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Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

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Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#131

Post by hasenj »

twiss wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I made this. It has bulk import from Google Docs ;) thanks to a feature request from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15478479

Opening pubished documents seems to take a relatively long time?

Example, page with no content except "This is a test" takes over 3 seconds to load.

https://www.airbornos.com/pub#?f=c8d42cd38bfc2c26/87261eeee8...

Even without any browser involved, just curling it takes 1.5 seconds on my mac

    time curl "https://airborn-usercontent.herokuapp.com/pub#?f=c8d42cd38bfc2c26/87261eeee80726bf6eb9ed886ce7517c7435b1c267e4f50b48eae9582a6ef4c8"
    (....)
    real	0m1.570s

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#132

Post by StanislavPetrov »

mark242 wrote: post #117
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #112

The whole idea of "cloud computing" is innately terrible on virtually every level. Those willing to entrust their data and the integrity of their data to any third party are either not very informed or not very smart(especially given the virtually daily reports of hacks, data breaches, and corporate malfeasance). This is especially true for word processing, which even the lowest capacity machines have the capability…

The odds of you losing your hard drive and flash drive in a house fire are significantly higher than the odds of you losing data on S3.

The odds of a house fire and my inability to access critical data is significantly lower than that of a cloud malfunction like the one that occurred today.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/31...

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#133

Post by taneq »

carlisle_ wrote: post #9

I feel like "Even if we get hacked" as a marketing message might send the wrong signals.

Everyone gets hacked (in the sense of 'data breach', not 'encryption cracked' - 90% of compromises seem to be simple social engineering such as spearphishing) sooner or later if the data they hold is interesting enough.

I'd choose a company that says "even if our servers get stolen, your data is safe" over "data breach? us? unpossible!"

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#134

Post by zie »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25
ttul wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, I don’t think this is a super strong selling position. Google has an incredible reputation for keeping its users safe and their information private. What you don’t know is whether google in fact stores your documents in an encrypted format at rest. If they do, then what exactly are you offering?

Google can and does read your documents (in an automated fashion). That's how they can flag documents for abuse/TOS violation, as they are currently having issues with today. The whole argument here is that Airborn OS can't read your documents, presumably at all.

A bit off-topic, but since Google's goal seems to be know everything possible about you, so they can sell better, more expensive ads and make more money, they presumably do more than just look for TOS/copyright violations. Otherwise I agree with what you said.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#135

Post by manigandham »

twiss wrote: post #47
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I see it! I scrolled already waaay down before that text appears. Reminder to myself that animations in your essential content are dangerous

Fair enough. There's a fast-forward button for the impatient among us (including myself), but I agree that it's non-obvious that you would need that to read the main copy.

If you make the user wait then the only button they'll be using is the back button.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#136

Post by twiss »

hasenj wrote: post #131
twiss wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I made this. It has bulk import from Google Docs ;) thanks to a feature request from HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15478479

Opening pubished documents seems to take a relatively long time? Example, page with no content except "This is a test" takes over 3 seconds to load. https://www.airbornos.com/pub#?f=c8d42cd38bfc2c26/87261eeee8... Even without any browser involved, just curling it takes 1.5 seconds on my mac time curl "https://airborn-usercontent.herokuapp.com/pub#?f=c8d42cd38bfc2c26/87261eeee80726bf6eb9ed886ce7517c7435b1c267e4f50b48e…

Thanks for the report. Unlike the rest of the website, that url is not behind a CDN (although the document itself is), mainly because it's on a different domain (for security reasons). For me it's relatively fast, but I'm close to the server. I'll try to get it behind a CDN, too.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#137

Post by mark242 »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #132
mark242 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odds of you losing your hard drive and flash drive in a house fire are significantly higher than the odds of you losing data on S3.

The odds of a house fire and my inability to access critical data is significantly lower than that of a cloud malfunction like the one that occurred today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/10/31...

How many users wound up losing data because of that bug? In comparison, how many houses were lost to fire today?

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#138

Post by jimktrains2 »

twiss wrote: post #105
jimktrains2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To get your encryption key, they would need to execute code in your browser, You mean like all the javascript you're sending me? > To solve this, we're using a relatively new web technology (Service Workers) to install some code which can't be changed without setting off a warning to you. That code then keeps taps on all other code, and checks that it matches the publicly available version on GitHub. I really think…

> If an attacker has access to your server, why should I believe that they wouldn't be able to update your github repository? I don't have my GitHub password/keys on the server. Why would I have them there? > I have to trust you _regardless_ of any of your technology, and that's the problem. Yes, but it's trust-on-first-use. There's a big difference between 1. Trusting me today when I say that the GitHub keys are not…

> I don't have my GitHub password/keys on the server. Why would I have them there?

Because you only need an SSH key to push to github and it's not uncommon for people to leave those laying around (or to forward them with a connection!) on a server.

The better question is not "Why would you have them there?" but "How do I know you don't have them there?"

> Yes, but it's trust-on-first-use. There's a big difference between

You're showing a very fundamental misunderstanding of trust and security. I trust your code every single time I load the application. I don't care what measures you _think_ you've put into place, I will _guarantee_ you they are not fool-proof if you have a compromised system. You're insistance that it is is very disheartening and continues to degrade any trust I would have placed in you.

> 1. Trusting me today when I say that the GitHub keys are not on my server,

No, it's trust that you will never ever ever ever place them on any device you ever own where it is accessible or that said device will never ever ever be hacked.

> 2. Trusting me today when I say that I'm not sending your password to the server, and being able to verify that by checking the code on GitHub

And when this changes? Must I audit the code every single time I load the code? Because yes, I need to do that to ensure you havn't changed anything.

> 1. Trusting me every time you open the web app

I still need to do this.

> 2. Trusting me and my hosting company that I won't ever get hacked

I still need to do this too.

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#139

Post by EGreg »

twiss wrote: post #128
EGreg wrote: post #121

"We (the makers of Airborn OS) won't be able to read them even if we wanted to." I take such claims with a huge grain of salt on the web. YOU serve the Javascript. YOU can change it at any time to phone home what I wrote. No point in trying to change it with the Web alone - that's how it's designed. The server must be trusted at all times.

Here's a description of what we've done to solve that problem: https://www.airbornos.com/docs/security

That's interesting, but you're plugging holes in a waterfall I think.

For example, that first visit which installs the service worker can already deliver bad code.

Not saying you will do it, but it all relies on people trusting you not to do it. So statements like "we CAN'T read your stuff" are not true on the web. Luckily, most web users don't care about being hacked by the server - they care about owning their own data! :)

Re: Show HN: Airborn – Private Google Docs Alternative

#140

Post by jimktrains2 »

twiss wrote: post #68
O1111OOO wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for the average customer, it's now starting to seem like every web service is getting hacked. It did have a positive influence on me right away. It also established this sense of trust. Enough that I began to crawl through the other pages for more info. I also appreciated how you managed to convey, in a single image, exactly what was encrypted (ie, both document content and filename). The first question I had was h…

Thanks! Google Docs can read your content on the server, as proven by https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zmz3yw/why-is-my-... .

You mean as proven by being able to share docs publicly? There isn't some grand conspiracy here, Google never claimed they couldn't read your content. That's literally the point of most of Google Docs is that Google _can_ read the content.
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