I was just setting up remote runners for TankieTube when I had an epiphany:

I could ask comrades to volunteer their own computers! quagsire-pog

That way those who can't or don't care to donate monetarily could still contribute.

How would it work?

Conceptually, you can think of it like a crypto mining botnet. Except it transcodes videos for the community instead of producing heat for individual profit. And it's voluntary ofc.

It can run on any operating system with an internet connection. I'm going to use my gaming desktop and at least one VPS.

Tech level required: comfortable copy-and-pasting things into a CLI.

OpSec considerations: negligable as far as I can tell. There is no P2P involved. Your computer talks directly to the TankieTube server using sicko-to-HTTPS communication. The server would see your IP address, but that's always the case on every website.

Thoughts?

Edit: Email TankieTanuki@pm.me if you want to help beta test a machine. I could use help creating a docker image too because I'm not experienced with that (I still prefer to do everything with Bash scripts).

Would Cygwin be the way to go for Windows users?

  • TankieTanuki [he/him]
    ·
    2 days ago

    What is the threat model? The TankieTube server sends a malicious MP4 to the remote runner machine? Or a malicious remote runner sends a malicious MP4 to the server?

    The former is easy to avoid by me not being evil. The latter is only a security concern for the TankieTube server, not the contributors.

    • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 days ago

      Hostile user uploads a malicious video file, peertube instance sends it to a volunteer for transcoding, RCE occurs on volunteer's machine.

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        So the concern is that a volunteer could have a more vulnerable installation of ffmpeg compared to the local server? How does that happen?

        • Tabitha ☢️[she/her]
          ·
          2 days ago

          I think most prospective volunteers just want ffmpeg to run in a secure context without root, and stronger vouching of security by multiple knowledgeable users. The specifics of ffmpeg having vulnerabilities is not that important.

      • TankieTanuki [he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        Yes. Anyone can upload, and videos are published automatically. I review the videos every day that have been published recently. I also rely on user reports.