips for constructing a concealed server farm or just living off-the-grid in general?

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Anonymous Wed Mar 5 15:41:39 2014 No.606898 [Reply] [Original]

I want to set up a small, off-the-grid server farm but am having trouble with finding an out of the way area with decent internet connectivity. Any tips for constructing a concealed server farm or just living off-the-grid in general?

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 15:59:38 2014 No.606919 >>606898 How much bandwidth do you need?

Anonymous Wed Mar 5 16:20:42 2014 No.606939

What you're asking for is sort of contradictory. The internet is about connecting society and you want to do that in the most remote shady way possible yet still have high speeds? Whatever you're planning to do with these servers, you might want to rethink your strategy a bit.

Anonymous Wed Mar 5 16:23:12 2014 No.606942

Make them distributed wifi connections that peer with each other and hook up to open wifi hotspots and repeat it back and forth to each other, or people can join your dark server farm by providing a node to the real internet. Put Tor on them to encourage people. Keep no record of where they are. Just leave them about. Make sure they can build replicas of each other and move to new positions.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 16:23:42 2014 No.606941 look up Yagi antenna

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 18:07:16 2014 No.606988 >>606939 I want to set up a terminal system where I and my compatriots can access suitable computing power anywhere.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 19:34:11 2014 No.607030 File: 158 KB, 1600x1272, FullOnAutism.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>606988 >where I and my compatriots can access suitable computing power anywhere. Did you actually tip your fedora when you typed that?

Anonymous Wed Mar 5 22:27:59 2014 No.607140

>>607030
I guess it does sound pretty autistic. Let me rephrase, some friends and I wanted to travel but not bring any expensive laptops with us. We could by inexpensive smartphones or Chromebooks and connect to a "secure" server. I've been looking into the idea of buying some land to store our personal effects while we are traveling and I hit on the idea of buying some servers off ebay and making a secluded, semi-secure server farm. Hopefully this fuller explanation is a little less fedora-tier.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 22:35:29 2014 No.607143 >>606898 Rofl

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 22:37:00 2014 No.607144 >>606898 >pic >ship for living >horrific use of space Holy hell. lol

Anonymous Wed Mar 5 22:44:00 2014 No.607149

>>607140
Building a data enter is massive endeavor. Going off the grid (there is a lot of irony in a device whose whole purpose is to be connected to a grid, and when not on a grid, does not serve anything) makes the whole thing more complex by a factor of 10.

It sounds like what you're really looking for is a server to host a thin client. I mean, I get that this is a DIY board but your project pretty indirectly serves your goal.

That's said, the fundamentals of a data center revolve around availability and security.

Power: solar and wind feeding a basic battery backup (I once saw a wall of car batteries in 111 8th ave)

Connectivity: not enough for your thin client but pay as you go hotspots on disposable credit cards + tor and proxies are somewhat close.

On site Security you can answer better than us.

Server racks would be bread racks or DIY 2/4 post racks from lumber.

Cooling would be a standard array of household ac units

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 23:44:29 2014 No.607173 >>606898 >concealed server farm or just living off-the-grid in general OP say what?? There are many resources for off-grid.. bing, duckduckgo, google. For the servers, you best have a massive budget. That's my advice.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 23:44:29 2014 No.607174 >>607149 good point about cooling

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 23:52:59 2014 No.607176 >>607174 I forgot to mention that home improvement stores sell T switches and generators. With a little ingenuity you can make the fuel tank larger.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 23:53:29 2014 No.607177 >>607173 rack servers are extremly cheap on ebay. a server that cost thousands new goes for less than 100usd

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 5 23:59:59 2014 No.607178 >>606898 >off-the-grid server farm Um....

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 6 00:25:53 2014 No.607186 >>607030 You've used this image like 4 times today, give it a rest.

Anonymous Thu Mar 6 00:52:23 2014 No.607199

>>607140
leaving all your shit out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors doesnt sound very secure and also super expensive. why not put your shit in storage? it could still get stolen but the storage owners will definitely notice if one of their cages is torn open.

you can simply rent a vps or if you need more power just rent a fucking super computer like every normal person who needs epic computing power.

Anonymous Thu Mar 6 01:05:23 2014 No.607206

>>607199
I would conceal the servers somehow. The most extreme measure I considered was to dig a pond and bury the servers underneath access via airlock. This plan has two advantages in that water cooling becomes highly feasible and I then have an instant kill switch ala flooding. I did consider storage but ruled it out because of power concerns and the fact it would be weird to want internet connectivity in a storage unit. I don't trust a company enough to rent a vps and good servers are cheap enough I don't need to rent time on a supercomputer for "epic computing power."

Anonymous Thu Mar 6 09:01:24 2014 No.607303

>>607206
OK. I do this data solution shit for a living. Your data will be far more secure (and it will be far cheaper) having someone else contracted to look after it for you than a weird server farm thing. Try walking into a cloud data-center and stealing someone's data, it's not going to happen before the value of the data expires.

You will need someone to remain there and maintain the servers. If a powercut happens, if there's a fault with the line or the computers simply crash or break down. Someone needs to be there to press the on button or clean the dirt from the fans. "b-b-but UPS" it's not like the movies where the huge AI computer remains perfectly intact and operational in a base by itself. It's an abstraction, there are a lot of people at work creating the illusion that servers are automatic and simple, when they infact are not.

>or chromebooks

Here's your solution. The chromebooks were made for exactly what you want. Google drive gives you a large secure remote data storage for free. Enable 2 step authentication, you can share all your data between your friends. No hassle. Done.

Anonymous Thu Mar 6 12:02:48 2014 No.607335

>>607303
I don't trust an external entity to look after my data. I recently had a run in with the fbi, dhs, and police and I believe I'm being surveilled hence I want to make my own private data center / server farm to ensure my own privacy and security is maintained.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 6 12:21:48 2014 No.607340 >guys how do i live off the grid while on the grid?!?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 6 13:28:07 2014 No.607358 >>607335 Shit son. And you're talking about all this out in the open eh? Tell me one thing. What's the maximum distance you expect to have between yourself and your data center?

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 6 14:13:07 2014 No.607371 >>607140 >smartphones >Chromebooks >off-the-grid >server farm None of these will work.

Anonymous Thu Mar 6 14:17:37 2014 No.607374

>>607206

If you're that anal about hiding this shit what in the hell makes you think openly talking about your plans on 4chan is a good idea?

In any case just get a hundred Raspberry Pis and hide them in coffee shops and other places with free wifi all over the country.

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 6 15:54:07 2014 No.607408 >>607358 Not for certain but I'd probably be out of the U.S. for a significant amount of time. I'm paranoid and probably being watched right now but I'm already in deep enough shit that I'd rather ask here even though it is semi-public.

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 7 23:37:40 2014 No.608112 bump

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 7 23:47:40 2014 No.608118 >>606898 >off-the-grid server farm Use whatever money you have to tell a doctor about that and your other ideas and hopefully you'll get the help you need.

Anonymous Sat Mar 8 02:48:40 2014 No.608158

>>607408
So you're looking for a radio transmission technology with global reach and sufficient bandwidth to route web traffic. I'm afraid I've got some bad news...

The more distance you want to cover, the lower the frequency required to prevent signal attenuation. The problem is that lower frequencies necessarily entail reduced data transmission rates to the point where anything that could have any hope of reaching thousands of kilometers over the horizon could barely be used for analog voice. If you don't want to take certain data through airports as you travel, the best bet is to encrypt and store it on an obscure server somewhere in China and access it through a VPN when you get to your destination.

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 8 03:04:40 2014 No.608165 >>608158 The idea was to transmit over existing infrastructure not to use some hare-brained, non-existent transmission technology.

Anonymous Sat Mar 8 03:06:40 2014 No.608167

Step 1: Consolidate all your data.
Step 2: Encrypt it and split it into 1GB chunks.
Step 3: Name these chucks in a pattern that you will remember, but impossible for anyone else to. Strip all metadata.
Step 4: 64GB Microsd cards. Lots of them. 512Gb SD cards. Lost of them. 1TB mSata disks. Getting a bit obvious, but depending on what you want transferred this MAY be necessary.
Step 5: Spread the 1GB chunks between the cards randomly.
Step 6: Post them from different post offices to an abandoned house in the country you want to get to.
Step 7: Repeat 4-6, cards will be lost.
Step 8: Fly to new country
And ya done

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 8 11:16:01 2014 No.608278 >>608167 The data will be corrupted in time, even without use. Neither flash nor common optical media are reliable. There's a company making discs out of stone now, and they claim that the data will last forever. You could try that.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 10 13:11:35 2014 No.609371 bump

Anonymous Mon Mar 10 13:58:35 2014 No.609379

>>607335
If you had a run in and are actually being surveyed, then anything you'll make and then leave "concealed" to access remotely WILL get physically tapped into.
I recommend looking into ways to make your farm secured against direct physical tapping (assuming you somehow get the link itself and your mobiles secure first) and a few reliable ways for self destruction (assume the one tapping into your system knows more than half of what's in it and has 10x the skill). Of course, doing that is going to guarantee that you WILL be put under surveillance if you weren't before (*waves to NSA*).
Oh and don't be surprised if one day after falling asleep in a cab you'll wake up with a hood on your head and a guy asking questions.

>>608278
At what, 1 bit/cm2 data density? Only reason we see all these stone relics is because they are MASSIVE and corrosion doesn't immediately destroy their shape. Unlike data.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 10 20:58:50 2014 No.609566 >>606898 Stone?

Anonymous Mon Mar 10 22:48:50 2014 No.609620

You need to consider what you need server HARDWARE wise and how "powerful" said server is. Can it run of 1 or a few raspiberry pis? You need MAXIMUM ENERGY EFFICIENCY! If I were you I would probably do something along the lines of:

1. buy a shipping container -> Seal it the best I can -> Install AC
2. Calculate power needs -> Setup complete solar and battery array -> Install every sensor to detect any possible problems (water, heat, physical intrusion, etc.)
3. Internet could be multiple hotspots banded together, open WiFi signal, or if you're lucky a neighbor who you will pay to leech off of their internet with wifi or fiber.

Don't forget end to end encryption

Anonymous Mon Mar 10 22:55:50 2014 No.609627

>>609620
Good tips my only concession is the shipping container. While they are a good pre-built structure; they are expensive new and the used containers are often covered in anti-pest chemicals and other undesirable substances that are nearly impossible to clean. It's a little to much money in my opinion. further thoughts on the matter?

Anonymous Mon Mar 10 23:19:20 2014 No.609641

>>609627
You said multiple people are going to be using this, so I would say stay getting in the habit NOW of encrypting and using secure connections. It would be like living in an apartment with multiple locks, but your roommates forget to lock the front door. If data security isn't THAT big a deal then you don't have to worry about the encryption, much.

You're right about the shipping containers, however you might get lucky and get a used one that isn't SO bad. PLUS it's easy to ship. Or maybe instead a used RV or trailer instead.

Things you should also consider:
- Consider a hard drive array if the data stored is PRECIOUS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
- Multiple sources of energy are a good idea in case one goes (battery, solar, hydro, wind)
- Onsite security might also be an issue, loud alarms + webcam or security cams aren't TOO expensive and security cams also look intimidating too.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 12 13:56:54 2014 No.610468 bump

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 12 13:56:54 2014 No.610469 bump

Anonymous Wed Mar 12 17:46:19 2014 No.610535

>>607335
It depends what sort of 'data' you're talking about. If you just want to download and upload some simple information, then encrypt all the information and upload it to a bunch of random servers. If the data's encrypted securly, noone can 'look over it'.

Anonymous Wed Mar 12 18:07:19 2014 No.610540

>>607408
Semi-public? You do realise that Mootles has stated many, many times in the past that he hands over information about his boards to LEO without a fight? All they have to do is ask politely, and it's theirs.

And at your problem: Rasberry Pi's, fuck about with them so it'll be passworded up, drop them in starbucks/mcdonalds etc across the country(s) that you travel through. Safest way of dealing with

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 12 18:30:42 2014 No.610550 Off the grid and server farm in the same sentence don't work.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 12 19:24:15 2014 No.610571 >>610550 Off the power grid

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 13 22:58:04 2014 No.611050 >>606898 bump

>>	Anonymous Fri Mar 14 21:50:50 2014 No.611486 Last bump

>>	Anonymous Sun Mar 16 22:31:03 2014 No.612430 Any thoughts about some kind of automated security system? Lethal or nonlethal? Other defenses? Fences, warning signs, traps etc?

Anonymous Mon Mar 17 07:09:04 2014 No.612630

>I want to set up a small, off-the-grid server farm but am having trouble with finding an out of the way area with decent internet connectivity. Any tips for constructing a concealed server farm or just living off-the-grid in general?

>off-the-grid
>internet connectivity

Man I can't believe how hard it is to find a place where I can be alone here in the middle of this crowded restaurant.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 17 12:56:38 2014 No.612712 >>612630 off the damn power grid internet connectivity is something that for obvious reasons can not be sacrificed.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 17 19:36:10 2014 No.612865 obligatory: So tell us, OP, what did someone-who-isn't-you allegedly do to piss off the law enforcement? And what kind of hypothetical data are we trying to protect? And how do you and your supposed compatriots theoretically spend your weekends?

Anonymous Mon Mar 17 22:51:50 2014 No.612942

>>612865
Supposing you're not an NSA shill...I was accused of being a terrorist and so the FBI interrogated me, the DHS and bomb squad swept my residence and the local police were just a bunch of arrogant pricks. Sidenote: I'm not a terrorist, just a concerned citizen of the world. Data stored is related to projects that my friends/team are working on. Nothing necessarily illegal, just things that need to be kept away from the prying eyes of the intelligence community/The Man/the government/Big Brother.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 17 23:33:17 2014 No.612959 Wait, OP Are you saying you want a small, self-sufficient server farm that you can access internationally using the internet but not actually have connected to the internet? Because that is not a thing.

>>	Anonymous Mon Mar 17 23:41:18 2014 No.612966 >>612959 *&^$^$@!%((R^$^$#&% I understand I have to connect to the internet the off the grid part refers mostly to power and location.

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 18 00:25:17 2014 No.612985 >>612942 Oh my God you are SO fucked. So, so fucked. Holy shit. Goddamn dude, if whatever you're doing is legal, keep it in the open. Otherwise, keep it on pen&paper and locked away somewhere you can set it on fire if anything happens

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 18 01:28:46 2014 No.612996 >>612942 You remind me so much of my friend.

Anonymous Tue Mar 18 02:33:16 2014 No.613011
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>>612942
>was accused of being a terrorist
>nothing "necessarily" illegal being stored
time to make an obscure server and put all the shit on there

oh ho ho i bet they're just waiting for you to do a project like this to ship your ass straight to guantanamo

Anonymous Tue Mar 18 20:27:28 2014 No.613295

There's this one system I heard of where you get this big kite sort of thing and you put it up in the jet stream and then you have an automatic gearing system so that it's pitched to go up for a certain amount of time, pulling a cable attached to a rotor on a generator, and then when it reaches the top the gearing system pitches it down so it goes back down to the bottom before pitching back up to rise and pull the rotor again

So you should do that OP, that sounds neato

>>	Anonymous Tue Mar 18 23:09:58 2014 No.613358 >>612942 ... what kind of projects, anon?

Anonymous Wed Mar 19 00:25:29 2014 No.613395

>>612942
Best solution is to roll over, son. NSA ignores anything that isn't encrypted. If you're actually up to something and were stupid enough to get caught in the first place then anything you do from here on out is suspicious as fuck.

Take this for example. You know you're being followed. Your tail doesn't know that you're on to them. What would tip them off that you know? Anything other than you doing what you've been doing. You run, you get chased. You encrypt super secret projects, you get watched even more closely.

Read what some Snowden docs about how they knew which diplomats to spend the most time watching.
Perhaps being entirely public would show you not only have nothing to hide, but that any move they make on you will be made public.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 19 02:22:39 2014 No.613436 >>612430 Hesco fences and autosentries. hesco.com projectsentrygun.rudolphlabs.com Warning signs would be cool, and if you have the dosh, spring for an electric fence, I guess. For traps? Well, for a non-lethal trap, a pit might work.

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 19 18:09:11 2014 No.613738 >>613436 Those are great links, thanks for contributing!

>>	Anonymous Wed Mar 19 21:00:11 2014 No.613785 >>613738 You're welcome. Have another link. cyberlife.neocities.org

>>	Anonymous Thu Mar 20 02:14:11 2014 No.613884 posting in an epic thread OP is so fucked

>>	Anonymous Sat Mar 22 17:41:37 2014 No.615064 >>613884 I certainly hope I am not fucked. I would like to avoid being fucked by the government/the man/ the Establishment/ the CIA/NSA.

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/diy/ - Do It Yourself