What does homeSERVER do?

What can't it do! It can store your files, emails, documents, photos, music, videos, passwords, bookmarks, addresses and contacts in a safe secure place in your own home. Everything is encrypted and unreadable unless you have the key. You can search all of your documents, emails, texts, photos, music, passwords, bookmarks, and contacts from the same place. You can stream media, tv, radio, CDs, music, from online or from your own stuff. You can make calls without a phone, record them, use it voicemail, have extensions around your house. You can control your home from your phone, laptop, pc or any smart device. You can access and do all this from anywhere, in your home or outside it.

HomeSERVER is designed to give you all the advantages of the cloud, all the benefits of big company servers, but under your control, keeping you and your data secure, private, and very easy to use.

Show me some examples.

[draw from this, but this copy is on the 'about' page]
Got a screenfull of apps and don’t fancy installing yet another one?
don’t know what those apps can access on your phone or tablet?
don't want to keep your private information on a company's computer?
don't want your private correspondence and documents kept on another company's computer?
want to secure your home and your data, and your documents?
want to have control over your own life?
want to do everything on ANY DEVICE? your mobile, iphone, pc, laptop, smart TV, tablet, or iPad?
ever lost your phone and all your contacts? Ever sent an email or posted on social media asking for numbers?
Ever lost your documents, files, photos when your PC crashed?
want to write, draw, make notes, talk, listen and watch on the same device?
want to have knowhow and data together?
Ever gone overdrawn before payday, and had to pay through the nose?
Ever wanted to know how much electricity you use, or why it's gone up so much?
Ever spent time wading through paperwork, pdfs, your PC's folders, and emails, and your texts trying to work out who said what to who and when?
Would you like to have your letters and emails in one date-order list?
Ever spent hours looking for a document on your PC and the search function doesn't work for you?
Ever thought a household budget was a good idea, but never got round to it, or know where to start?
want to control your home from your phone, not just your boiler?
Do you already pay £108 a year to British Gas to control your heating?
Want to cut out the big boys and stick it to the man?
Are you sick of incompatible this and incompatible that? plugs, formats, connectors?
Have you wanted to send photos to family and friends but had trouble?
want information about your busy life easy to get to and easy to understand?
want everything to feel as though it was at your fingertips?
you use your browser (firefox, chrome, opera, safari, explorer) for such a lot - why not use it for everything?

How does homeSERVER keep data and files secure?

If threats to your data and your desire and need to protect it represent data warfare, then our approach to data warfare is to apply military defense doctrine. We adopt a multi-layered approach. We use UK Naval warfare doctrine to establish these layers.

1. Avoid engagement. The principle strategy is to hide. Your server is not advertised, it cannot be found on a search engine. This is akin to the dark web, being any server not indexed by companies like google. This is the first principle of UK Maritime anti-submarine doctrine.

2. Evade. If detected, run away. Your server is hidden, but there are determined hackers out there, and automated machine-generated searches, which sniff for servers on blocks of IP addresses. If your server is detected by hostile agents, your server will detect the attack and move. It does this by changing its IP address. It becomes hidden once again.

3. Outer defence. If your server faces an attack and it is not detected it will not change its IP address, and could be attacked. If avoid and evade has not worked, a third layer of defence is called up. Your server is protected by login security, no part of the server can be accessed without being logged in. The server works on a secure link protocol called https, the same as used by your bank or utility company. An attacker must used the correct username and password. These are held on the server and encrypted. When you set up your username and password you will only be allowed to use a high quality secure password. Hackers sometimes use a dictionary attack program which makes multiple guesses based on natural language words. This will fail because your password will not be based on natural langauge words. Your server will change its IP (hide) and notify you if such an attack is detected, and the attack will fail.

4. Inner defence. If someone obtains your username and password and gains access to your server, they can only do this from you directly, they will not be able to change the server system, nor do any malicious damage to your databases, or documents except in a limited way. A security chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and that tends to be personal security, in other words your own personal approach to data security.

5. PerSec. Personal data security is vital if your server data is to remain secure and private. DO NOT give your password to a stranger, send it in an email to anyone, write it down in your wallet or purse, leave it on your laptop, phone, tablet, iPhone, iPad or PC at work. Do not identify it as 'password'. Most hacking attacks succeed because of poor PerSec. PerSec extends to how you secure your other devices which you use to connect to your homeServer. If you leave your login details on your phone, and lose your phone your data could be compromised.

Physical security. Your homeServer will be installed in a secure place in your home, out of sight and fire-proof.

Blockchain [can this be used ?]

How to encrpyt data on your device. Link

A note on ransomware. Recently there have been high profile attacks on pc users and large companies. [more].

How does homeSERVER keep data and files private?

Your data, documents, emails, and photos are saved on your own server, in your own house, behind your own locked door.

The search engine your homeServer uses does not track your browsing. You may choose to use other search engines, but they will track you, and your data will be sold to companies. Your emails belong to you. Ask yourself - would I hand over my filing cabinet contents to anyone to keep for me? Do I want strangers to look over my documents, correspondence, photos, health notes, without my consent or my knowledge? No, nor us.

Your ISP records your browsing history, your email provider gives your emails to government agencies of all kinds. In the UK there are [number] of agencies who can access your private correspondence.

My internet connection to my house is down, can I sign in to Brainbox?

If you are outside the house, no. You need an internet connection (broadband) to connect to your BrainBox from outside your home.

If you are inside the house, yes. Your BrainBox has an IP number for the network inside your home. Find your BrainBox's IP number. . In this example it is 192.168.1.3. Make a note of it and type it into your browser address bar like .

Your ISP records your browsing history, your email provider gives your emails to government agencies of all kinds. In the UK there are [number] of agencies who can access your private correspondence.

What's the big idea?

why should I use it?

what's in it for me?

Why is it new?

Who are BLACKsheild?

Meet the team.

What is the big idea behind homeserver?

Use your browser for everything. HomeServer is a device-independent browser-based interface for personal organising, organising home documents, streaming all your media, home security and home automation. written using Apache HTTP server, PHP, MySQL databases, HTML5, Javascript and Python. Our focus is on security, privacy, speed and convenience.

We at homeServer think that your devices should do all the work, handling your home and affairs for you, doing the hard work so you don't have to. homeServer brings all your devices together => tablet, iPad, android phone, iPhone, smartTV, PC, laptop, wearable device, or car.

This is just the beginning. The IoT is a revolutionary technology

Motivations to use it [problem => wished for soln]

Got a screenfull of apps and don’t fancy installing yet another one?
don’t know what those apps can access on your phone or tablet?
don't want to keep your private information on a company's computer?
don't want your private correspondence and documents kept on another company's computer?
BT Cloud storage, so if you've uploaded any files, like photos, you won't be able to access these after 90 days. And you could lose them completely unless you save them to a device during that time.
want to secure your home and your data, and your documents?
want to have control over your own life?
want to do everything on ANY DEVICE? your mobile, iphone, pc, laptop, smart TV, tablet, or iPad?
ever lost your phone and all your contacts? Ever sent an email or posted on social media asking for numbers?
Ever lost your documents, files, photos when your PC crashed?
want to write, draw, make notes, talk, listen and watch on the same device?
want to have knowhow and data together?
Ever gone overdrawn before payday, and had to pay through the nose?
Ever wanted to know how much electricity you use, or why it's gone up so much?
Ever spent time wading through paperwork, pdfs, your PC's folders, and emails, and your texts trying to work out who said what to who and when?
Would you like to have your letters and emails in one date-order list?
Ever spent hours looking for a document on your PC and the search function doesn't work for you?
Ever thought a household budget was a good idea, but never got round to it, or know where to start?
want to control your home from your phone, not just your boiler?
Do you already pay £108 a year to British Gas to control your heating?
Want to cut out the big boys and stick it to the man?
Are you sick of incompatible this and incompatible that? plugs, formats, connectors?
Have you wanted to send photos to family and friends but had trouble?
want information about your busy life easy to get to and easy to understand?
want everything to feel as though it was at your fingertips?
you use your browser (firefox, chrome, opera, safari, explorer) for such a lot - why not use it for everything?

You're not alone. Here are some personal motivations to try it

I want my home, my documents, my correspondence, and my data to be secure
I want my home, my documents, my correspondence, and my data to be private
I want to manage my home and personal affairs in a convenient, easy, quick way
I want to spend my free time on play not admin
I want independence, freedom, control of my own things
I want to value and nurture my wellbeing, health and happiness
I like gadgets, I am techie, I like stylish fashionable new things
I want all my devices {wearable, iPhone, tablet, PC, car} to integrate

Why is it new?

Servers used to be complicated, expensive, technical, a bit noisy, needed cooling, smelt a bit electrical, were power-hungry, hard-to-use, and bulky. This meant there were lots of reasons not to put them in the home. Businesses used them because they could afford the IT backup needed. Servers are the heart of the internet, which is just billions of connected servers. New technology had changed all this. Now a server can run on a 5v battery, make no noise, are cheap, and very small. They are still technical and complicated, but used through a browser, with our homeServer running on it, everything becomes easy.

Our server is run on Linux, an open source operating system which is, unlike MicroSoft, dedicated to sharing information for the benefit of everyone. Linux powers over two thirds of all servers in the world Link. The homeserver is powered by five open source programming languages. Apache HTTP server, PHP, javascript, the database system MySQL, and Python.

As of July 2016, Apache remained the most widely used web server software, estimated to serve 46% of all active websites and 43% of the top million websites, and 44% of the 2016 Fortune Global 500 companies. (Wikipedia)..

PHP is a server scripting and programming language which takes your inputs from your webbrowser or voice command and does what is necessary. It is one of the most popular server languages and enjoys a massive open source community of developers. It is used by leading companies including eBay, Facebook, Wikimedia, Oracle, Yahoo, Digg, Flickr, fotolog.com, Intel, Zend, Nokia, and China Mobile.

MySQL is also used in many high-profile, large-scale websites including NASA, Yahoo, Facebook, Google, Adobe, Alcatel Lucent, and the mighty Google, Facebook,Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. (Source: Wikipedia).

These programming languages are at the heart of the majority of servers in the world, providing information, data and fun to billions of people.

Apache users: (Click to exit)

Cisco, IBM, CNN, Salesforce, General Electric, Adobe, Google, VMware, Xerox, LinkedIn,Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Siemens, Target, PayPal, EMC, Yahoo!, SAP, Apple, Intel, Seagate, eBay, SanDisk, Morgan Stanley, and PepsiCo.

Src: Wikipedia

Who are blackSHEILD?

blackSHEILD was founded in May 2017 by Rupert Newton, they all shared an interest in harnessing the power of the server in its new form in the home. Innovation and design are key to their ambitions for the homeServer.
It is a startup company backed by funding from [places, kickstarter, vcs, business angels, techCos].

Meet the team

CTO

Communication

Founders