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?

  • neo [he/him]
    ·
    1 month ago

    I think this would best work by writing up a simple Dockerfile for Docker or Podman (one may already exist out there) and at minimum containerizing the work. That level of constraint is likely all that's needed and the end user can also control how much CPU is used, the networking interface to possibly proxy the connection if desired, and what directories are accessible.

    Alternatively, a VM could accomplish the same in terms of safety. Of course a VM requires a pre-allocated block of RAM and a full guest OS installation.