Boy does that ever make my skin crawl.
I didn’t like it when it was a Microsoft product, and even as an open-source one do I ever not want an app collating everything about me, where I go, what I look at, and who I talk to into a single database.
Especially since they don’t talk about how they secure the local data; this is just making a one-stop shop for someone to steal and then learn absolutely everything there is to know about you.
Yup. This is how you create a single point of failure when it comes to privacy.
I keep looking at all this data collection stuff and wonder if I’m actually crazy to be bothered by it, especially given that I’m totally not a privacy extremist.
Maybe I’m one of the people that doesn’t feel the need to constantly go back to figure out what I did a week ago or whatever, and thus all I’m seeing is a tool that knows more about me than I do, and then puts all that data in a single place that is now the prime target for every malicious actor on the planet.
I used to find stuff like this fascinating. Like if collecting my data can help me, why not? But technology has gotten to a point that it’s just straight up creepy how our every single waking moment can be tracked and collected, even if it’s me collecting it. It’s like watching every dystopian sci-fi story come to life in real time.
the dystopian scifi story has always been real. better get used to it kid… cuz yer in one
Especially since they don’t talk about how they secure the local data
They don’t because they don’t
All the data you import is indexed in a SQLite database and stored on disk organized by date, without obfuscation or anything complicated.
Probably because this is still in early alpha and “the schema is still changing”.
I very specifically want an app that collates all the information that can possibly be gathered about me in a way that I can utilize and abuse it myself. For me there is a lot of utility and value to be found with this sort of thing.
Of course the security posture of said app needs to be rather robust. And instead of it being an app it should instead be an SDK that I can then choose and control my own storage medium for.
Fair, and that’s why this should be opt-in: I have absolutely no use case in my life for this that I’m not already meeting elsewhere but I know I’m certainly not everyone.
I don’t begrudge other people using it, I would just very much prefer to not use it or, in the case of what Microsoft tried to pull, be shoveled into using it by default-enabling it and then likely nagging you endlessly if you dare to turn it off, like they do with everything else in Windows these days.
Thank you so much for posting this and reminding me about this project. I was looking to run his previous similar project that I think was just called Timeline when I saw he was working on this. Can’t wait to dig in.
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Looks very intresting. Only downside for now: Releases are comlicated to download.
I wish it was a docker based server.
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The dev of this developed Caddy? Hmm… at least there’s talent behind it. I’m a little worried about creating that sort of record, but this guy seems earnest in wanting to liberate personal data.
Apparently totally useless when you don’t enable history or don’t use the services (Google, Facebook, etc.) at all.
It is dockerized but that doesn’t really matter since the DB which is probably one of the most private things on your server is also stored in the container. So a hacker who got into the container can steal your timelinize DB
Your best bet is running this LAN-only but that kind of destroys the whole point of it. This thing should never be connected to the internet
From looking at the github, I think you don’t need to/want to host this publicly. It doesn’t automatically get and store your information. It’s more a tool for visualizing and cross referencing your takeout/exported data from a variety of tech platforms. It’s just developed as a web app for ease of UI/cross platform/ locally hostable.
Fans of timelineize might also like https://activitywatch.net . (I didn’t, but YMMV)
