shouldn't this be open sourced?
Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
111–120 of 194 posts
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#112So, how does this compare to a solution like Bittorrent Sync? And, perhaps more interestingly, why would this become popular where BT Sync failed to live up to the hype? Furthermore, storage can be paid for by crypto. Does this mean the storage is linked to some kind of cryptocurrency, or is there some kind of central payment system that converts crypto into actual value in the system?
BTW this has now been renamed to Resilio Sync. I still use Resilio but am looking for an alternative since development seems pretty dead at this point (no updates for months).
Same here. No updates for over q year. In constant worry that the next OS update (iOS, DSM and MacOS) will break resilio sync and with that my files.
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Syncthing doesn't do smart sync. The library of stuff I want available is larger than can fit on my phone.
Syncthing has ignore files which can be used to selectively not sync certain files or folders per device. I'm not familiar with Dropbox's smart sync, so if it's like a transparent on-demand sync then no, Syncthing doesn't have that. Maybe it's possible to implement that as an extra app though, without even touching Syncthing. Android seems to have some concept of virtual file systems provided by apps so perhaps one c…
Does Syncthing support manual on-demand downloading? What I'd really like is a way to browse files and download only what I need without eagerly syncing everything all the time.
I'm using Seafile for that now, but I don't like that it needs hosting and I'd love to switch to something P2P and get rid of the server.
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#114Hey congrats, the product looks great! Love to see the rise of e2ee tools. Why did you all decide to go with Storj, a fairly centralized distributed storage aggregator, rather than a decentralized storage network like Filecoin or Sia/Skynet? Who pays for the storage on Storj? For a tool to be decentralized, the user needs a means to pay a node directly and the ability to seamlessly move between providers, ie intercha…
What I'm getting with Web3 is essentially FileCoin or Sia is like an API layer where Companies (DApps?) can build on top of.
It looks like this may be an existential threat to the current Tech Giants since their data is centralized whereas these new DApps are not.
Looks like they use FileCoin and Storj
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#115Very cool, is it using arweave?
We are using FileCoin and Storj for storage. :)
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#116so, it's like syncthing, but closed source and "blockchain!"?
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#117I 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…
Great points gtsop! We have a very similar understanding of decentralization. My co-founder and I are passionately working on making sure that we eventually reach that goal where Slik keep going, even if any one actor falls down. Here were our goals when we started this out - - Prove and implement the encryption technology [completed], - Switch over from centralized storage to decentralized storage [completed], The a…
> My co-founder and I are passionately working on making sure that we eventually reach that goal
Isn't it a bit sketch to be calling it decentralized if that's merely a goal though?
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
You're referring to decentralization of trust, while peer to peer means decentralization of compute and storage.
You can have a system that is decentralized in one way but not another. A peer to peer system where every object must be signed by a centralized authority has decentralized compute/storage and centralized trust. The Apple ecosystem is probably the best example of that. Apple has to sign or notarize most things but these things are then sprayed across a huge diaspora of machines.
A physically and computationally centralized repository of objects that anyone can create is the opposite. GitHub is a good example of that.
The BitTorrent magnet network and most cryptocurrencies are examples of systems that are decentralized in both respects.
Eliminating all forms of centralization without making huge sacrifices in areas like security or efficiency is really hard. I would say it's an unsolved problem since even if you try really hard centralization tends to creep in... e.g. how proof of work economies of scale create centralized mining cartels in cryptocurrencies. PoW is also very expensive, making it inefficient but moving that inefficiency "out of band" and hiding it in an externality.
Decentralization is a big rabbit hole.
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#119Hey congrats, the product looks great! Love to see the rise of e2ee tools. Why did you all decide to go with Storj, a fairly centralized distributed storage aggregator, rather than a decentralized storage network like Filecoin or Sia/Skynet? Who pays for the storage on Storj? For a tool to be decentralized, the user needs a means to pay a node directly and the ability to seamlessly move between providers, ie intercha…
Thanks for the great questions!
Reliability, performance, and a scalable infrastructure were strong selling points of Storj for us, and hence, we decided to go with them to provide a more seamless experience in terms of data upload and fetch. We also use Filecoin for immutability of user data, and as another layer of global redundancy.
Currently, we pay for storage/egress to Storj. Users can pay using dollars/crypto on our platform and we convert it to relevant Storj tokens to pay for storage. It is not automated yet, but yes we plan to automate it soon. Also, Storj does accept Storj tokens as payments.
About interchangeability, we plan to provide the migration functionality on our end to users.
We started with Firebase/Google because it was easy to setup. However, our team has been experimenting with different blockchains to sync the different file-ids and file-hashes. This would provide even more dApp developers to develop apps on top of Slik. We have a potential fit, and expect that to be integrated in H1'2022.
Re: Show HN: SlikSafe – A decentralized, end-to-end encrypted alternative to Dropbox
#120After skimming the whitepaper and the storj website, I am not sure which parts are actually provided by Sliksafe.
The website tells me I can pay by solana (or even by credit card!), but there seems to be no indication of how much I actually would have to pay.
The claims are also not exactly thought out:
> No Backdoors > > Since all your files are encrypted on your device, there is no way for us at Slik Safe to access them ever. Even if we wanted, we could never access them.
That does not follow from the provided info. Simply leaking the keys in some form would already be enought as a backdoor, as the data is obviously not only stored locally.
There seems to be a lot of metadata on sliks side, or is it using some form of encrypted search?
Reminds me of "the good ol time" while working on distributed storage, getting annoyed about the filecoin whitepaper and its inaccuracies and missing references (which of course got much much further than our small research project)!