Technically the EU already is an defence organisation (Lisbon accords), even with a stronger mutual assistance clause than NATO. What is different is that there is no integrated command structure. But that is currently rapidly changing, Germany and the Netherlands already are fully integrated (more than NATO standards are), the Baltics are making great progress.
There is at least a chance
You can easily keep Wikipedia around - burn it on archive BDs(M-Disc), they are easily hidden, can take the whole Wikipedia in one disk and basic information is extremely valuable in an oppressive regime. Then do the same for a collection of E-Books based on what is most likely to be banned/what the right wing does take the biggest offence on. And what aids you the most in either getting out or resist.
Using archive BDs(M-Discs) is important as regular storage devices can easily be detected due to their metallic contents and they degrade within years. M-Discs are far more resilient and can be almost as easily hidden.
Digital data stored right is extremely non-volatile - but it takes an effort to do so,but the same goes for printing out terabytes.
And digital data can be hidden far easier.
Normally I would ask you what drugs you took to post this.
BUT: This timeline has become so crazy that I absolutely believe this without taking any drugs myself.
Worked as a paramedic around the world for two and a half decades now. Saw a lot of shit.
But the worst one was when I was teamleader of a neonatal critical care transport service. That was....not something I could do for long. There is an amount of dead babies people can see in their lifetime. I ignored my limit and now have to face the consequences.
Their solution to central management (Capsman) is a burning mess, when WiFi6 came out for a long time(I think 2 years) you were unable to keep older and newer APs on the same controller, so you needed two Capsman instances. Roaming between them is very unreliable and generally their hardware is underwhelming in terms of antenna quality, etc.
For one AP it is not as bad, but still annoying, if you want to centrally manage more APs it is a nightmare.
I replaced my MK APs with Omada with the software controller on a LXC and couldn't be happier - they play along nicely with my MT infrastructure and are way more reliable.
I really love MT,but not their WiFi.
Fairly popular in my neck of the woods and rock solid. I literally had a bad sparky put 230V through one of them. It killed the RJ45, it killed two client hosts on the same bridge, it killed the port, but the Switch itself continued to work. (Still replaced it, though)
The only thing I find them really bad and ironically replaced them with TP-Link (Omada )is Wifi. (and the fact that they let the promising "The Dude" die).
Security wise they seem to do their homework so far.
I don't think Trump would be worse for them. It might actually part of their strategy.
While Trump was worse for them back then when he wanted to play "hardass", it's a different situation now. He is far more isolationist than before.
Harris has always backed both Israel and Ukraine. Both things are bad from a Iranian regime POV. For them it is much more desirable if Trump stops aid to Ukraine and Putin wins the war - which will keep Europe occupied for decades, out of their way in the middle east and very likely is favourable in a lot of ways to them. If Putin looses it will very likely mean a regime change in Russia - and the chances that Iran looses their last relevant ally are fairly big.
The same goes for Israel itself. Trump might have played "nice" with Bibi the last time,but it's another situation now. If shit hits the fan even more than it does now, Trump will do whatever his base back home likes most. And while most of them are surely deeply against Muslims, they are also/maybe even more antisemitic. And if Trump will do nothing in a situation like that, he wins in the eyes of his powerbase (while Israel and the middle east as a whole looses). The only thing risky for Iran in that situation is the fact that Trump would be far less likely to restrain Bibi. But Bibi is on the way out anyway.
It might also simply be an "suggestion" from the Iranian "friends" in Moscow to influence things a little. Someone asks for a favour because a second crisis area puts the focus away from ones own front yard. And having an old friend/employee in the oval office surely helps.
Let's not forget the perversion of regimes like Iran: A conflict with an old enemy can be a very stabilising factor for a dwindling regime. The lack of restraint Israel showed in Gaza and Libanon put even the more moderate forces in the middle east but also within Iran back on the "Israel is the arch-enemey" line. This is the point where the regime now can unite more moderate parts of their internal as well as external stakeholders behind a common cause with a slight "we told you so!". That is sadly very much a benefit from a prolonged conflict for them.(Which Trump is far more likely to enable them to sustain)
Anyway: Iran would be surely worse off with Harris - so they might have a lot of incentive to do what they can to get Trump into office.
It sounds strange maybe,but I found Zabbix way easier for these scenarios. For more advanced deployments it is different,but for what you describe it is really easy
They set up a business. They do business. They should ask someone to do this whose business it is. Not you. They are taking advantage of you.
You will certainly and 100% ruin your friendship with them.
Keeping a server secure is an ordeal for a professional - especially when it comes to using it as a business server.
Doing E-Mail yourself, especially in a professional capacity, is a god damn nightmare and even most professionals refuse to do it and rather pay someone who handle it. For a reason.
The usecase you mentioned does not require a server. It can easily be done via a web hosting provider. Unless there is something shaddy going on and you/they are afraid of storing that stuff with a provider. But for what you mention here you need a simple web hosting provider for 5 bucks a month.
Actually doing that yourself is far more complicated than you imagine here. It's not just the server. How do you get a connection with a static IPv4 to host your services? Actually preferably multiple static IPs? Are you considering a CloudFlare tunnel? How do you plan redundancy if that connection craps out? Or the server kicks the bucket. Or power goes out? This alone costs FAR more than the money you pay for a cheap webhoster or even a VPS. (Which you don't need,imho)
For the love of god or whoever: Don't do that. You will be liable/responsible to them (at least from their point of view) if their IP is on Googlemails blacklist and now "that one important client mail did not arrive in time". Or if the cheap residential DSL craps out and their very important site is just having the sale of their life?
I am absolutely for self-hosting things, don't get me wrong. I selfhost basically everything (but no mail...that is a shitshow), mostly on FOSS. But don't start with someone else's business if you start doing this. Selfhost a few easy things. Get a Mini PC and proxmox, selfhost within your home network, then expand slowly.
Damn, that is exactly one great to mTuch. If you're great grandparents (mainly your great grandfather)would be born on German soil it would have been easy.
If your heritage is (even partly)Jewish(or you can prove that there was prosecution for other reasons) and you can prove that they lived in Germany (and left before the war ended) there are special rules and you might be eligible.
Oh,it was thought through very much by some... Some parts of the SVP are very happy about it...