also why hyperscalers are paying folks to host gpu clusters in their homes. its to get at tgeir IP, it has nothing to do with space, cooling, etc.
replyNo that makes no sense. They only need a tiny device to act as a proxy. It makes no sense to colocate the expensive GPUs
replyYeah, the usual approach here is to offer a free VPN service, and then piggyback traffic over the user’s internet provider. Much, much more scalable and cheaper than offering to put GPUs at a user’s home.
replyIt makes sense when someone else is paying for the power. The AI capabilities of mobile cpus is for pushing cloud based AI to your device. You pay the power bill while retaining the same lack of privacy as cloud hosted AI.
replyI'm pretty sure the company that owns the compute is the one paying for the power. Who would agree to have an ugly noisy cube in their property that they have to pay maintenance for? What would they get out of that deal?
reply>also why hyperscalers are paying folks to host gpu clusters in their homes
replySource? There's definitely shady people paying people to host proxies, but hyperscalers doing it would be surprising.
My understanding of it so far is that it is at most, 50 or 100 houses as a test... It's a startup that wants to make it wide scale but hasn't got there yet.
replyhttps://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=span+resi...
Calling them a "hyperscaler" is a stretch. By all accounts it's some renewables startup that's trying to pivot into AI because obviously AI = $$$, and calling themselves a "hyperscaler" in the process. Calling them a "hyperscaler" makes as much sense as some guy who runs a homelab in his basement as a "datacenter".
replyhttps://www.span.io/blog/span-announces-xfra-a-distributed-d...
My thoughts exactly. In the current environment you could slap "AI" on a potato and get $$$ for it.
replyYep.
replyAnd the pay for these things is "access to 500+ TB Jellyfin-like movie services for free"
Of course, it's all pirated out of country. And the pay is being a residential proxy.
And piracy being the only way to actually own, I'm not imaging this will stop anytime soon.
Residential proxies are achieved in many, many ways. The most common is simply people installing software and leaving some checkbox checked, or agreeing to it unknowingly. In the same way that smart TV downloadable apps and games tend to include them.
replyWait, so I can have free movies and subvert the adtech business model at the same time? What's the catch?
replyAnyone can buy traffic on the proxy, not just click fraud, but cc fraud et al as well. Caveat emptor, it’s really not worth it compared to setting up a 3 USD per month Hetzner proxy box yourself, if you’re looking to pirate movies.
replyFor some more context: We run a business based on data scraping and metered residential proxies have never been cheaper. Countries that used to be 10 USD/GB just ten years ago are down to 1 USD.
Exactly my thought. For, say, $50/month I can get a second ISP to my house, host the proxy (and only that) on that link, and enjoy free movies. It is cheaper than having 2-3 streaming service subscriptions.
replyOr for $5/mo you could have a mullvad subscription and a vpn-aware bittorrent client that knows how to pause if the vpn drops.
replyTrue but that option got a lot worse when they disabled port forwarding.
replyehh, subvert is a stretch. But yes, you too can be a minor accessory to scams run by thieves to rob advertisers, with enriching the world's largest ad company as a side-effect. Not exactly a Robin Hood situation given that tons of the advertisers being robbed are just normal small developers trying to get their apps out there.
replyThese residential proxies are also used by scrapers. From scraping stores to scalp merchandise, to scrapers of data for AI training.
replySounds awesome, what's the catch?
replyYou also get to run credit card fraud purchases through your home internet connection, such fun times we live in.
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replyGrey? There's multiple conferences that "ethically sourced" proxy providers feature at now (ex: extractsummit.io)
replyWeb scraping (for LLM inference / training) I guess has transformed "residential proxies" into a giant industry.