486

Matrix also does have a pretty big problem with meta data. By default it stores a ton of meta data (at least the reference server implementation does) and I am not sure if this is even a solvable problem without redesigning the protocol. When opting for an alternative to Signal, XMPP is probably the better choice.

When it comes to privacy (and also security), using a router provided by the cable company is a concern, because that router can see and access all devices on your local network and you can’t be sure that security issues are patched in a timely fashion if ever… Using a modem provided by the cable company on the other hand is not much of an issue, because you have to trust the company anyway, when it comes to your traffic to/from the Internet. These days most of the Internet traffic is encrypted (except DNS, which is often still unencrypted), so that is not a big deal. Of course there can be other reasons to use a different modem.

In either case, it makes sense to switch to a non-ISP DNS server, preferably an encrypted one (DNS-over-TLS or DNS-over-HTTPS), so the ISP can’t see which websites you are accessing.

I’d choose LUKS over Veracrypt for simplicity. If the drive is solely for backup, depending on the backup tool you use, you might not even need encryption on the file system level. Several backup solutions support data encryption.

Yes, the Odroid H series SBC probably come closest to OP’s requirements. Schematics are available on their website. They are also really low power with even the older H2 idling below 4 W.

Disableing the root login gains nothing in regarding security.

This is usually not the reason people recommend disabling root login. Since root is an anonymous account not tied to an actual person, in a corporate setting, you do not really know who used that account if you allow root login. If this is relevant for a personal home network is for you to decide. I would say there is not such a strong argument for it to be made in that setting.

Highly susceptible to replay and man in the middle attacks.

fwknop isn’t susceptible to either.

I was thinking about doing something similar and was considering running Android on a Raspberry Pi. There are unofficial LineageOS builds for the Raspberry Pi. I haven’t tried that yet, but I guess it should be possible to use the Jellyfin Android app on such a setup.

There is quite a significant difference. An ssh server - even when running on a non-default port - is easily detectable by scanning for it. With a properly configured Wireguard setup this is not the case. As someone scanning from the outside, it is impossible to tell if there is Wireguard listening or not, since it simply won’t send any reply to you if you don’t have the correct key. Since it uses UDP it isn’t even possible to tell if there is any service running on a given UDP port.

I always found the software updates of AVM - the manufacturer of those "Fritz!Box"es - to be of questionable quality. If you take a look at the source code that they have to release upon request of the GPL’ed source code they use, you’ll notice that they use ancient versions of the Linux kernel, Busybox and other tools. By ancient, I mean many years old, unsupported by upstream for years. Also, they only publish those sources manually when someone asks for them, which doesn’t bode well for their internal development processes. If they used CI/CD pipelines, they could easily push out updates of those sources with every new release…