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Upspin – Another option for file sharing

security.googleblog.com

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Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#11

Post by drdaeman »

enneff wrote: post #6
drdaeman wrote: post #2

[Update] I've missed the upspin.io link, which wasn't in article. Now I see (unless I'm misunderstanding it) it's something similar to to Keybase Filesystem, except distributed. That's a good thing, then. My apologies for not getting this before writing the original comment. ---- So... they had reinvented HTTP, and had thrown in some email-based authentication module, and formalized aeons-old /~username/ spec into /u…

You're definitely missing a lot. Please take a look at the overview doc, it should be mostly explained here: https://upspin.io/doc/overview.md One of the key elements of Upspin is that all content is signed and encrypted by the client. Sharing is totally in control of the content owners, and the servers need not be trusted at all.

Ah, thanks. Article didn't have a link to upspin.io, so I've missed this link.

Yes, with client-side signing it makes more sense.

So it's something similar to Keybase Filesystem, except distributed? That's a good thing, then.

Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#12

Post by enneff »

cyberferret wrote: post #4

I noted the disclaimer: "Upspin is not an official Google product". Yet it is announced on the Google Blog? Is it a separate "skunk works" team effort? Also, I note that they can set access levels based on email addresses, but I am unsure how that would work? Would those emails have to be linked to a Google account so that Upspin could check the currently logged in Google account to allow/disallow access to the files…

Upspin is one of Google's many Open Source projects. It's not really skunkworks, per se, just something that we wanted to work on and were lucky enough to be supported by Google in doing so.

The email addresses are Upspin user names whose public keys are registered with a central server, key.upspin.io. To act as an Upspin client, you need to sign up: https://upspin.io/doc/signup.md

Requests made by Upspin users are signed with those public keys. Servers validate those users by validating the signatures against the key published by key.upspin.io.

Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#17

Post by drdaeman »

sfeng wrote: post #7
drdaeman wrote: post #2

[Update] I've missed the upspin.io link, which wasn't in article. Now I see (unless I'm misunderstanding it) it's something similar to to Keybase Filesystem, except distributed. That's a good thing, then. My apologies for not getting this before writing the original comment. ---- So... they had reinvented HTTP, and had thrown in some email-based authentication module, and formalized aeons-old /~username/ spec into /u…

There is a reason people use Dropbox not Apache to share files. Unless you can explain why that is, I'm not sure what criticizing their open source work achieves.

I get the reason, but don't think it's similar. (And, AFAIK, Dropbox uses nginx to share files.)

Yet, article clearly said this is not a product, but a set of protocols. So I was wondering what's the point, if the protocols (HTTP, WebDAV) are already there for a long time, and even have native support and can be easily mounted as local drives in most modern OSes.

I've missed the encryption and signing bits. Sorry about that.

Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#18

Post by enneff »

drdaeman wrote: post #11
enneff wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely missing a lot. Please take a look at the overview doc, it should be mostly explained here: https://upspin.io/doc/overview.md One of the key elements of Upspin is that all content is signed and encrypted by the client. Sharing is totally in control of the content owners, and the servers need not be trusted at all.

Ah, thanks. Article didn't have a link to upspin.io, so I've missed this link. Yes, with client-side signing it makes more sense. So it's something similar to Keybase Filesystem, except distributed? That's a good thing, then.

Yeah it was a mistake not to include that link in the blog post.

It is definitely similar to Keybase Filesystem, and a few other things too. There are many axes for making trade offs in this space, and I think Upspin set of trade offs is unique. We'll see if it works well for people.

Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#19

Post by inconshreveable »

Seems to be very much in the space of kbfs and IPFS.

For the folks who are building this: can you compare and contrast this to both kbfs and IPFS? Why have you chosen to start another project in an already crowded space instead of contributing to either of those projects? They are both open source and much further along in development . . .

Re: Upspin – Another option for file sharing

#20

Post by rakoo »

irontoby wrote: post #14

This sounds a whole lot like the Keybase filesystem (in intent, if not implementation): https://keybase.io/docs/kbfs

big difference: Keybase hosts everything, all your data is belong to Keybase. In upspin only your public key is centralized; the data can be anywhere.

Actually if you read the design document it sounds like they want you to provide some wrapper server to access, say, your photos on Google Photos through the Upspin protocol. Your photos would stay there, but authentication would be centralized on Upspin.

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