Well, this has been a very, very long time in the making. Google has finally unveiled its big Dropbox competitor: Google Drive. You start with 5GB for free, and you can go all the way to 1TB for $50 per month. This is a big deal for many (if you were to use rumouring as a gauge), but all I can think of is this: why on earth would you entrust your files to a company – any company – whose sole interest is extracting money from you, and who, to boot, is subject to crazy American laws?
First, let’s get the basics out of the way. It’s fully integrated into other Google products, and you get 5GB for free. If you’re willing to pay for this service, you can upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month, and 1TB for $49.99/month. If you go with an upgraded account, you’ll get 25GB of Gmail storage, too. It’ll be available for Windows and Apple PCs, iOS, and Android.
I’ve personally never understood the appeal of services like this. I’m old-fashioned, and would much rather carry the files I need around on a USB stick (or floppies before that). It gives me control, you can make it as secure as you want, and you’re not dependent on the internet – a big deal when you move outside of the comfort zone of work-home-Starbucks.
Unless you’re a hypocrite, you’ll realise all these internet storage services suffer from a fatal flaw: a complete lack of privacy. SkyDrive, Dropbox, iCloud, and now Google Drive – there’s absolutely no way to know what’s being done with your data and who has access to it. There are privacy policies and terms of service, but in the end, they’re only worth the paper they’re written on. And they’re digital, so go figure.
The big problem here is not that companies will inevitably use all this data to improve their products – there’s some benefit to be had there for us, so that’s not all that malevolent. What is problematic, however, is the fact these services operate out of the United States. And as little trust as I place in companies, I trust the US government even less.
The US has some frightening anti-privacy laws, and we’ve seen the extent to which the US is willing to go when it comes to things other countries would consider trivial. By storing all your data in the US, you’re opening yourself up to a whole bunch of scary possibilities, and Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dropbox or whichever other US-based company will have no qualms about handing over your data to DC. I live in a country with well-developed personal freedoms, and from the top of my head, I can think of 5 things I’ve done which are completely normal and acceptable here, but would net me a hefty prison sentence in the US.
As such, it makes far more sense to look for local alternatives. Your local government is probably not that more trustworthy than the US one, but at least it’s your government. You do have some form of control over them. Better yet, you’ll be able to do something about possible abuse through your local court system, instead of being a foreigner in a US courtroom – a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
If you really do need an internet storage service, I would be extremely careful about what you store in there, and gain at least some basic insight into things that might be normal to you, but are illegal in the US.
Better yet – set up your own internet storage service. In a broadband-rich country like The Netherlands, it’s fairly trivial to set up your own always-on server with secure remote login (if you know of a decent software package, preferably open source, put it in the comments) to access your files. I have 120 MBit/s down and 10 Mbit/s up, without caps, and it’s dirt-cheap – you can easily run a personal internet storage server with a connection like that.
In fact, this could be a pretty huge market: a simple and cheap plug-and-play device offering the same functionality as Dropbox or Google Drive. Open source, so you know what’s going on. Secure and encrypted, so your stuff is safe. At home, so you know your data won’t be abused. Local, so you don’t have to fear foreign governments.
That would convert me to internet storage.
…as opposed to non-crazy Chinese, Iranian, etc…, laws?
You just proved my point
.
I do what I can man.
The East German Stashi would be Green with Envy over the overt and covert invasions now of US citizens privacy’s, liberty’s, and lack of freedoms.
Given the rapid advances in biometrics and facial recognition software, US photos containing faces collected from social media and photo sharing websites are fed to those algorithms and the resulting biometrics are then stored on NSA server farms with some being piggy backed to various nations intelligence servers globally. The result being that individual if need be can be located and tracked via millions of CCTV feeds thereafter.
It is entirely likely alert network viewers of the upcoming UK Olympic Games will see folks with hand-held facial scanners panning the crowds and visitors adding hundreds of new faces per minute.
US/UK are implementing IPS (Interior Positioning Systems) now to track YOU inside malls, homes, city centers etc.
All attempts by investigative reporters to glean the full collection of ACTA texts and drafts have been denied by US President Obama’s staff under the faux guise of ‘National Security’. There are reams of additional law abiding pages and paragraphs in the ACTA legislation which EU/UK citizens and visitors thru the customs entry in those nations would be legally bound to meet and yet presently are unable to even obtain the full disclosure on that law which US President Obama’s administration has secretly been slamming down the throats of the EU-Zone leaders.
Those nations that baulk at such goose stepping legislation have been actively threatened and in the case of Spain allegedly extorted in a ‘Do this or Else’ scenero. That isn’t democracy, it’s a fascist dictate that smacks of parallels to a Jewish Mafia playbook.
I’m an American and I am utterly appalled that America’s first black President would sign the NDAA bill into law utterly destroying the US Constitutional Bill of Rights. That followed President Obama signing an extension of the Patriot Act including a section destroying the long held US ban on military Bioweapons. Then the democracy stripping EEA bill was quickly signed by President Obama allowing for the removal of all elected US Officials replacing them with President Obama’s cabinet members. The city of Baton Rogue has allegedly had that occur, their mayor a mere bystander now.
The three neo-con War Toads, Lieberman, McCain and Graham appear to be pushing the kill US Citizens access to the Internet if the US Gov. decided to do so. (the infamous kill switch)
While at the same time, President Obama is pushing for sanctions on nations blocking the Internet and communications during a CIA led revolution in their own nations, the US DOT has already deployed cell phone jammers during US Occupy Wall Street Protests. The CIA are now working actively with the NYPD and are routinely seizing cell phones,laptops and digital devices in US protests and downloading history, contacts and data w/o warrants nor consent (such appears to be entirely against the US domestic spying act).
As the latest extreme right US/West legislation to censor the Internet and file sharing ban is defeated, 3 more are sure to be introduced like the hydra heads of a evil serpent.
The Hypocrisy of the US Gov. rights,laws regarding the use of the Internet: I have seen real-time GPS targeting data by US Proxy’s working inside Libya and Syria for US aerial attacks either by jet fighters or US UAV assassination drones being passed via Social Media Sites. That seems OK by the US Gov. exposing the utter hypocrisy of the entire series of US related Internet laws, US Department of Justice and their sense of ethics.
Until and ‘IF’ American laws swing back to to a point where it doesn’t take a 4th year law student to even know 1/10 of those they could be legally liable for, I am fully with the author on hedging a barrier and building some added protection against what appears to be goose stepping attempts to stifle and censor global Internet users information access and information sharing capability’s.
OpenCloud sounds like a nice alternative coupled with a script which encrypts the files by Serpent 256bit with a strong password.
I’m appalled by your racist comment about the “Jewish Mafia” and the “Black President”.
I can attest that, as an Israeli (and obviously a Jew), I’m against this trend of trumping civic rights. There is a huge outcry here against exactly these kinds of measures which the US government is trying (and unfortunately succeeding) pushing on us.
Our copyright law was recently changed for the worse due to US pressure and extortion – I’m sure you’re well aware of the aid Israel receives from the US which can and is easily leveraged against us to adhere to US interests.
From my POV, US citizens must be stupid: you barely exercise your voting right – the voting percentage is embarrassingly low – and you keep electing the same people that turn your own constitution into toilet paper and you don’t bother to do anything about it.
Just recently the FBI closed Megaupload and by doing so blocked many legitimate users from accessing their own legal content (e.g. many Hip-Hop artists were using it). Nobody did anything about this.
Had this happened in Israel i’m sure there would be government buildings on fire or at least the media & courts would crucify the people responsible.
Democracy isn’t some fact of nature like gravity – it won’t hold if nobody fights for it.
I couldn’t agree more! The Civil Rights movement in the US was met with things like “affirmative action” which is THE most racist thing EVER! It pretty much says “blacks pay less because they don’t have the means” which is TOTAL bull. I’m tired of flipping the bill for people who WON’T do what is necessary! Not really “paying less” so to speak, but they get breaks the rest of us don’t. This whole “you must hire minorities” thing is crazy. As a gay man, I don’t want special treatment, I just want the same opportunity to prove myself!
An example of contemporary civil rights: gay marriage movement. In the United States, WHO IS STOPPING YOU!? I’ve seen gays get married before it was even an issue. Oh, you WANT the gov’t to know you’re married? You WANT them to know you’re gay or strait?
To be on topic, I’d trust a company with my data if their privacy policy was good. However, to have everyone mirror ones’ files is probably the least secure thing ever! Got nothing to hide? Who cares?! I have a right to privacy, even if it’s a silly story about a green glob of goo who can’t seem to fit in with the other goo population because he’s a glob and not a blob. When the individual is concerned, it doesn’t matter what everyone else “believes” it matters what YOU hold dear to you.
I agree with you that “affirmative action” is a horrible notion. In fact, this was scientifically proven!
There a study that compared “African-Americans” (E.g Black Americans which are the descendents of the slaves) with current immigrants from Africa (E.g Nigerians and such). The former lag behind significantly on all economic factors (employment rates, employment types, etc) whereas there is NO difference between e.g a Nigerian immigrant and a Polish one – both have a similar chance as a white American to land a good job (both salary wise and occupation type wise). The latter even produced a president – Barack Obama, the first elected black president isn’t African-American as his father was born in Kenya.
Obviously? Seriously? Israeli Citizens are composed of Atheists, Christian, Muslim and Jewish Religious citizens. Israeli citizens are in no fashion Jews Only despite the far right ultra-extremist political party’s in Apartheid Israel that attempts to paint the outside view that all Israeli citizens are ‘Jewish’.
Jews only Roads, Schools, Laws, Parks and Community’s fully exist in Apartheid Israel and they certainly go FAR into exposing the rather callous view of actually trampling on the non-Jewish Israeli Citizens, their rights as citizens as well as minority’s such as the Bedouins.
What I find appalling is the Black African Jews attempting to migrate into Apartheid Israel are forced into the remote Ketziot Israeli Desert Prison, the largest immigration prison on Earth, nearly 100% filled with Black African’s.
White Euro-New Age Jews are openly encouraged to migrate but Black African Jews are locked up in the remote Ketziot Desert Prison where God only knows what abuse and torture is heaped upon them. No wonder the ultra-extreme racist and bigoted Apartheid South Africa was Apartheid Israel’s closest ally and friend.
But you state you are against ‘this trend of trumping civic rights’. Really? Seriously? Anti-Zionists residing inside Apartheid Israel stand the direct possibility of being labelled and charged as a ‘enemy of the State of Apartheid Israel’.
Simply attempting to stop a goose stepping IDF soldier pistol whipping some elderly Bedouin women could land you in a crowded Apartheid Israeli prison. I simply don’t get the impression that you would raise up your arms and oppose or stop such an assault or abuse.
If you have the strength of character to stop a goose stepping IDF soldier or demand they cease in their routine beatings of the elderly Bedouin’s, minority’s and non-Jewish Israeli citizens, that’s wonderful however 99.99% would leave Apartheid Israel rather than be labelled a enemy of the State for merely being ethical, moral and compassionate.
Can you actually substantiate any of this or is it just the nutball conspiracy theorist in you talking?
It’s usually only Jews who know Hebrew, and I doubt an atheist would even take the time to learn it. And you have to know Hebrew to live in Israel if I’m not mistaken, it’s the national language.
This is the rhetoric we hear thoughout history. It’s antisemitic to the core, and VERY rude in the modern day. “Jews are funny let’s make fun of them!” “Let’s make fun of their money!” “They are so greedy” “They must be to blame for the money problem!” “Kill the Jews!” THAT IS HOW THIS PROGRESSES…from the PROGRESSIVES! They call themselves “progressive” because they do everything they can to turn things into their way of being. “Molding the world to the hearts desire”. That’s such BS, it’s OUR world, yet I’ve heard people say “Israel is just one big concentration camp ready to run them all into the ocean to drown.” THAT IS SUCH BS!
Sorry, but I’m a son of Abraham and Seth…a son of Adam. I am not Christian nor am I Jewish, but I’ve done my share of reading, and I’m convinced that the Bible is the truth. Not because it “tells me so” but because no other explanation makes sense as to the goodness in the world. Just look around at all these “party hard” people who think they’re just going to dance through life. They aren’t dancing through anything, they’re going around in circles of their own despair!
Your comments are proof of the evil in the world. You may not be evil yourself, but you think you’re smart when all you are doing is perpetuating something that’s been going on for thousands of years. The yellow star of David has been used THREE TIMES IN HISTORY NOW! How hard is this to comprehend?! I’m sorry, but I just get so offended at antisemitism. Grow some bawlz and stand for something.
Reply to ASmith:
Wow, how many times did your mother drop you as a child?
I do have to give you credit for creativity – I’ve heard many racist slurs but this is the first time someone trying to argue I’m NOT a Jew.
Thank you for educating sill ol’ me about my own culture and country which you wouldn’t know to tell the difference from the north pole on a map.
Indeed Israel must be the worst apartheid ever – those poor Arabs are forced to live in a democratic state where they can vote and be represented in the Parliament, they have a freedom of speech, freedom of religion, gender equality and all those unnatural inhumane civic rights. They are oppressed by the ability to get proper education and god forbid let women drive unlike their much happier brothers in neighboring Arab states such as Syria where they get the honor of being buried alive when they express an opinion that contradicts the regime.
You are right – we must be stopped!
Edited 2012-04-27 14:39 UTC
Reply to chripun’s reply about being appalled about Jewish Mafia and Obama being a Black President’
I routinely encourage readers to study the utter corruption and impact of the Jewish Mafia in America, Europe, Africa and of course the 4 existing Jewish Mafia Don’s residing inside tiny Apartheid Israel. Wikipeadia Jewish Mafia to help the readers connect to references on that vast network of utterly evil and soul-less corruption.
First off, Jew is not a Race, it is any race, gender that has converted to the Judaic Religion. The long vanished Hebrew Race disappeared by 400AD and the existing new-age Jews are not a single race and especially not a Semetic Race. The only existing Semitic Races on planet earth at this time are Arabic and Ethopian. And what current Apartheid State pray tell demonizes the Arabic Race of people on a daily basis? Anyone demonizing the Arabic people would accurately be anti-Semitic. Ironic isn’t it.
I also noted in my original reply the irony of America’s First Black President destroying the US Bill of Rights which Black American’s have historically supported, marched, rioted and demonstrated to have enacted, all thrown under the bus by US President Obama signing the NDAA bill into LAW.
Yes Obama is Black which is probably a shock to you if you are as you said, ‘Jewish’ and other to Western nations citizens outside of America however what I found extremely ironic was President Obama signing into law the NDAA bill and what that law does to the long standing US Bill of Rights which has historically in America had a long standing positive effect on America’s black population and minority’s in America.
I realize other nations citizens wouldn’t necessarily be aware of the long running linkage between the US Bill of Rights and Black Americans. I pointed that out along with the irony that America’s first Black President signed the NDAA bill into law and in so doing destroyed the US Bill of Rights.
All explained and better now?
Seems like you want ownCloud. Same features as Dropbox but on your own machine. It´s a bit buggy sometimes but works great most of the time.
There is also GoodSync:
http://www.goodsync.com/
I’m not endorsing it – in fact I didn’t know it existed until 5 minutes ago. But it sure sounds like what Thom described.
Just what I was thinking. Didn’t they just launch a commercial service too?
I’d also like to recommend ownCloud. I can’t claim to be particularly experienced with Apache, but after only five minutes ownCloud was up and running on it and so far has worked beautifully.
There are some downsides though. The ‘A’ in ADSL means even a fast connection is likely to have slow upload speeds (which translate to slow download speeds when using ownCloud).
Another problem with local Internet storage is that it may not be a great idea for backups (better to store these remotely). A backup tool that locally encrypts before uploading to Google Drive would be good. Does anyone know the right tools for this?
You could store files in a small-ish TrueCrypt volume. You’d have to dismount the volume before it would sync, though (obviously).
Interesting.. if this is equivalent to SpiderOak pointing back at my own server then definately worth looking at. Have to see how the client behaves once the back end is setup I guess.
Thanks for the idea. PcLinuxOS has it in the Synaptic Software Manager. Looks like it’s time to dig out an old pc out of the closet and experiment!
http://owncloud.org/
I’m just setting up my own server with it so I don’t have to use Google Music.
The file hosting is nice too.
Also, they’re going to be adding a bunch of features really soon!
http://blog.karlitschek.de/2012/04/what-weekend.html
is what prevents my trusting google as much as I would like. No, my files are not going there at all.
Pedro.
A cheap network attachable device with exapndable storage that could replace dropbox… What about Raspberry Pi?
This whole idea of running your own private dropbox sounds like a really good way for an OSS developer to do something that even non-technical users could get on board with AND make a little money (without being seen as a leech):
1. Make some nice OSS software that runs on the Raspberry Pi that essentially emulates what dropbox does. Write a client for windows/OSX/whatever for it. Make it all OSS. Hell, this probably already exists more or less – just needs proper packaging and simplification.
2. Resell Raspberry Pi’s pre-configured with a big SD card and a nice enclosure to just plug into your home network and go – charge a nice little premium over cost (maybe +$25 or something)
The OSS crowd can just DIY – but you could sell the hardware to the I-just-want-to-plug-it-in-and-have-it-work crowd and make a little money.
Everyone is happy.
…and you can take the device with you on longer trips, eliminating the need for web access altogether.
Pretty nifty. Beats iDropDriveSkyBox already.
The more I think about it the more it makes sense to me.
Its perfect for OSS – because you could have one team of developers concentrate on the device software and the APIs exclusively. Each “client” (Linux, Windows, OSX, Android, iOS, etc.) could be a separate dev team – its all very orthagonal and clean, everyone could work fairly independently of each other and optimize for the target platform extensively.
Some (or all) of the money generated by hardware sales could be used to fund bounties or reward top contributors or whatever. The point is that instead of developers seeing their work pilfered by a hardware manufacturer they could actually get into the game themselves and make at least a little money.
I also found this:
http://solidworksbootcamp.com/raspberry-pi-board-b-enclosure/
I think it is just a concept housing, but it sure looks nice… Someone is bound to start making and selling these kinds of things soon.
There is so much ridiculous naivete in replies, but I’m going to single out yours.
A cheap NAS is no where near DropBox and it would be difficult to make it that way even with a layer of easy-to-install-and-configure software on top. If you think that it’s comparable you don’t understand DropBox and shouldn’t be commenting.
If security is a concern, don’t use DropBox. Instead use a service that does the encryption client side, e.g. SpiderOak, Wuala, etc.
ownCloud is good, of course, but not everyone can or will self host.
I realize dropbox has lots of features that would be difficult to next-to-impossible to replicate. I know what dropbox does.
The point is if you reduce it down to “have a local folder on your device (whatever device it may be) that is automatically synchronized with a central storage location (the NAS)”, well then it is rather simple.
The rest is just additional features – some people will care about certain of those missing features, some won’t. But the central function of the software is folder synchronization – everything else is just noise.
That is how software development works – you start with the basics, build a good foundation, and grow the features set from there. If you don’t understand that maybe you shouldn’t be commenting.
This is for people who ONLY want to self host – that is the entire point… And if ownCloud is good, why couldn’t it potentially be used on a Raspberry Pi? Im not saying it wouldn’t be some work – the point though is to have a plug-and-play piece of hardware, not to recreate the entire featureset of dropbox.
The killer feature of dropbox is that is just fricken works. THAT is what you need to replicate, not the entire feature set. It didn’t start out as a swiss army knife you know – originally it was pretty much just folder sync…
Edited 2012-04-24 19:15 UTC
Just to drive it home… read this – it perfectly illustrates my point:
http://www.theserverside.com/discussions/thread.tss?thread_id=61647
(Quote from a post describing why dropbox is so popular)
Couldn’t have put it better…
To get the data redundancy and such, you’d likely need a drop-pi module that lets’ it talk to S3 or similar hosted storage providers. Your little cloud needs a cloud-daddy or you may as well just carry a USB for all the benefit your gaining.
Mind you, at that point the question becomes; why are you not simply using the storage provider’s client app instead of your drop-pi intermediary hardware.
For big budgets, one could also look at SpiderOak’s appliance which is pretty much what you are trying to recreate.
Still, it’s an interesting idea. The first thought when looking at Dropbox was “if they had an appliance that moved this thing inside my own network..”.
For a home user that just wants to get to their files and maybe share them with others? I don’t think data redundancy even makes the top 20 for needed features. Besides, redundancy is sort of already built in – every device that is synced has a copy of the data. They will likely have a home computer – they setup it up to sync with the device and they have redundancy – not automatic recovery of course, but still.
The benefit (as opposed to a USB stick) is that you can access the files remotely (and you can give others access to those files as well). Its folder sync – that’s all it really needs to be at first.
There is of course nothing really keeping you from implementing such a feature. You could pretty easily store a copy in S3, even encrypted. I just don’t think it is something that most people would actually care much about.
Edited 2012-04-25 16:49 UTC
A Raspberry Pi seems huge overkill for network attached storage, plus it is not yet available for the masses. I’d take a simple Arduino board with uIP, even cheaper than a Pi and taking even less energy.
Maybe… I would be cheaper certainly. Personally I think what people would want is something that plugs into their network (i.e. has an ethernet jack) and automatically deals with their router (using uPNP). Maybe even wirelessly…
A Arduino with uIP does SLIP over the serial port doesn’t it? I don’t think that would be considered “plug and play” – you would have to connect it to a computer and then do all kinds of stuff to get it to play nicely with the computers firewall.
Also, it is really slow compared to a Raspberry Pi, like a few orders of magnitude slower. That and the only mass storage solution I know of for it uses SD Cards (using a shield) – but it only handles FAT16. On a Raspberry Pi you can use EXT2 or at least FAT32. You need long file name support at the least.
Overkill, really? I though it would be a bit underpowered. And lacking connectivity (no SATA, only USB 2). I guess you’ll recoil in horror to learn my NAS is an x86 PC (although not a super powerful one – AMD E350 mini ITX board).
Edited 2012-04-25 22:33 UTC
Pogoplug on sale for cheaper ($25 or less) with gigabit and 4 usb ports. Install arch linux arm, install owncloud and be on your way.
I had never heard of pogoplug… That does look interesting to be honest. The marketing material for it makes it sound like it already offers remote storage built in – does it do synchronization out of the box? Is it OSS? I can’t tell from the website…
There are some glaring problems with this though.
For one, I doubt your residential DSL has anywhere near the reliability that Google and Dropbox can offer.
Secondly, unless you set up a local SAN (and really,few people want to do that) your single NAS device is a single point of failure.
I’m not saying this kind of solution isn’t useful, i’m sure it is, but it’s not a replacement for DropBox/SkyDrive/etc.
Hm,i don´t know. I also wouldnt store my stuff online. The only use i can see is as a share accross multiple devices and locations but then again, i always have a usb stick with me or the stuff on my smartphone where i can access it via wlan, bluetooth, cable, whatever.
As Thom said, im also old fashioned. Im afraid that when i store some funny text i found somewhere i might get arrested when i have to go to Timbuktu for a business trip.
And to encrypt all data and obfuscate everything before i store it is just too complicated. And besides, i have a lot to do with high performance computing and i know that in the next few months the unbrutable algo will become obsolete. Especially with the power the most companys have at hand.
Realistically i really doubt that will happen now and i dont think i might be interesting to any goverments. But then again: what wont hurt you now, might bite your a$$ in the future.
What about sshfs & encfs? I’m using the combination of sshfs & encfs and some web space where I have ssh access.
So the data is encrypted on the client and should be secure (unless there is a severe bug in encfs) and I don’t need any tools to access the data, just mount it.
Not good for high performance but very simple to use.
Ehh? Just about every archiver in existance can encrypt your files. All you need to do is to remember ONE password. I can’t see how that can be ‘too complicated’.
I have no problem with having my own creations backed up (encrypted) on a ‘cloud drive’. Sure if I had something I didn’t want CIA to know about then no, I wouldn’t (and in this day and age I can’t blame people who do really), but my own programs/graphics/etc, no problem. I just don’t think Google or CIA is interested in stealing my creative works.
I continously backup my personal data on physical storage so putting it on a ‘cloud drive’ is just another safety measure with the added bonus of it being accessable from anywhere as long as I can get an internet connection.
Yes, encrypting your files is easy, but some of the cloud functionality is about syncing calendars, reminders, photos, or game progress between devices. There’s no archiver app, and there are not even files, just implicit streams of data.
It’s not necessarily true that only criminals should be concerned. People have lost their jobs over a picture of them drinking beer, or as of very recently, over in-vitro fertilization. You have no idea what innocuous comment or act may trigger hatred in someone around you who has a fairly different idea about how you should live your life. Moral standards change over time, and vary vasty from region to region. Not to mention your intentions could be misunderstood or taken out of context, and boom, all of a sudden you’re a villain.
As interesting as I find the news about Google Drive, I’m much more intrigued by the five things Thom has done that would land him jail time in the US.
Gentlemen, start your speculating in *three*, *two*, *one*, …
It’s nothing exciting. I’m rather boring and law-abiding, actually.
That’s all the more suspect :dicapriosquint:
You can’t get rid of speculation that quickly. Have you seen American Movies made about your country in the last ten years?
if we take the argumentats of the austrian government (i’m from austria) as an example you are at least:
* a terrorist
* a child-molester
* killing thousands of people every day with your homemade drugs
and all that just because you appreciate your privacy…
Here! $50 bucks say it involves a gang of scout girls, a bang of unicorns and a ton of red paint..! ><
You forgot Fiona Apple. How about this:
Forcing a gang of scout girls to sing Fiona Apple songs until unicorns turned red.
1. Forcing kids
2. copyright violation
3. torturing animals
4. count that twice: torturing endangered species
5. organized crime (or do you know another way to obtain unicorns?)
Dunno i don’t distrust Google
Edited 2012-04-24 19:58 UTC
Google Drive does have some nifty features few other solutions have, and certainly no OSS has: image recognition (you can type “eiffel tower” and Google will find the pictures of the Eiffel tower you put in Drive, even if they are not tagged) and text recognition (if you have a scan of a document, Google scans its content and makes it searchable).
OK, that last example is even more creepy. But, hey, it is useful, and nobody can really do it as efficiently as big companies with good coders and extensive material to test their recognition algorithms against.
Security of my private data is the main reason I don’t use any of these services.
I even removed all my photos on-line, when G+ started asked to access them.
Interesting how the terms of service of Google Drive and Dropbox differ, still expressing many similarities. One may say that Dropbox’s requirements to an agreement look “less strict”, but when you read between the lines, it’s scary after all.
Yes, I know: Whenever something is “for free”, it means someone else will pay for it. Common methods are advertising and collaborations (e. g. selling data in some ways). And it’s worth keeping in mind that it is possible that a “for free” offer turns into some “for fee” concept; this maybe can be considered a kind of “vendor lock-in”.
Google Drive:
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.
Dropbox:
We may need your permission to do things you ask us to do with your stuff, for example, hosting your files, or sharing them at your direction. This includes product features visible to you, for example, image thumbnails or document previews. It also includes design choices we make to technically administer our Services, for example, how we redundantly backup data to keep it safe. You give us the permissions we need to do those things solely to provide the Services. This permission also extends to trusted third parties we work with to provide the Services, for example Amazon, which provides our storage space (again, only to provide the Services).
I wonder how this relates to possible corporate use of those services…
Wow, the dropbox one is incredibly vague, pretty much amounting to “we may need to to…some..stuff…with the things you upload and you give us permission to do whatever that…stuff…is.”.
I have a QNAP NAS box. I can get to it anywhere. I don’t even need a static IP to do it.
http://www.mycloudnas.com/
I own the box. I own the drives. The content is mine.
My total investment in this thing is ~$500, and I have 2TB of storage. At $50/month/TB, it’s paid for itself in 5 months. Silly.
As for off-site storage, I have a safe deposit box for that.
The main problem to host your own files, I think, is that most of us have DSL connections: correct download speeds, but really crappy upload speed. I think a fiber connection is necessary to get an equivalent comfort to Google/Dropbox/iCloud/etc.
It really depends on your usage case then. I have no interest in accessing my files from outside (can’t from the company LAN, and don’t have a smartphone), I really see the benefit of such services as a data safety system for these files I wouldn’t bear to lose, with professional-grade redundancy and back-up strategy.
At the moment I store everything locally on a Qnap as well, and because I’m dreading the eventual demise of the hard drive I mirror it once a week on the machine I used to use as a server (which itself has a RAID-1). But it’s not really a satisfying solution either, if only because of the fact that both computers sit in the same room ‘^^
I guess an alternative to a payed-for service in my case would be a backup buddy that I know I can trust, with a similar NAS, and setup a cron/rsync/ssh job to mirror my data on his box every night (and his data on my NAS reciprocally). Possibly with a version-control layer somewhere to avoid data loss due to “operator error”.
The QNAP’s have the remove mirror thing built-in.
You could also use a commercial off-site backup quite nicely, and I’m not sure there’s any reason not to.
For what it’s worth, my external drive isn’t the only thing stored in the safe deposit box at the bank, so there’s always that.
I did look into Symform; sadly their unlimited storage option is vastly more expensive for a QNAP than the standard end-user license – though at $50 per month ( http://www.symform.com/our-solutions/pricing/ ) it beats Google’s 1TB any time – which bugs me as I’m the sole user of the NAS (well, me and the wife). Also I heard that the service puts quite a strain on the NAS in terms of bandwidth, disk thrashing and CPU usage, and I’m not sure I like that.
Ultimately though, the real problem is I couldn’t get the damn thing to work when I tried to set up the 200GB free storage. And I got tired of trying to troubleshoot it after an hour of two, honestly.
HDD in the bank is good of course, but there again you need the discipline of keeping your off-site backup up-to-date manually. So two HDDs, and a weekly trip to the vault. I’m way to lazy to keep that up.
Edited 2012-04-25 18:10 UTC
Otherwise, an excellent alternative would be SpiderOak, the only one to do privacy right: all is encoded on your side.
https://spideroak.com/
And they like open-source: https://spideroak.com/code
Otherwise, I think you get it slightly wrong, Thom: professional paranoids like John Young, the guy who runs http://cryptome.org/, or security experts like Bruce Schneier ( http://www.schneier.com/ ) would tell you that even if the US laws where more lenient, even if Google was doing it fully as a non-profit, in fact even if you could find a safe country where to store your files with an organisation with high moral standards, it doesn’t matter: never trust anybody to take care of your own security.
So yeah, you almost made the point by telling people to host their files themselves. But I will gladly use Google Drive, and you should too. They are just a convenient place to put your encrypted sensitive files.
+1 for SpiderOak.
They seem to be trustworthy, their blog entries are interesting and give off a sense of honesty… and unless they’re lying through their teeth, the zero-knowledge client-side encryption is exactly what you want.
Yes, you have more control on a home server, but how much redundancy does that offer you?
This. Even if your data is on a server hosted by a company you trust, in a country you trust, there’s no guarantee that server isn’t going to get hacked. In other words, whether your sensitive data is on your local hard drive or on a server somewhere else, it BETTER be encrypted and/or at least password protected. In that case, it doesn’t really matter WHERE you store it.
As for setting up your own storage solution, that’s all fine and good, until a fire or tornado comes along and renders your storage solution useless. As for me, there is some data that I absolutely cannot afford to lose, so I want to have at least a backup copy ‘off site’ somewhere. I would NEVER store my primary copy in the cloud though.
In regard to my data and privacy, I don’t think that either Google or the government would be interested in things such as my fitness routines, grocery lists, code snippets, etc. The only thing remotely ‘juicy’ is my journal, which is password protected. And even if it were decrypted by someone, and they were able to figure out which app they needed to read it, there’s not anything in there that’s going to get me fired, or in trouble with the law.
Basically, my point is this… if data that you absolutely need to keep secret is not secure enough so you could put it on a server owned by your worst enemy, it’s probably not secure enough.
That has to be the quote of the week. +100!
Yeah! That’s a great idea – until that day some genius found out a way to factor large primes (but maybe were toast that day anyway)
“some genius will eventually” is already addressed by the quote.
Security is a moving target; an ongoing process. It’s not an option in the settings or magic paint you apply once and forget.
The quote is a moving target; “if your data can not be stored this way it’s not safe enough to store anywhere”. There is nothing in that idea which refers to a static state of affairs.
Your data will naturally move from “safe enough” to “not safe enough” as tech and cryptography continue to evolve. Based on the quote, that is when you update your strategy too move your data from “not safe enough” back to “safe enough”. I don’t think someone neglecting there stored data invalidates the quote at all.
The quote also does not suggest one habitually store data with one’s enemy. It suggests that if the data is not safe enough to consider doing this then it’s not safe enough to be stored anywhere. In other words, wherever you store your data, make it safe enough that your worst enemy could have direct access to it and still not get in.
If it doesn’t offer strong encryption for stored data out of the box – it’s totally useless and uncompetitive.
“I can think of 5 things I’ve done which are completely normal and acceptable here, but would net me a hefty prison sentence in the US. “
Let’s see, things that get you a “hefty” prison sentence in the U.S. would be… murder, rape, child pornography, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon etc… So which of these things that you have done 5 times,do the Netherlands consider “perfectly normal and acceptable” ??
Don’t forget ‘terrorism’ which seems to be a blanket accusation these days which results in them being able to detain you indefinately without even charging you.
Also I read of a American guy who faced prison time for obscene manga images (comic book drawings) where a drawn character was supposedly under-age (?) and was showing nudity. He was apprehended in Canada though iirc.
Don’t feed the trolls. He can’t be oblivious to being busted on drugs charges for taking a joint to a party and other innocuous indiscretions used to incarcerate otherwise law abiding citizens.
Edited 2012-04-24 22:55 UTC
Buggery, maybe?
Or perhaps even just the usual disconnect of reality vs. US age of consent laws, and such? (like, pics of your past, past darling; and there seem to be curious double standards with that one, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_Distric… )
Perhaps he did the same thing 5 times, making him a repeat offender.
His Apple hatred makes him an economic terrorist to the US.
Running your own internet storage is beyond the scope of this book.
>> “why on earth would you entrust your files to a company – any company – whose sole interest is extracting money from you, and who, to boot, is subject to crazy American laws?”
As opposed to all the companies who just want to bring you free milk and cookies?
Okay, on a serious note, the amount of storage and the pricing seems pretty good. I think Google Drive will appeal to people who want on-line storage and who recognize the Google brand and might not be aware of solutions like Dropbox or One. In other words, I think this service will appeal to less technical people who are just starting to learn about services like iCloud.
I find it weird so many people are worried about Google searching through their files. That is what encryption is for.
There is no mention of encryption on Google Drive, or at least I could not find any.
Google Drive currently uses the same encryptoin as DropBox; encrypt it yourself before saving to your gdrive/dropbox.
using Dropbox to host Truecrypt volumes seems to be a popular method
That is a great tip, funny that I use both and yet did not think of doing that
Well, there are companies that actually care about their customers, usually (but not always) small, privately held companies. It’s almost never large, public multi-national corporations.
If you want online storage with client-side encryption you might be interested in Wuala:
https://www.wuala.com/en/learn/technology
The datacenters are located in Switzerland, Germany and France.
The downside: if you forget your password you can’t recover it.
I also vote for Wuala.
Well, if you state it like “if you forget the password nobody can recover it”, I almost don’t see it as a downside
as long as the client is not open source, there is no garantie that there is no backdoor 🙁
The vast majority of people in the world can barely use a computer. To them, this type of service is great news. You may not like it but it will be used and maybe abused by people.
There’s no particular reason why anyone should have more trust in someone else’s server just because it’s running open source. The relevant characteristic is that it is someone else’s server. Access to the code is totally irrelevant for 99% of the human race.
In addition, anything that relies on setting up and configuring your own software on a remote machine stands no chance of becoming widely accepted. It’s just too difficult. If it was easy, we’d see a zillion people running their blogs on places like Linode instead of using Blogger and Tumblr. Unless it is at least as easy as Dropbox, it is a nonstarter.
And, sorry, but I am nowhere near paranoid enough to want to endure the hassle of carrying around a USB stick.
If an hardware manufactor uses the software, he will inspect the source and do the basic setup.
At least if you’re running Linux you could use ecryptfs to encrypt your content stored on the G-Drive.
But of course there is always the other security issue: https://xkcd.com/538/
This comment assumes the following as background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_multi-party_computation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_password
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Fault_Tolerance
Now. You want an unbreakable remote storage? You need some parts.
1, You need 3+ computers. Grab some Rasberry Pi’s, secure them in the usual manner. For better security, each of them should run a different OS (different versions of Linux don’t count, Linux + BSD is possibly OK). These computers will store your data via a secret sharing scheme with a threshold. If the adversary breaks in to more servers than the threshold, they can discover the files. Hence the OS diversity. The client will need to access these servers in turn in order to get the files. Note that you need at least 3 computers so that 1/3 of them can fail in any arbitrary manner, and this puts an upper limit on the threshold for secret sharing.
2, You need a One-Time Password mechanism. There are several sites that sell OTP generators. Trick is, I don’t know what algorithm they use. The security of this system is entirely in the quality of the RNG used. This authentication system can be tricked if someone steals your OTP generator or if someone can predict the next password given the current one. OTP systems work by the server storing the seed and running the generator, so in order to make the auth system work securely, SMPC is required.
If you don’t like that version of 2, you can try:
2, You need a Zero-Knowledge proof system that asserts your client knows something without telling the server what that thing is. Hamiltonian Circuit looks fun, if the graph is never transmitted.
3, you need some way of communicating securely. The bullet-proof version is One-Time Pad. I won’t say another word about the infeasibility of that. Most internet traffic uses TLS, and if this is used, all computers should have certs from a trusted authority. Alternatively, you can use Diffie-Helman Key Exchange to get a symmetric key, and use AES or whatever.
There’s also SparkleShare if you don’t need the stuff to be stored encrypted.
http://sparkleshare.org/
It’s basically an open-source clone of the Dropbox client that relies on git for the server and SSH for the transport encryption and public-key authentication.
dont tell the world about hfs http file server thom. it is our little secret. and it is for super nerds only. we’ll let you in just this once
http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/
Notice how the US of America is in the news, not the feaux-European wanna be countries, because we’re CRAZZZZY!
No really, because I know if I give YOU money, YOU will keep your site going. If I give THEM money, THEY will keep my files stored. Same concept, different files. Very. Simple.
Also, Thom, I’ve not commented much, but I visit the site almost every day. I’ve noticed a distaste for the US lately. If you aren’t from the USA, that pretty much means you’re under bought and paid for news media outlets that’s telling the world to hate us. It’s the best way to knock us off our high horse, except it won’t work when we blow a hole in the middle east and everyone’s like “OH US OF AMERICA WAS ON THEIR HORSE ALL ALONG!” (oh you got offended? *trollface*)
I’m so sick of people thinking we’re the bad guys when we’ve done so much for the world. Maybe we didn’t invent the automobile, but it was OUR MARKET that made it obvious how to make expensive things affordable for everyone, not just the elite. It was our people who discovered the automated clothing looms were on an “on/off” basis, which lead the way for computers. You’re welcome.
There is great disdain for the US for many reasons. Please don’t be another clueless American as usual.
All I know is people hate us for the same reason we’re told to hate ourselves. It stems from this ideology called “Critical Race Theory” where the white American is blamed for everything that’s gone wrong. I’ve never met so many people who hated themselves in my life, and the rest of the world is falling for it. I’m not clueless, you’re just brainwashed.
Ironically, you are doing Americans a disservice by portraying them as being unable to string together any logical thought into a well written argument.
lol holy cow you say “crazy american” and one responds within hours
Your rant is completely nuts. Thanks for proving Thom right.
All that the good folk in USA need is to let their gov and money men know that they are sick of being robbed and playing empire.
Return service men from abroad, close down the god knows how many bases around the planet and allow others some self determination for a change. Gee, people might even like you for it and thank you.
Back on topic, no way would I personally utilise any form of cloud storage. Look after my own data and not hand it off to a 3rd party. Yes uploads on modern net connections are crappy, such is life. Not that I am concerned with my data privacy (yawn) but more so the act of Gov freezing access to it as they did recently to many legit users of MegaUpload.
The small sliver of US Americans getting ridiculously rich off of the arms business wouldn’t like giving up their lifestyle. You think the people who started wars to give Exxon and Haliburton a free ride will back off if asked nicely?
There’s a substantial percentage of Americans who agree with you, but Occupy is the first time I’ve seen them really represented.
Just trying to get things righted, here, before there’s nothing left to do but go ex-pat and be your new neighbor.
Occupy is a poor attempt – people standing around (and getting paid to do so) while committing horrible acts of violence and assault (such as the reported rapes that have occurred) isn’t what I’d call a good example of anything.
Occupy is NOT representing us. We aren’t nasty people, they’re a union driven movement that’s taking everyone else along for the ride. It’s also global, if you didn’t notice, not a grassroots movement. I’m just sick of the media making us look bad, and now OSnews is jumping on the bandwagon. I respect people’s opinions, but I have no respect for people constantly attacking us via media outlets just because they BELIEVE things to be true, when they aren’t.
Yes, every country has it’s own issues, so please quit making us look like the jerks of the world. We went from “the last hope of mankind” to the butt of everyone’s joke in less than two generations. How hard is it to see the difference between hope and false hope? Not too hard if you stop listening to the media. Of course, I’ve said to stop listening to the media way before the media told you to stop listening to the media. But of course the media only said it when Occupy was built up in November. Hmmm, coincidence that the signs on occupy and the media’s message were the same? There goes individual thought. If I were in the media, I sure wouldn’t tell people to turn off the news (which would be my bread and butter). It’s nothing new for people to infiltrate media (look at Media Matters and how cozy they are with Occupy…that’s because THEY STARTED IT! And Fox News is the liars right? Occupied Wall Street Journal: started by Jed Brandt (look that mofo up if you wanna see who’s behind this as well, then follow the cookie crumbs to the facts).
All I’m saying is that when people get offended and they’re lefties, there’s this “oh you poor person let’s rectify it by being mean to everyone who doesn’t fit the bill” but when a right leaner or happy person comes along and says they’re offended it turns into this “you shouldn’t be offended bla bla bla” whatever. It gets old, and I’d just really appreciate it if Thom would PLEASE stop playing the game. We’re tired of it. By “we’re” I mean those of us who are sick of playing the liberal hate-game and would rather just be left alone. Calling our laws crazy is an invitation to ridicule from one like myself. We aren’t the ones who gave into monarchs for thousands of years, yet we’re the crazy ones…
Don’t start none, won’t be none.
It’s no-ones fault but your own. You’ve acted, and continue to act, like a jerk and a bully, meddling in everyone else’s business all over the world so don’t expect people not to be pissed at you.
consider why this is.. what’s your domestic and foreign policy been doing the last two generations?
When Jefferson sent ambassadors over to the Middle East and asked them “Why on Earth are you guys attacking our trade ships? We’ve done nothing to you!”
“Well,” they replied, “our holy book commands us to…”
THAT is why we’re over there. Get a grip on history.
“As long as this book (Quran) exists there will never be peace!” ~Winston Churchill.
Yeah, we haven’t done anything new the past two generations. War over there has been going on since Biblical times (not Quranic times, as the Quran came waaaay later in history). So before you guys start acting like we’re after false puppets, perhaps it would be wise to comprehend the games being played with us.
“book”, that’s an interesting word for “oil”
“interesting” that’s an interesting word for “falcon”.
Yeah, it’s that kind of smart…
Oh how quaint, we got ourselves a crusader here…
“Foreign policy” is a bit more encompassing than matters of the Middle East, BTW (but I understand how you might be blind to all else) – it includes also stuff like, say, Operation Condor or coup d’état as a way to make “friends” – or maybe even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_warfare and its background in general
~”The greatest” place which “made it obvious how to make expensive things affordable for everyone” …well that’s one way to call the present export of suffering, using “lesser” people in some places you don’t care about. And crazily disproportional usage of resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_welfare_and_ecological_foot…
Oh well, we’ll see… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Empire:_The_Breakdown_of_the…
But I’m sure you’ll just continue this nationalist delusion of being #1 by default.
Not even the worst delusion… in other place you write
while seemingly escaping from http://groups.google.com/group/net.religion/msg/30925fd2c9a20cbd? or http://groups.google.com/group/net.origins/browse_thread/thread/251…
(plus, apart from classic dystheism and gnosticism (too bad your Demiurge obviously proffered to brand gnostics as heretics and to suppress them… ;p ), another twist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltheism )
Edited 2012-05-02 00:19 UTC
Yes, every country has it’s own issues, BUT they are NOT pushed onto other nations.
The US has a policy of trying to be the champion of the world (“Playing Empire” as someone here put it). As long as this policy continues it will get praise for positive contributions and be blamed for negative contributions. Unfortunately the latter is the common case nowadays.
And yes, we (non US citizens) have the right to complain since we did NOT elect your government and don’t want your policies being forced on us.
The smart thing to do here is not ridicule Europeans for their past mistakes (Monarchies and what not) but rather LEARN from them and NOT REPEAT those mistakes.
Oh my gosh, as an American citizen, I couldn’t possibly agree any more with your first statement! I’m very sick and tired of this country spending trillions of USD for hundreds of thousands of troops abroad, all in the name of the general excuse of in the interest of “national security.” The world is a changing place with many other nations able to fend for themselves without the US acting as the world police. We can’t do it, can’t afford it and morally shouldn’t be doing it (IMO). I think there’s a Republican candidate right now who’s primary platform includes this: Ron Paul! Also, the Libertarian Party believes in this as well. Republicans and Democrats do not and balk at anybody who believes in this as someone who doesn’t live in reality. Sigh.
For one, I’m pretty sure you didn’t do crap for the world (and neither did I, but that’s not the point). What’s that “we” you’re speaking of?
Secondly, am I to understand that you actually approve of ACTA, SOPA, PIPA and the like? And that you approve of fining people for millions of dollars for sharing some copyrighted files?
Also, the fact that “you” have done so much for the world has nothing to do with what Tom is talking about. “You” could have saved the world three times over, you’re screwing it over right now. As we say in Dutch “resultaten uit het verleden bieden geen garantie voor de toekomst”.
This is also hypocritical of the universal thought. We’re to blame for everything, though we didn’t do anything?
Playing empire? That’s not what we are doing. We’re trying to keep things sane. This occupation of the middle east and other countries who want to blow us to bits is NOT occupation. Rome going into Mediterranean lands so they can have their “roman lake” is occupation. This is saving you from being blown off the earth. And I’m the one who can’t form logical thoughts? I’m just tired of arguing with idiots on the situation. Notice how each comment in regards to to what I said was met with insult. Yeah, good case you got there. If you aren’t living here, don’t judge us. We’re doing what we can. We know what OUR problems are, do you know what YOUR problems are in YOUR country? People like me are fighting a fight here that is NOTHING what people in other countries think it is.
We know who’s to blame for Europe falling, we know who’s to blame for the fall of the USA. It’s not the people, it’s a specific group (read up on Unions, they just love to have jobs without working and get paid for it, then infiltrate world gov’ts.)
So don’t come at me with “crazy American laws” because we set things straight. Our constitution is the greatest in the world because we give gov’t NO power. “Negative liberties” Obama calls it. No no, POSITIVE for the people, negative for the jerks who want power.
If you guys are so anti-America, get off the internet that we developed, stop driving our cars, stop using our guns and our other inventions, and for heavens sake quit using free market and you’ll be begging for our help!
As an American, I just laugh off most insults hurled towards the US and don’t let it get to me. Getting upset at someone’s opinion really doesn’t accomplish anything. Sure, the US has it’s problems – corrupted politicians taking handouts from companies, which in turns produces some really stupid laws. But, every country out there has it’s own share of problems (including laws that make no sense). Stupidity is not unique to one geographic location on this rock. There are dumb laws and regulations on everyone’s books. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion to their views and beliefs – getting upset due to their’s differing from your own doesn’t accomplish anything.
Just because you think you have a good reason doesn’t make it not an occupation. But hey, thanks for saving us from the non-existant WMD’s.
Then fix those problems and mind your own business.
Yep.
Uh, oh yeah. God help us if the underprivileged of the world gets an actual voice. Clearly we all need to trust big business to care for our well-being. Or not.
Union serve an important purpose as a counterweight to business interests.
Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.
Don’t feed the trolls! Or did I do that too? Damn…
My dad is stronger than your dad.
+1 for calling out Thom’s repetitive, lame, stereotypical, cheap US bashing
-1 for just reversing it: “No no. The Merkins are not dumber than the Europeans. It’s the other way round.”
depressing kindergarden here…
There are over 320 million of us, so we’re not ALL like roracle, but I’m afraid his feelings are quite common. Wire-tapping without warrants, scanning all e-mail, having ISPs turn over logs, and mining online data are all perfectly okay despite our clamor for smaller, less-intrusive government. We’re still better than Iran or China, mind you, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable to be afraid of the US government denying you a tourist visa for storing a copy of “Mein Kampf” on your Google Drive.
I have not seen Joindiaspora (https://joindiaspora.com/) mentioned yet, so now you have that also. It’s mainly focused of non-server setups, and may not solve the backup problem.
I want the service, backup encrypted to trusted friends computers (easily as the become online), with strong client side encryption.
Is this service still not available from any existing system???
(I have wanted this for years, but have been to lazy to participate or start any project)
Joindiaspora is just the name of one pod. The network itself is called Diaspora and it includes many pods (though Joindiaspora is the biggest, and one where primary developers release updates first).
For the pods lists for example see:
https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/wiki/Community-supported-pods
http://podupti.me
I’m waiting for Syncany, which looks veryveryvery promising ….
http://www.syncany.org
looks interesting, but since it is just a guy’s school project (on chunking arbitrary data across abritrary online storage) there can be no confidence in it being finished into a useful product
http://sparkleshare.org/
sparkleshare uses git as back-end. Is it possible to remove files, which are no longer needed and maybe use a lot of storage?
How can I delete history?
You can’t at the moment. We’re looking into solving this issue by perhaps using a other backend than Git.
http://sparkleshare.org/FAQ/
1) There’s also Yandex.Disk which offers the WebDAV compliant server and up to 10 Gb for free. Yes, it is a huge benefit to mount your remote storage as a filesystem by standard tools of your operating system.
2) Yes, it would be nice to have a cheap personal NAS. Even today we are able to turn our routers which support USB attached storage to such servers. And using WebDAV or FTP or any sort of revision control or other open and standartized protocols, it would be easily accessible from any reasonable device.
Plain WebDAV does not provide the possibility to sync. Thats the reason the WebDAV sync tool csync was extended to sync to owncloud.
Of course, there is special software and there are custom protocol extensions to sync efficiently. Although, at least WebDrive allows you to sync over plain WebDAV.
The choice of WebDAV protocol is good only due to the fact that every respectful OS has it’s own built-in tool to deal with WebDAV.
..Firstly, apologies if one or several already has..!(mentioned the pogoplug series that is)
–and a quickie aside to any OSnews admins reading: I like to have my settings when logged in to divide the comments into page rather than one long list – but this disable me from being able to do a quick ctrl-F to search down the list quickly for a mention of what I want to comment on/with…
A little “search comments” box on the comments page at the bottom of the article summary and above the comments would be grrreat, to me anyways–
Back on track:
Try https://pogoplug.com/devices (esp the newer Pogoplug Series 4 devices)
…although, if you want to roll your own (set-up wise), I’d go for one of the other forthcoming “Marvell Plug Computer 3.0 development platform based devices” ..e.g. the Smile Plug (or similar – should be more announced this summer, like maybe the Nimbus2000 etc)
and pair you’re diddly low power plug computer esp if it’s one those with esata and/or usb3 with a ‘cheap’ RAID/DAS box like this : http://uk.startech.com/HDD/Enclosures/4-Bay-External-Hard-Drive-Arr…
Pair with your plug computer to create a v configurable “NAS” or Internet accessible server (/personal cloud) or have the useful option of using as direct attached storage (DAS) on your other computers from time to time as you wish (an option that is presently quite rare on most commercial ‘one-box NASii’…..
good timeing on microsofts part they released the skydrive app, offer 2 more GB of space for free, offer 27 instad of 25 gb for the first upgrade for almost 1/3rd the cost… makes googles a bit lackluster
i hope to see skydrive with more integration to windows/windows phone/and open api’s for app usage
Isn’t Dropbox handing over data to governments and such, dependent on them decrypting it first?
So, if the data is already encrypted (prior to being uploaded in the first place) it can’t be decrypted by Dropbox and handing it over becomes a moot point.
You should have looked around a little before jumping to your keyboard in a frothing rant.
Dropbox and similar are indeed broken as long as the user’s data is not inaccessible by anyone but the user. If the storage provider can decrypt your data then the service is broken by design.
Others like Jungle Disk and SpiderOak do not suffer from this broken implementation though. They are not able to decrypt user data or recover user’s keys/password if it’s lost. Your data can not be decrypted and handed over to anyone without your knowledge; you have to be served with the warrant for your data.
As for why someone who’s had a USB in pocket since they broke the 128 meg barrier would consider outsourcing? Like any outsourcing question; I can’t do it on my own as well.
Backups.. I can’t do file block level de-duplicate data stored on redundant servers in co-located data centers for remotely the same cost as using hosted storage. This is where “can not loose” files are backed up in addition to my local Apple Timecapsule and equivalent Win/Deb automated backups.
Versioning.. I can’t do that either. Git is fantastic against relevant directory trees but it’s a heavily manual process. By default, I have that Git level of version tracking automated for any file in my hosted backup.
Synronization.. Automated sync between three or more locations including the version control and transferring only changed file blocks. This happens when it detects a file change not when I manually run a sync utility, wait for the “scanning for changes” then wait for transfers and success/fail reports.
I wouldn’t discount a hosted service simply because it’s a third party given modern encryption and options that are properly setup to lock even the service provider out of user’s data.
I know that a man’s praise in his own mouth stinks but this is my spare time project which should solve all of Tom’s challenges: http://www.peerdrive.org
It’s more than a sync service but actually a file system which provides versioned storage, peer-to-peer syncing, encryption and is open source. As usual documentation is lacking but so is time to work on it.
Right now it’s already quite usable, can be mounted through FUSE/Dokan, syncing works reliably and encryption was added just lately. But it’s certainly not ready for productive use, though.
I’ve installed some synching software before but usually, after around 6 months, maybe a year, I realize that my system needs upgrading and I end up spending an entire weekends patching, upgrading, and snapshotting systems that I dependended on. Also, when I picked up an iphone, the client for dropbox was already there. I didn’t have to wait for a client to be developed, or find a workaorund.
More and more, if I can make use of online services and lighten my own server dependency, I will do so. I have enough to do than worry about a file synching service when a more stable and accessible alternative is offered for free.
Privacy, on the other hand, is a separate matter. I have very few documents or emails that would compromise my privacy. Some of those documents, I leave on my system – I don’t worry about synching them. Others, I might encrypt before putting on dropbox. Keepass is a good example. Those files are encrypted and synched.
At the end of the day, we should stop thinking in such a binary system. There’s a whole slew of hybrid solutions out there – each with its own level of protection. Primary email and Bank account passwords are a *lot* harder to break than tertiary emails and test accounts that I create for beta web apps.
But the normally things work like this
1) Company X offers something for a fixed price per month.
2) You make the choice whether the said something is worth your money.
Also saying crazy laws is very nationalist.
Check out http://www.tonido.com – they offer software that will run on Windows, Linux, and I think Mac that does this for you.
I used it and it works pretty well. Of course you could also just set up a server and use FTP, SCP, or WebDav with it.
– Linus Torvalds
Unless you’ve actually used Dropbox, you don’t know how much more convenient it is compared to carrying around USB sticks. It’s a pain when you know you have a file on another computer, but you forgot to sync it to your USB drive. Essentially you can just forget about syncing, your files are just magically there wherever you need them (especially if you keep the PCs on all the time).
Of course you don’t store everything on there, and certainly nothing sensitive unless it’s encrypted. For example, I store all my passwords on Dropbox inside an encrypted kdb (KeePass) file.
And you still need to make backups of course, but it’s more likely that you local drive will fail.
Here’s a good comparison.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/24/2954960/google-drive-dropbox-skyd…
SkyDrive offers 7GB of free storage (best in class).
Because I would still be subjected to and vulnerable to my country’s god damn laws.
Yes… citizen of the USA here. Unfortunately… as I keep being reminded by the bullshit the state and federal governments keep turning out in the form of anti-freedom, anti-privacy, pro-corporation. Ridiculous drug laws (Salvia divinorum was made illegal in my state–just the latest in a line of 100% natural drugs to turn people legally into criminals, federal government is surely trying its hardest to make it one of the highest-scheduled drugs nationwide)… and not to mention all the online and computing crap that passes here that’s reported on here and on Slashdot seemingly all the time.
Good ol’ USA… land of the free, home of the… ah, who the f*ck am I kidding?
Edited 2012-04-26 02:35 UTC
Oh, and I forgot to mention… pro-religious-loons. You know, those “anti-drugs-if-they-make-you-feel-good kind of nutjobs. Those asshole Christians who get all these drug laws passed, because OMG! They’re a crime against some god! Oh no!
Setting up your own NAS storage solution is trivial, software wise there is FreeNAS, that installs from a CD or USB and it runs on just about anything, just go to Distrowatch and look for it.
In France, Our ISP free.fr provides personal NAS as part of the service. Included in the contract (€36/mo), You get unlimited ADSL or optical fiber depending on where you live, a FreeBox Revolution with 250Gb of storage, TV, unlimited landline, 2 hours of mobile call + 20 minutes of data, wifi hotspots, etc… The NAS is just part of the service.
Edit: Forgot to mention you also get ipv6, so you don’t have to setup a dynamic DNS for your NAS if you don’t have a fixed ipv4. And I should mention that ISP that don’t offer ipv6 are retarded.
Edited 2012-04-26 06:52 UTC
I’m a privacy nut like the next guy, but I’ll be using Google (my first venture into using online storage), because unlike every other provider I know Google isn’t going to GO BUST and lose all my data completely (nor need to sell it for money).
Open Source storage? You guys delusional? That’s no better than using Google – and your data will be shared on some shared SAN with other clients of the VPS provider.
I’ll be using Google Drive + this thing called 7ZIP that has been around for about a decade.
I might even use this as my 7ZIP password key: {6$Y`r>Q_Aa&TRRMr_rjBSh*~q9744&3)1}<Vy8O1p5K;!KZpVuo]W1$TB3.2wx
Google Storage + 7Zip AES encrypted container = I couldn’t give cr@p if my data was stored in North Korea!
Password keys work best when you don’t post them online.
Some people have suggested client-side encryption to work around the privacy issue.
But while eCryptFS, encfs, TrueCrypt and 7Zip-AES provide some protection (depending on the strength of your password), they also defeat one of the points of cloud storage. You cannot search or modify your stuff online or without downloading and decrypting everything first. So your new and shiny cloud storage turns into a dumb data sink.
And Google pushes this far more than their competition, using OCR on scanned PDFs for example, or allowing online collaborative editing of documents.
Solutions like privacy homomorphisms exist to address this problem, but they are not generally used yet and they come with major drawbacks attached.
It’s time to hit the 21st century and let floppies, USB sticks and external HDDs die.
I’ve been using cloud storage with rapidshare since 2007. I also encrypt all my data so the company has no way of knowing what I’m storing. Google is doing a great job with Google Drive. So far the pricing looks way too high. With Rapidshare I’m paying 4EUR p/month for unlimited storage and I’m using about 1TB and growing. For 1TB Google is asking $50!?
If I was Google I’d buy rapidshare. Great infrastructure and super high speeds. Even 1GB file comes in 5min-10min tops.
Also rapidshare has been around for 10 years now. It’s been complying with all sorts of laws. Other storage companies like megaupload have been coming and going, but rapidshare has stayed resilient. I give it a low likelihood of the company to disappear.
Why does everybody forget the plug computers that were *made* for this type of thing? Pogoplug, Sheevaplug, Dreamplug…
Though something I’ve been keeping an eye on is this: http://rhombus-tech.net/allwinner_a10/hacking_the_mele_a1000/
The Mele a1000. Powerful, cheap hardware that is potentially *more open* than the Raspberry Pi. Offers SATA, beter processor, more RAM, PSU & Case etc. $100 USD from Deal Extreme (free postage) but around $70 USD elsewhere (plus postage). Plus you could also use it as a media-center at the same time.
Other organizations who are not For Profit, want something else, that makes it much difficult.
Google free for 5 gigs, Then cost more seems like a balanced approach. 5 gigs is enough for average Joe to transfer stuff, and back up things.
Why not do it yourself. Because most people do not want or don’t know how to maintain a good data infrastructure.
Google Drive, the data is on redundant disks, with some sort of backup, with systems with UPS and massive surge protection. The do it yourself is a box under your desk plugged right into your wall, that is on the same breaker as your hair dryer. One one large Disk.
With your home internet company where you better not power off or your IP Address will change, and hoping that you are using a secure method of sharing the files… Oh by the way if you are on someone else PC I hope you have a way of connecting to that data too. They may not have SSH installed.
I have a file server at home that I make available over an OpenVPN network that I connect to my laptops with.
It’s private. It isn’t useful for sharing with others (other that family members – sometimes.)
For the kinds of small files I might (rarely) need during the day (a child’s vaccination record, a PDF of some document, etc.) it works OK.
It’s my Pretty Good Cloud Storage – even on the banana republic of residential networking that is US/AT&T DSL infrastructure.
I wouldn’t trust a 3rd party file cloud/file store except for data that was not critical to me, not replicated elsewhere, and not needed for periods of time more than a week or so.
My oldest son thinks I’m nuts.
Ah, OS News, you really are the O’Reilly Factor of tech journalism; you do not inform at all, but you do an excellent job of entertaining. When I looked at the main page and saw 130 comments on something as profoundly insignificant as the launch of yet another cloud storage service, I new exactly what to expect. And Thom’s write-up did not disappoint.
I can’t wait to tear into the comments. I’m expecting glorious ignorance, frequent factual errors and rampant nationalism. I can’t wait.
Even given my previous post, I will say, the write-up does contain a comment that I agree with.
I also don’t make heavy use of Cloud storage services; not as much for privacy reasons – tho I am concerned about that – but because I don’t have reliable access to the internet. I live in Atlanta; I don’t have 3G reception on the subway, I don’t have reliable 3G reception down-town, and I definitely don’t have reliable 3G reception inside buildings. I’m a student at GSU, and the GSU campus network isn’t particularly reliable either. Because of all of this, a service backed by cloud storage is a service that I won’t have access to a pretty good chunk of the time.
Because of this, the number of vendors that are trying to push cloud-backed services troubles me; I’m particularly worried about Google pushing cloud-backed music and storage services, as I think it might not be too much longer before this means that I can no longer use my Android phone to play media without an internet connection — which will mean that I won’t be able to use it to play media most of the time.
Final fun fact; I taught a class (as a GTA) this semester. It was a 1000-level “basics of computers” course. When I covered cloud services, I mentioned the potential problems with them — specifically, that your cloud storage provider had access to whatever you uploaded, and that law-enforcement could access anything you uploaded with a simple subpoena to your service provider. They thought I was a cook, and they did not believe me.
Edited 2012-04-26 20:47 UTC
“I live in a country with well-developed personal freedoms…”
So having the government spend 52% of your money (via income tax) is your idea of personal freedom? The highest bracket was at an astounding 72% not that long ago…and this doesn’t include all the other wonderful taxes in the Netherlands, many of which, unfortunately, have been mimicked in the U.S.
http://www.echofs.com looks very interesting. You could always encrypt your data on your side, as it’s simply a webdav drive.
Thom would be the only geek i know of that hasn’t got any panic call starting with..
“My external drive crashed and now all my photos, porn and music files from the last three years are gone!!1!”
As a techie I’m then supposed to press the magic button, that non techies assumes exists and is hidden on all devices ever made, that magically fixes the drive.
I agree about the privacy matters, but I’ll recommend cloud storage services to ppl just to dodge panic calls like the one above. Only after a total crash scenario ppl are ready to listen to reasons to buy at least a proper NAS with RAID5 or RAID1. Before total crash they escape mentally to their happy place as soon as i start my redundancy speech.