Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox • Hacker News Board

no_circuit wrote: post #94

I'm always interested in the business model of a company before using their products. Storj is mentioned as a part of the tech platform. Is the goal of eventually open sourcing Slik essentially is what is described as an open source partner in the Storj whitepaper executive summary [1]? Relevant part here: > Bridging Open Source and Decentralization > In addition to being open source, our new V3 network also financia…

Those are some great points, no_circuit. We have multiple storage pricing plans, however, none of them give out $'s to users, because that would be counterproductive for the team at this point.

There are parts of the system like the multi-device sync, encryption, cross-platform support, etc. that would need to be factored in. However, reducing $/TB is an area that we plan to explore when all other systems are stable and our unit-economics is net positive.

Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox

#108

Post by pcthrowaway » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

api wrote: post #83

gtsop wrote: post #42

I haven't really understood how the "decentralized" comes into place. My notion of decentralization is the existence of multiple instances managed by unrelated people, such that the service keeps going if one actor falls down. From what I see here, the decentralization lies in the fact that the central service stores the data across multiple servers. So it's not technically speaking a lie, but i would say it is a bit…

The most common canonical definitions in regard to network connectivity graphs are: Centralized: most of the data and compute lives in one place and is controlled by one entity. This is standard issue SaaS, etc. Federated: anyone can run a server and the servers can talk to each other somehow and either propagate messages or replicate data, but still centralized from the client point of view since each client connect…

The third point is peer-to-peer in my understanding. Decentralized to me means that there isn't an entity who has custody/control over information propagated by the network and ability to control access to it

Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox

#109

Post by volkk » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

glutamate wrote: post #99

exdsq wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory, but who uses something other than either Github or Gitlab? Obviously I know some people do, but I've yet to work on a project that doesn't just stick with the one.

Interesting that when given a choice, people choose centralised over decentralised.

i think this is mostly because of the maturity/popularity of the tooling, not the underlying aspect of centralization. if there was a just as slick, widespread and useful decentralized alternative, i would be on that instead.

Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox

#110

Post by detaro » Tue, Dec 21, 2021, 7:08 PM UTC

edf13 wrote: post #100

cookiengineer wrote: post #97

How is the blockchain structured? Is it shrinkable? In theory, each user would only have a directory of paths and hashes, and everything else would be accessible via ipfs, correct? What kind of encryption are you running? First of all, if there's a simple password like recovery mechanism, it's never post-quantum. Second, if you are refering to the _hashing_ mechanism (merkle trees) in ipfs; I would still have my doub…

Most of this is on their website and/or WP… They don’t store files on the blockchain, they don’t claim to have their own blockchain.

> They don’t store files on the blockchain,

From the whitepaper:

> As an extra layer of protection, all your encrypted files are also stored on an immutable blockchain

(Yes, that's probably "just" incompetence on the part of the whitepaper author, but if you can't even get a competent author for your whitepaper...)