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Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

dougbelshaw.com

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Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#62
post #20
post #17

One fail in the article: "It’s worth saying at this point that I don’t, to my knowledge, do anything wildly illegal." The definition of illegal varies over time and you have no control over it at all.

He's almost certainly done something illegal. http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

Oh, I agree. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not a Silk Road user or hosting illegal images.

+1 to changing definitions of 'illegal' (along with 'madness', etc.)

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#63
post #44

How about using btsync and hosting your own cloud?

Yes, lots of suggestions to use BTSync. I am using it, just not for this particular use.

I want to backup and sync at the same time to an offsite server.

While I could roll my own solution, I want something that I can recommend to family/friends/my network (and that's congruent with their technical skills). :-)

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#64
post #5

Chicago? Last time I checked, that city is within the jurisdiction of the United States and not immune to national security gag letters. No thanks. Swiss based Wuala.com is a much better solution.

Isn't switching from one closed source backup system to another closed source system overlooking the elephant in the room? These companies are legally required to rat you out when the government comes knocking (some even doing so without demanding a valid warrant, and profiting from LEO requests). SpiderOak has been saying they "expect to make the SpiderOak client code open source in the not-distant future" [1] for y…

I recently created a "petition" for SpiderOak to open source the client (and allow people to build it themselves from source) so that people can let SpiderOak know their thoughts. The petition signatures are sent to SpiderOak.

It's still available at the link below if any SpiderOak user (or potential customer) wants to use it to "show the numbers" on a single site (as opposed to scattered comments): http://www.change.org/petitions/spideroak-http-www-spideroak...

There's an online backup service called Cyphertite (cyphertite.com) that provides the sources for its client programs on all the platforms it supports. So I don't really see why SpiderOak, with its prominent proclamations of "zero knowledge", cannot walk the talk.

Of course, I understand that certain competitive advantages may take longer to provide in the open (until factors other than the client source code and backend architecture become competitive advantages). But I have to admit that SpiderOak has been dragging on opening up the source.

Edit: Let me also admit that I do like SpiderOak and the emphasis it places on privacy and in educating users about privacy. We need more services that strongly support what ought to be basic rights.

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#65
Cloudfogger[0] has an interesting solution. Anything within the cloudfogger folders gets encrypted before it can be synced with the cloud service. It also changes the filename to add its own extension. When you open a file, cloudfogger uses the password cached on your system to decrypt and then run the file, providing a fairly seamless experience.

The one main problem is that it's not an open source client, which seems like the ideal solution.

[0] http://www.cloudfogger.com/en/

Edit: Why downvotes?

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey I'm no expert, and have absolutely no evidence , but do know that there was an issue some years ago where the Swiss were allegedly strong-armed by the IRS into lifting their privacy restrictions [1] and [2]. The story, as I remember it, was that Swiss banks had to share information about US depositors with the IRS if the Swiss wanted to continue operating offices is the US. While I trust the Swiss a lot more than…

You're correct - but only with the big international banks. The tax issue is a different can of worms. At least there's a pretty good chance that NSA doesn't have a back door to wuala.

I don't know if they have a similar system for wired traffic, but the Swiss have one of the most extensive COMINT systems called Onyx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx_(interception_system) that primarily focuses on satellite. Regardless of US gov't pressure, I think it's a reasonable assumption the Swiss gov't has access.

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#67

I just use Truecrypt volumes within Dropbox for anything I'd really care about losing. I guess it's an extra step, but I find I just like Dropbox better than the competition. And things I really care about (tax returns, for instance) I find I access rarely and always on a PC.

This solution has 2 issues though that kind of drive me crazy. 1) It won't sync the truecrypt volume while it's open (cause the file is in use), so if you want to encrypt stuff you work on regularly, you have to close the truecrypt volume regularly to sync it, which is a PITA. 2) Since it's one big volume, it takes forever to sync up even if you only modified a single file inside it. Say, for example, I have a 5 GB t…

EncFS keeps files separate (with encrypted filenames), avoiding this problem.

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#68

I've racked up 7.9GB on my free Dropbox account. Until there is an alternative that offers more for free, I probably wouldn't consider switching. However, I'm encouraged by the amount of cloud hosting services emphasizing privacy, maybe at some point dropbox will follow suit.

Encrypt your files within Dropbox.

Re: Why I'm saying goodbye to Dropbox and hello to SpiderOak Hive

#69
post #56

So I go to the Startup Guides, then to Getting Started. I open the PDF and under step one I see: "NOTE: Curious about how we retain ‘zero-knowledge’ privacy while password creation happens on the web? Click here for more details." But no link. So... is this a joke? why can't they explain this in their FAQ instead of having to get a PDF then a (non-existent) link to it? I've been searching the FAQs and under Privacy a…

The Sign-up process is explained here: https://spideroak.com/blog/20111206101528-new-browser-based-...

This is the Engineering Page with Encryption Specifications: https://spideroak.com/engineering_matters

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