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Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

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Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#41

Post by htf »

rayiner wrote: post #40
htf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on one's opinion about copyright law.

Sure, but I think a lot of people have inconsistent opinions re: copyright law. I find it a little odd that people who oppose copyright on freedom grounds have no problem with advertising, even though advertising industry wouldn't exist at anywhere near its present scale without trademark law, which creates far more dire freedom-related concerns. I'd go further to say that this cognitive dissonance is the product of…

Yes! Trademark creates huge freedom concerns.

For what it's worth, I don't think there's anything shady about an extension that replaces the ads in your browser. Web users can already install AdBlock. Or they can hide the ads with post-it notes on their monitor. If that means lost revenue for the ad-based websites, that's a problem with their business model. You can't blame the extension developers for that.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#42

Post by rscale »

lubos wrote: post #16
joenathan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a discussion the other day on how this was possible, where a hash would be created and that would allow for both encryption and deduplication. Let me see if I can find it.

I understand this would be possible but then they are essentially lying about their privacy attributes.

Dropbox used to say: "All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES256) and are inaccessible without your account password." even though the files were accessible without their account password.

Mega might be doing the same thing: saying one thing to attract early adopters, and changing the marketing language once it gets broader adoption by people who don't care about that attribute. It's dishonest, but it would hardly be shocking to learn that a multiple felon was being dishonest.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#43

Post by htf »

rayiner wrote: post #40
htf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends on one's opinion about copyright law.

Sure, but I think a lot of people have inconsistent opinions re: copyright law. I find it a little odd that people who oppose copyright on freedom grounds have no problem with advertising, even though advertising industry wouldn't exist at anywhere near its present scale without trademark law, which creates far more dire freedom-related concerns. I'd go further to say that this cognitive dissonance is the product of…

I wonder how much advertising depends on trademark law. I suppose that, without trademarks, companies would advertise their domain name instead of their company name.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#44

Post by nwh »

X-Istence wrote: post #33
lubos wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they say, all files will be client-side encrypted which won't allow them to "deduplicate" anything.

Just because a file is encrypted doesn't mean that a small block doesn't match another encrypted block even if the two are from two different files. This would allow them to do deduplication at the block level (see ZFS for example).

In practise any strong encryption (ie, not AES-ECB) is indistinguishable from random noise, and that's by design. Even trying to de-duplicate 4kb blocks of random noise would be a completely fruitless task. If it was possible, storage is probably cheaper than the CPU time to find similar blocks.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#45

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #36
X-Istence wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because a file is encrypted doesn't mean that a small block doesn't match another encrypted block even if the two are from two different files. This would allow them to do deduplication at the block level (see ZFS for example).

Think about that one for a second. An encrypted block is essentially supposed to look like random data. I.e. if two people encrypt the same file with different keys, you shouldn't be able to tell that they're the same file (or your encryption sucks). So your block-level de-duping then depends on incidental matches between random data. What's the probability of two 4KB (or whatever) blocks of random data being identic…

see: convergent encryption

The encryption on the client doesn't use a random key. The key is a hash of the unencrypted contents of the file.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#46

Post by rayiner »

htf wrote: post #43
rayiner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I think a lot of people have inconsistent opinions re: copyright law. I find it a little odd that people who oppose copyright on freedom grounds have no problem with advertising, even though advertising industry wouldn't exist at anywhere near its present scale without trademark law, which creates far more dire freedom-related concerns. I'd go further to say that this cognitive dissonance is the product of…

I wonder how much advertising depends on trademark law. I suppose that, without trademarks, companies would advertise their domain name instead of their company name.

While domains are unique, how does it help Prada, Tiffany's, etc? It makes no difference whether the copy-cats are selling rip-offs marked "tiffanys.com" out of a cart. There is also more to trademark that just protecting marks. Trademark protects many aspects of the brand (see: trade dress, dilution, tarnishment, etc).

Companies spend a lot of money advertising because brands are valuable, and trademark basically protects brands. Branding makes goods less fungible, and is really the only reason companies like Prada or Ralph Lauren can sustain such high margins in what would otherwise be total commodity markets. When brands cease to have meaning to consumers, you end up with what you see in the PC industry: a race to the bottom that eats up all your margins.

Why does advertising support so much of the internet? It's a $500 billion industry world-wide, that's why. Without branding, protected by trademark, I think it would be a fraction of the size. And I don't think it would necessarily be a bad thing.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#47

Post by rayiner »

harryh wrote: post #45
rayiner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about that one for a second. An encrypted block is essentially supposed to look like random data. I.e. if two people encrypt the same file with different keys, you shouldn't be able to tell that they're the same file (or your encryption sucks). So your block-level de-duping then depends on incidental matches between random data. What's the probability of two 4KB (or whatever) blocks of random data being identic…

see: convergent encryption The encryption on the client doesn't use a random key. The key is a hash of the unencrypted contents of the file.

Reading list-ed. Interesting.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#48

Post by harryh »

rayiner wrote: post #47
harryh wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

see: convergent encryption The encryption on the client doesn't use a random key. The key is a hash of the unencrypted contents of the file.

Reading list-ed. Interesting.

The issue is that you don't get the full benefits of encryption.

If you upload the map to the rayiner family treasure that only you have seen you're good. No one else will be able to read it.

But if you upload the latest episode of Modern Family and Disney gets ahold of the same rip you used they (if they can get a government to help them out) can see what you did and charge you with copyright infringement (or whatever the appropriate crime would be).

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#49

Post by htf »

rayiner wrote: post #46
htf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much advertising depends on trademark law. I suppose that, without trademarks, companies would advertise their domain name instead of their company name.

While domains are unique, how does it help Prada, Tiffany's, etc? It makes no difference whether the copy-cats are selling rip-offs marked "tiffanys.com" out of a cart. There is also more to trademark that just protecting marks. Trademark protects many aspects of the brand (see: trade dress, dilution, tarnishment, etc). Companies spend a lot of money advertising because brands are valuable, and trademark basically pr…

Yeah, I understand the value of a brand. I was thinking that, without trademark, there could still be ways to ascertain the authenticity of a product. For example, tiffanys.com could list their physical stores on their website. A fake store wouldn't fool the neighborhood for long enough to be worth the effort.

Re: Kim Dotcom’s Mega Opens For Early-Access Users

#50

Post by tptacek »

harryh wrote: post #48
rayiner wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading list-ed. Interesting.

The issue is that you don't get the full benefits of encryption. If you upload the map to the rayiner family treasure that only you have seen you're good. No one else will be able to read it. But if you upload the latest episode of Modern Family and Disney gets ahold of the same rip you used they (if they can get a government to help them out) can see what you did and charge you with copyright infringement (or whatev…

After 3-4 years of high-profile CPA-2 attacks on TLS, .NET, Java, and other systems, you'd think we'd all be a lot more skeeved out about cryptosystems that demand known-plaintexts. There's already an obvious conceptual attack (beyond file confirmation) in naive "convergent encryption", which is that you can leverage small amounts of known plaintext to learn unknown plaintext.
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