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Mega has launched

mega.co.nz

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Re: Mega has launched

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A node token ("magic cookie") grants access to a subtree of the issuing user's filesystem. An associated symmetric key is required to decrypt and/or store decryptable data." https://mega.co.nz/#developers Apparently, they use unsalted symmetric key encryption which allows them to discover [hash(file), password] duplicates. By comparison, the old Megaupload would apparently deduplicate based on [hash(file)] matches.…

> I would personally feel unsafe storing private documents on Mega due to the lack of public/private key encryption, but that's me. It is probably worth pointing out that all of this encryption stuff is only for them. Nomatter how they brand it, the purpose is to give them plausible deniability, which they lacked with the previous Mega. If you want encryption meant for you, then you should probably just encrypt your…

It's pretty embarrassing that tech blogs are even covering this. Copyright law is about intent, not about technical specifics. The idea that new megaupload is ok because it encrypts illegitimate content before storing it is absurd.

Re: Mega has launched

#163

To everyone asking about the encryption, it isn't really about protecting your data its about protecting themselves. They have created a service that is billed as a drop box competitor but it's not. This is megaupload2, they just need it to not look like they are marketing it as that. They needed a way to deny any knolage of file sharing and have found a two pronged attack. The encryption means they can deny any know…

Wasn't MegaUpload popularity due to streaming video content?

Doesn't the encryption make video streaming impossible in the way it was being done before (i.e. to a large psudononymous userbase)?

Re: Mega has launched

#164
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would personally feel unsafe storing private documents on Mega due to the lack of public/private key encryption, but that's me. It is probably worth pointing out that all of this encryption stuff is only for them. Nomatter how they brand it, the purpose is to give them plausible deniability, which they lacked with the previous Mega. If you want encryption meant for you, then you should probably just encrypt your…

It's pretty embarrassing that tech blogs are even covering this. Copyright law is about intent, not about technical specifics. The idea that new megaupload is ok because it encrypts illegitimate content before storing it is absurd.

What do you mean by "ok"?

Morally ok? That is subject to opinion. I don't have a problem with them now, and I never did.

Legally immune? They very well could be. Certainly any action against them is going to be much harder this time, if only because a bunch of people in New Zealand are still pissed about what happened last time without the revisions that were made. If their system works as they claim, and renders them unable to govern content, then how could they be considered culpable for content? If I start posting nasty stuff encrypted with PGP to HN, would HN be to blame for failing to recognize the nasty stuff and remove it?

Re: Mega has launched

#167
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would personally feel unsafe storing private documents on Mega due to the lack of public/private key encryption, but that's me. It is probably worth pointing out that all of this encryption stuff is only for them. Nomatter how they brand it, the purpose is to give them plausible deniability, which they lacked with the previous Mega. If you want encryption meant for you, then you should probably just encrypt your…

It's pretty embarrassing that tech blogs are even covering this. Copyright law is about intent, not about technical specifics. The idea that new megaupload is ok because it encrypts illegitimate content before storing it is absurd.

Copyright law can absolutely hinge on technical specifics. Look at network DVR services being forced to store a copy of a show per user in order to be found legal in the US.

Re: Mega has launched

#168
post #143
post #57

"Warning: You are using an outdated browser, which adversely affects your file transfer performance. Please upgrade to Google Chrome." is this a joke? I'm on FF19

Here's what they have to say regarding browsers: https://mega.co.nz/#blog_1 Basically, only Chrome seems to be supported because it is "the most advanced browser currently in existence"

[built for IE6]

Re: Mega has launched

#169
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that is generally done using "convergent encryption". There are many variations and they were done by some peer-to-peer DHT filesystem (I was kinda involved in some "skunk" projects developing it). The idea is simple: if you have data, then you can generate the key from data itself to encrypt and decrypt than data. Then you use hash of encrypted data to look up if server (or just other side) has the same data…

And deduplication would work since the 2nd person would derive the same key for the data and thus can decrypt it?

Yes exactly.

key = f(data);

upload(encrypt(data, key));

store_key(filename, key);

Which is to say that every file has a globally 1-to-1 mapping to its encrypted version. I'm not sure how they are storing the (User, [(Filename,Key)]) data, but this is ideally encrypted on a per user basis, making any sort of per-user lookup attacks moot.

Re: Mega has launched

#170

I just found a weird things on they ToS [1] ... 8. Our service may automatically delete a piece of data you upload or give someone else access to where it determines that that data is an exact duplicate of original data already on our service. In that case, you will access that original data. Duplicate check, I get that. But, how do they do it? They say the files are encrypted on the browser, so if I upload file X an…

Perhaps, a much simpler possibility than the other proposed in this thread, is that, in addition to uploading the encrypted file, the service uploads hashes of chunks of plaintext data. That way the service can just compares hashes of data, just like a regular dedup implementation.
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