Looking at some of the examples, I'm starting to see a future where people trade entirely in hashes - send some amount of bitcoins to address X, receive access to read-only access to bittorrent folder Y which is automatically populated with the latest TV episodes for a series, etc. Any idea how to apply that sort of anonymity and convenience to the real world though? Scanning QR codes with a phone seems to be the best so far, still more fiddly than cash though...
BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
31–40 of 291 posts
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really feel that BS is a different use case.
You're probably right... the bittorrent speciality. I guess the marketing is to provide them with a nice level of deniability. It's not a Dropbox competitor, it's just encrypted folder sharing.
And here I am, just 4 points shy of being able to downvote this.
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#33Since there is no central server, doesn't that mean that one device will have to be always on? That would add a degree of overhead and complication that services like Dropbox don't have.
[deleted]
Is that really the case? Sync will store data on my hard drive that I don't have access to and that benefits me in no direct way?
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#34Can someone give me a quick rundown on how this works, vs security of files? If it's using the bittorrent protocol, wouldn't that mean that all your files, even though encrypted, are easily gathered by a third party? Or does this simply make direct connections between PCs you own and people you have authorized to share your files?
From the article:
> While Sync uses BitTorrent technology, people’s files are not accessible to outsiders. Only those who have the unique private key can access the shared folder.
>
> “All the traffic is encrypted using a private key derived from the shared secret. Your files can be viewed and received only by the people with whom you share your private secret,” BitTorrent explains.
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#35Can someone give me a quick rundown on how this works, vs security of files? If it's using the bittorrent protocol, wouldn't that mean that all your files, even though encrypted, are easily gathered by a third party? Or does this simply make direct connections between PCs you own and people you have authorized to share your files?
From the article: > While Sync uses BitTorrent technology, people’s files are not accessible to outsiders. Only those who have the unique private key can access the shared folder. > > “All the traffic is encrypted using a private key derived from the shared secret. Your files can be viewed and received only by the people with whom you share your private secret,” BitTorrent explains.
I read the page, but that doesn't seem clear to me. If they have encrypted versions of my files, they still don't technically have access to them.
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#36Since there is no central server, doesn't that mean that one device will have to be always on? That would add a degree of overhead and complication that services like Dropbox don't have.
I just want to note, also regarding the comments on this, that the ability to set up a dedicated server that always has the newest file exists.
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably right... the bittorrent speciality. I guess the marketing is to provide them with a nice level of deniability. It's not a Dropbox competitor, it's just encrypted folder sharing.
And here I am, just 4 points shy of being able to downvote this.
I'll bring you one point closer and do that for you!
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
Is that really the case? Sync will store data on my hard drive that I don't have access to and that benefits me in no direct way?
No, it will only download copies of data you are interested in. All parties in possession of the same file act as distributed backups of that file, since it is bittorrent.
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're probably right... the bittorrent speciality. I guess the marketing is to provide them with a nice level of deniability. It's not a Dropbox competitor, it's just encrypted folder sharing.
I would respectfully disagree with what you seem to be implying. This service would mostly be used by us who are wary about trusting Google/Microsoft/Dropbox and the judgement of their automated decision systems with our life . Yesterday there was a HN story about a guy who got kicked off Google Docs because an automated program was trolling/mining through their users files and its judgement was not to be questioned…
Drop a TrueCrypt partition into your Dropbox [1], and you get the Dropbox QoS as well as the encryption for your kids' swimming pool photos. Plus, for non-swimming photos, you can just use the regular Dropbox folder.
[1] http://tonyonsecurity.com/2012/08/05/securing-your-data-on-d...
Re: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Public
#40This is great; however, folks can still securely store data on cloud services. They just need to take a Trust No one (TNO) approach and encrypt their data to disk.
For example you can use TrueCrypt and create/mount a drive volume that is fully encrypted while synced across a file share storage/sync service like DropBox.
The only downside is that you have to install the TrueCrypt application on your client device, which does limit is platform offering (currently, no mobile).