KhunHeineken

Cheers. The more I learn about my NAS, the more versatile it becomes.

My paid sports streaming service has an app. They apply very strict geo blocking to the app. The servers to my home country have been blacklisted on two paid VPN companies. I'm hoping they can't geo block / blacklist a decentralized VPN so easily, and if they did, you would just be re-routed to another node in the country of your choice, not playing the never ending game of emailing your VPN company and asking them for new IP address, only to find their IP addresses are blacklisted again a few weeks later.

I enabled the Synology AV, and it took hours to scan. My question is, does it offer any protection while the NAS is just sitting idle, 24/7?

I've been reading up on decentralized VPN's. It's an interesting concept, but I have more to learn. If I understand correctly, people all around the world can rent their unused bandwidth on their home or business network, and instead of connecting to a company's VPN server, as most of us have been doing for sometime, you connect to someone's house, or business, and go through their network, which means you are given an IP address that's most likely not blacklisted or geo blocked, which means it would be great for streaming services, which is why I am considering it. With a decentralized VPN you are not on a server with many other people, so just about zero chance of the IP address being blacklisted because it's just a house or business in the suburbs you are connecting to. Is anyone using a decentralized VPN? Is anyone renting out their network to a decentralized VPN? I'm thinking of trying it, but a bit concerned that even though the connection is encrypted, the owner of the node can see all my traffic. Also, what if the owner of the node is up to no good by drug dealing, child porn, terrorism etc and is under surveillance, could your device, and therefore yourself, be flagged? The other side to that is say the decentralized VPN user is up to no good, could the owner of the node be in some trouble? I can VPN back to my house in my home country, but I have a slow internet connection, so not great for streaming. This guy's quick review of the Mysterion DVPN is pretty good.

I am not saying every guy in Issan is like this, but there are quite a lot, but talk to them, and like most guys here, they will say they have never been scammed in Thailand or made a wrong decision. ????

Thanks for the explanation. I was more concerned about the way these hackers scan for ports, not so much what I look at on the internet. I'm pretty careful about opening a link in an unsolicited email. If they can get into an open port, they will have my NAS. I purchased the NAS mainly so I could do some offsite back up, so I am in Thailand, but can store photos and things on my NAS that is back in my home country. I suppose if I am not doing anything on the internet on my home network because I am overseas, that's a considerable less chance of becoming a victim by downloading a malicious file, but that also means the network I am using in Thailand could pose a risk. I do have AV on my laptop, so maybe it's just same same.

I suppose it helps that they are outside of the NAS. From what I read if you use standard hard drives in the NAS the vibration from the spinning discs shorten their life, unless they are specific NAS hard drivers that have been made to handle it.

Do you leave them on 24/7?

Bumping the thread. My NAS has been running for a while now and I am now familiar with some basic features. I'm learning about new features all the time. The NAS is quite a versatile device. I have a few questions, but will start with this question that I asked before, but never received a reply, and that is, antivirus on a NAS. The Synology came with AV, and I enabled it, but all it seems to do is scan the files I am storing. What about some type of attack? The Synology AV doesn't seem to run the same way as my PC antivirus, and the NAS is online 24/7. What do you guys do to protect your NAS from some type of attack, particularly ransomware?

EDIT: 12TB's of storage, not 8TB's.

I purchased my first NAS a little while ago. I'll update a thread I started about it because I have a few questions. I love the NAS also,and I am still playing with it and learning how to use it to its full potential, but I nearly fell off my chair when seeing the price of Seagate Ironwolf Pro NAS hard drives. I have 8TB of storage as well but if you have a lot of TB's to store the cost can really start to mount up, but from what I read the NAS hard drives are reliable. I didn't know you could torrent with a NAS. I'll check that out.

The 183 day rule goes both ways. Stay in Australia 6 months of the year and you will be fine, stay outside of Australia for more than 6 months of the year and you have exposed yourself to the ATO for at minimum, a please explain, to at worse, a tax bill at the non-resident rate, from dollar zero. Who wants to spend 6 months of the year, every year, in Australia? Who can afford to pay non-resident tax rates, and who would pay, on principle? Most have been flying under the ATO radar for the last several years, including myself, but as I previously posted, I have always had the feeling the day was coming when the ATO starts chasing money from expat retirees by declaring them non-residents for taxation purposes. I have been relying on the domicile test should they go after me, but an adjustment to the 183 day rule, making it override the other tests, could make things very difficult or expensive. Given Australia has record debt, the ATO will be chasing every dollar they can, from everyone they can, and being outside of Australia for 183 days of the year makes expat retirees an easy target. I hope I'm wrong, but only time will tell. If, or when, that day comes, the only options I see for myself is staying 6 months in Australia, or selling up everything and moving the cash offshore and having nothing in Australia that can be taxed. I had a look at your link, and when I read things like below, I think I can see the writing on the wall for the future. It reads to me, stay inside Australia for 183 days, no problem. Stay outside of Australia 183 days, and here's your non-resident tax bill. "The proposed stage one test (being the primary test) is based on physical presence in Australia and will be a ‘bright line test’ – that is, a person who is physically present in Australia for 183 days or more in any income year will be an Australian tax resident."

Has Foxtel blacklisted the Australian servers for this Kodi VPN?

If still working, one could financially recover from The Issan Hustle. It's the retired guys that have a set amount of money to last them until they pass, or a small pension. They put a significant portion of it into a Thai family, and into rural Issan, in a country where laws are not favorable to foreigners. I don't need the bright lights of a city such as Bangkok, but I need more options for leisure time activities in retirement than what Issan can offer.

As discussed in previous posts, it turns from "choice" to "no choice" because they have ploughed all their life savings into a Thai family, and rural Issan. In effect, they made a rod for their own back, and they have every day until they die to deal with the consequences of this.

What part of my post do you see any "assumption" in? In your own words the house must be sold in 12 months, the house can be left to family, and a farang can't own land. Put one, or a combination of these together, and how does a foreigner maintain access, that is, living in the house, that sits on land, that he paid for, should his Thai wife die before him? He has to sell it in 12 months, and he can't own the land it sits on, or, it's left to a Thai son, for example, who gives notice to the foreigner because he wants to live in it himself or sell it and keep the money. How often do you think the foreigner could sell it to the Thai family for 1 baht, and the family allow him to live in it until his demise?

There are a lot of toxic relationships / marriages based solely on the exchange of money here. I have no problem with that. There are many western women in "kept relationships / marriages" as well. If one enters into a financial agreement with a Thai lady, that's fine, but they should pay as they go, not buy land, build a house, throw in a bar, shop, or farm, all up front, and expect the Thai lady to then uphold her end of the deal, especially when it's all in her name. Often, when the Thai lady accepts the financial agreement, and thinks now she got the guy on the hook and start to go to work on him, she can manipulate that agreement and he will bend. As you say, guys don't put their foot down. I suppose it's guys feeling comfortable in the relationship and are too afraid to start again, so, they bend, and it's all downhill from there. So funny to hear the threat, "I'll have to go back and work bar again." I'd be saying, "See ya." ???? A lot of guys don't call their bluff, and even if they were serious and did go back to the bar, what's that say about the relationship or financial agreement you entered into? Neither were real in the first place. Foreigners can't own land here, but there's some ways to cover yourself. One way is to have the Thai lady take a mortgage out on a property and you pay the bank every month. Paying the loan interest can be looked upon as insurance. The money in your own bank earns some interest, so it's only the difference you are paying. She leaves, you stop paying the mortgage, the bank can have the house back, and both can move on. The guy you met is correct. It's his house, just not the land it sits on. It's my understanding he would be perfectly entitled to put a bulldozer through it and face no criminal charges. Another phenomenon that you see in these relationships if when the Thai lady starts to compare the money, assets, or wealth of one of their friends or family's foreign partners. The Thai scammer version of "keeping up with the Jones" and what does the foreigner do, he goes and buys a bigger car, or more expensive gold, or more land etc. The two Thai ladies play the foreigners off on each other for spending on them, because each foreigner doesn't want to be seen as not "taking care" as good as the next guy. Too funny. ????

I would try that also. Like I said, rather than updating drivers, roll them back to a working driver. Could roll the machine back to pre windows updates using a restore point, and then be selective with the windows updates.

Yes, could try that, from the manufacturers website, not Microsoft. The OP said he did some updates, so I would start with a roll back first.

Try rolling back the drivers for the keyboard and mouse.

If you have someone you trust in Australia, you could have your mail sent to them, they can scan it and email it to you. You would get the document in a timely fashion. Not that accountants are so trustworthy, but if you still use the services of an accountants, I'm sure they will offer this service to you. Most accountants know the financial position of their clients, so privacy in that regard is not an issue. There are secretarial services that offer similar services as well. For something like this, it would be cheap. You get your mail sent to their office, they scan it and email it to you, then post it to you, if you need the hard copy. You could set up a pay as you going billing with them, so everytime they do a small job for you like this, they bill you a few dollars. Pay the bill via internet banking.

I call it, "The redistribution of wealth." For a lot of these guys, they go from having assets and cash based in their home country, setting up a decent retirement, and leaving an inheritance for their biological children upon their demise, to liquidating their assets, with the cash being distributed in Issan, for the benefit of an extended Thai family. It's their money to do with as they please, but in most cases, these guys leave no legacy to their children upon their demise. Many will tell you their children don't care about them, but the reality is, they burnt all their bridges, including family ties, back in their home country. From my observation, the extended Thai family don't show a great deal of respect to these guys anyway. I laugh at how many bought farms in Issan, with zero knowledge or experience in farming. When I ask what are they growing, and how is the price of it per kilo going, they just have a blank look on their face. They have no interest in the farm. Many of these guys drink to excess everyday out of boredom. All of this would be fine, if the foreigner was very wealthy and the farm was employment for the Thai family, and if their marriage went south he could start again, but that's not usually the case. Many plough their life savings into a farm, new house, and a new car in Issan, thinking they are now set up for retirement, but all they have really done is dug a hole for themselves. Many will tell you, or post on this forum, they are happy in Issan, and a small percentage would be, but how many ever aspired to live in rural Thailand in their later years when they first discovered Thailand, I would say very few. Many survived messy divorces, but they won't climb out of the hole they dug for themselves in Thailand so easily. This is because at their age, they can not work and recover from the financial loss, like they did after their divorce. I spent a few weeks in a larger town in Issan some years ago. There was a large bar in the town and every Saturday it would fill up with foreigners coming in from all the outlaying villages and they would drink and catch up. I asked a few what was the attraction, and the reply was that it was the one day of the week they got to speak proper English with fellow native English speakers. Imagine working all your life to be in a position, where in retirement, the highlight of your week is being able to speak English to other people. ????

It doesn't make for a nice retirement, but there are none so deaf as those who refuse to listen. One thing a lot of these guys don't contemplate is the possibility of their Thai wife passing away before they do. The Thai wife is usually considerably younger, but things like motorbike accidents, cancer etc do happen. Should the Thai wife pass early, most of these foreigners will lose access to the property that they paid to have built. How many guys have to back to their country to go back to work, or to go on welfare because "my girl is different?"

There are laws against discriminating against age in the work place, so if a company wants to hire you, they can, no matter how old you are.

I wouldn't hold my breath. This guy was commissioned to review taxation and make recommendation a long time ago. Very little of any substance has been implemented. That said, the simplest thing for the government to do is just make it the 183 days outside of Australia. That would net billions of dollars, or force thousands to return to Australia's economy. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-23/henry-tax-review-ten-years-on/11817328 Whilst they are not interested in the average retiree, they are interested in their money, and taxing thousands of expat retirees at non resident rates will amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, and it's so easy to do because the immigration data base shows you are outside of Australia for 183 days, so you will be sent a please explain letter. Put simply, the government doesn't want you earning in Australia, but spending overseas. No, it's not that simple. If it was, we would all have nothing to be concerned about. Don't go to the tax office, let the tax office come to you, but be well prepared for when they do, because there is a likelihood that they will at some time in the not so distant future.