Mission 3 · Build the boundaries
Don’t build on your living room floor
Choose a safe home for the shared bot.
You can put the bot on one of three computers. Imagine that an attacker eventually takes full control of the computer hosting it.
Your future self
“If this whole machine is lost, what else do we lose with it?”
The decision
Pick the best place to build the service.
- Your everyday personal computer
It already has your photos, work files, and saved logins. - A dedicated server with no unrelated personal data
Keep its entry points few, patch it, and protect administrator access. - A friend’s all-purpose server
Share it with their other services to save setup time.
Reveal the explanation
You kept unrelated valuables out of the blast radius. A dedicated host does not prevent every attack, but losing it need not expose your personal computer too.
Give the bot a home you can afford to rebuild. Protect administrator access with strong SSH keys and keep the system patched.- The host is the foundation beneath all the other boundaries.
- A host compromise can expose the infrastructure and the secrets it contains.
- The guide’s host holds no unrelated work data, personal services, or keys to other servers.
Host
The main computer or server that runs the isolated environments and their supporting services.