alt Hacker NewsThis seems very sketchy. Give us your laptop and we promise we won't keep it...
> © 2024 CoLaptop. All rights reserved.
Website copyright is out of date by two years... And the website has been online since then. https://crt.sh/?q=colaptop.pages.dev
> Thank you for your interest. Please submit the form below and we'll get back to you within 2 working days.
> - Team @ CoLaptop.com
Also colaptop.com is not even registered anymore. If I had to guess the pages.dev site stayed up but the domain and email are nowhere.
Replies
1) You don't have to keep copyrights up to date (and in fact you don't have to put them at all), 2) Every single startup i've seen on HN is sketchy af. Racking laptops in a cage at a Hetzner DC is probably the least sketchy product i've seen here.
And honestly, not a terrible idea, I have old laptops that would work as a VPS. $7/month for somebody to host a public server for me, and not on my crappy residential isp? All I have to lose is an old laptop I haven't touched in 5 years? Sign me up
(they do need a real domain before i'll give them money tho, lol)
> Website copyright is out of date by two years...
Can you explain how a copyright can be "out of date by two years"?
I always thought the copyright notice should reflect the year of creation, and that it's actually bad (from a legal POV) to always show the current year through scripting.
> Give us your laptop
There's no way to read this without hearing Scottish accent. It's like a sleeper agent activation phrase.
The premise was kinda dumb, wouldn't be surprised if its just a scam.
It looks like since you posted your comment, the pages.dev link redirects to colaptop.com, and the copyright notice has been updated to 2026.
In 2026 it should be: Give us your smartphone and we promise ...
Also, isn't this just a huge fire hazard of they actually do what they claim? Or will they remove the batteries from these old, continually plugged in, poorly cooled laptops?
> Website copyright is out of date by two years
It's fixed now.
And someone bought the .com domain: https://crt.sh/?id=25447880244
I mean the idea has merit in of itself, but I think this should be more of an on-prem thing, just repurposing old laptops junked by IT as servers.
It could be a pre-sales site to estimate demand.
Colocating itself, though isn't new at all. Lots of different ways to host, including servers, mac minis, laptops are conceivable too because they share the same kinds of parts that mac minis might have.
What if it’s a compute Ponzi scheme?
> > © 2024 CoLaptop. All rights reserved.
> Website copyright is out of date by two years... And the website has been online since then. https://crt.sh/?q=colaptop.pages.dev
That's exactly what it should be then. A copyright notice lists the year of publication. Not the current year.
> A proper copyright notice consists of three elements: a © symbol, the year of publication, and the copyright owner’s name.
https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-copyright-notice/