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Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

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Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#21

Post by vertex-four »

fiatjaf wrote: post #3
fiatjaf wrote: post #2

What is it? There's no explanation of what it is in the website, although there is a whitepaper, documentation, a tutorial and a description of the protocol. From the whitepaper Abstract: "A peer-to-peer cloud storage network implementing client-side encryption would allow users to transfer and share data without reliance on a third party storage provider. The removal of central controls would mitigate most tradition…

Somewhat related: why every project out there that wants to appear as serious has to publish a "whitepaper", which is basically any gibberish you want in a PDF format? (Not saying ORC is gibberish at all, but I do have seem the most simple and stupid ideas written in tech projects whitepapers over the last years.) Why can't a project write all it wants in HTML pages, with links, clickable topics, separated pages, ima…

Because of the Bitcoin whitepaper, its prominence in the Bitcoin community (it's almost a Constitution), and people wanting to replicate that.

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#22

Post by trevor-e »

wyldfire wrote: post #10
philippnagel wrote: post #4

Interesting, does anyone know how this is related to storj.io?

IIUC, this was a fork of storj created by a recently-former maintainer [1]. Strikes me as a great time to liquidate your SJCX (I just did). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...

Yikes, there are a lot of grievances being aired in that thread. To clear up any confusion:

  Yes, I have forked my work on Storj and have given it to 
  Counterpoint to help raise some money to continue to develop 
  it. Please note that this project is not a competitor to 
  Storj as it is fully distributed, there is no business model 
  (because there are no bridges), and it is managed by a 501c3 
  organization.
  Edit: see https://orc.network

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#25

Post by mirimir »

simcop2387 wrote: post #23

Based on what I'm reading here, it looks a lot like freenet. Does orc give any kind of privacy promises like it?

Yes, functionally it's like Freenet. But it's all done through Tor onion services, so participants can be at least somewhat anonymous. With Freenet, there is no anonymity, only "plausible deniability". Which in practice has ended up being pretty worthless by itself. Consider that guy in Philadelphia, who's rotting in prison for refusing to provide his FDE password. He claims to have forgotten it, but that's not working out so well.

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#26

Post by vgb2k11 »

woodandsteel wrote: post #20

The web page says files are encrypted and then split into chunks that are stored around the network, and then reassembled when you want to access your file. That sounds like no one could alter your file. The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages." Does this means files can't be lost, as long as y…

>The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages."

>Does this means files can't be lost, as long as you keep paying your bill?

The white-paper mentions:

>"ORC will soon implement client-side Reed-Solomon erasure coding (Plank (1996)). Erasure coding algorithms break a file into k shards, and programmatically create m parity shards, giving a total of k + m = n shards".

So at first glance its seems like the usenet parchive/PAR2 redundancy methodology, but storing the parity shards locally (client side). Well that's my interpretation of this section of the white-paper anyways.

So in short: it certainly doesn't mean that the files "can't be lost", but it means the owner of the files can rebuild the files using parity shards from client side in that case that network outages affect file availability.

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#27

Post by kyledrake »

trevor-e wrote: post #22
wyldfire wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIUC, this was a fork of storj created by a recently-former maintainer [1]. Strikes me as a great time to liquidate your SJCX (I just did). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...

Yikes, there are a lot of grievances being aired in that thread. To clear up any confusion: Yes, I have forked my work on Storj and have given it to Counterpoint to help raise some money to continue to develop it. Please note that this project is not a competitor to Storj as it is fully distributed, there is no business model (because there are no bridges), and it is managed by a 501c3 organization. Edit: see https:/…

I don't know the Storj project or this situation well, but the timeline of events I've gathered from reading those reddit comments is:

- You acquired some "pre-mine" tokens (apparently with no vesting)

- You pre-sold those tokens before the fundraiser

- You quit the company shortly after

- You then proceeded to slander the company on Reddit (something something "radical transparency")

- You then forked the company's project and started calling it your own. But it's not "competing" because you're using a 501c3 tied to an unrelated hackerspace in Georgia as an umbrella for its fundraising (possibly risking its tax-exempt status).

I think this is a fair question to ask given the circumstances: Is your goal here to create a great open source project, or to damage Storj?

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#28

Post by herbst »

This sounds interesting and got me thinking, i have some high bandwidth storage just sitting around. However i the machine runs on a skylake pentium and docker seems overkill. Is there anything like this that works without docker?

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#29

Post by sp0rkyd0rky »

herbst wrote: post #28

This sounds interesting and got me thinking, i have some high bandwidth storage just sitting around. However i the machine runs on a skylake pentium and docker seems overkill. Is there anything like this that works without docker?

It's not required to run in docker, just there for ease of setup. Check out https://orcproject.github.io/orc/tutorial-install.html

Re: Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

#30

Post by sp0rkyd0rky »

kyledrake wrote: post #27
trevor-e wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, there are a lot of grievances being aired in that thread. To clear up any confusion: Yes, I have forked my work on Storj and have given it to Counterpoint to help raise some money to continue to develop it. Please note that this project is not a competitor to Storj as it is fully distributed, there is no business model (because there are no bridges), and it is managed by a 501c3 organization. Edit: see https:/…

I don't know the Storj project or this situation well, but the timeline of events I've gathered from reading those reddit comments is: - You acquired some "pre-mine" tokens (apparently with no vesting) - You pre-sold those tokens before the fundraiser - You quit the company shortly after - You then proceeded to slander the company on Reddit (something something "radical transparency") - You then forked the company's…

Believe me, I understand how this looks. To answer your questions:

- Yes, early storj employees were given tokens on a schedule related to achieving certain milestones

- Yes, when I felt it was appropriate for my own future, I sold those tokens

- Yes, not long after I sold, I (and others) left

- No, my intent was not to slander, but simply to explain why I have disappeared from the community and why core development has slowed

- Yes I forked a free software project and our hackerspace is providing what's called a "comprehensive sponsorship" which in no way risks 501c3 status

My goal has always been to create a great project and never to harm Storj Labs. Though, admittedly, given the circumstances I understand how it might appear that way. Because of that, can we not turn this thread into what happened on Reddit?

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