In a previous post I talked about my desire for a digital homestead, an appliance which you could use to create your own persistant network presence. Ideally it would be a small, inexpensive and robust box that would provide flexible web services, probably ssh, email, and a bunch of other cool and useful things.
Well, one company seems to have gotten the idea: Axentra :: HomeSeries Net-Box. The only problem is that it costs as much as a Mac mini and weighs about 4 times as much. Yes, you are paying for the software, but I’m not sure I really want a closed system for a box like this. I want something that costs as much as an Xbox.
Still, interesting.
Mark, that is pretty interesting. Aside from the cost, (breaks down to about $10 per month for say four years), I would be concerned about the security of such a device. The marketing page doesn’t mention anything other than SSL under security, so it’s almost as if they are hoping that their proprietary OS will deter hackers. If history has shown us anything it’s that someone will be interested enough to reverse engineer the box and find exploitable flaws.
I’ve often thought of building something like this myself and running an open source OS that’s at least being actively patched. But the problem I seem to have is the cost of materials. You might as well go ahead and build an entire computer. That and so far I haven’t been happy with the enclosure selection. At any rate, this type of device is probably targeted toward the novice. Over time I think component prices will come down, and hopefully the average consumer will become more security conscious. What companies like Axentra need to do is build a reputation of being a secure, stable platform.