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Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

wuala.com

121–130 of 207 posts

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just two ideas on top of my head: Through auto updates you can make sure that you get the backdoored version or you can have an exploit within the software to allow "silent" remote updates (good luck finding that). So well... Either you do it end to end, or you trust the third party.

Nobody sane wants software to auto-update, especially not security-relevant software. This is in particular true if you reviewed the source code of the software at one point in time. Furthermore, for the software to be able to even auto-update, it would have to be able to change its own binary. I don’t know how this particular piece of software works, but it is possible to run FUSE ‘drivers’ as a user on Linux, with…

From http://www.wuala.com/en/download/linux:

> The package installs Wuala and registers our repository for further updates.

This is even more harmful that it sounds, as someone who has repo access (be it some evil staff member or, more possibly, inturder) may push not only malicious Wuala build, but any package with higher version number than in other repos (say, a linux-image-999.999 with a bundled rootkit) and if user was incautious it will be installed on system update.

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#124
For what it's worth, what you need is:

-- a company with no connections to the United States. Ideally, it should be privately owned by a foreign individual known for strong privacy views and who has promised never to sell.

-- local encryption

-- open source ("trust but verify")

-- actually works

Wuala, from the comments here, meets only one of those four requirements.

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#125
Another alternative is hubiC. It's run by OVH, perhaps one of the most "techno-geek" companies in Europe that you can find… I don't see them feeding content to governments without any reason.

In fact, they opened a DC in Canada and not the U.S. and one can guess why.

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#126
post #109

Seriously? Wuala is a service run by LaCie. LaCie is owned by Seagate, an American corporation. It doesn't matter where the servers are, because all the important decisions will be made in Cupertino, California. http://www.lacie.com/us/company/news/news.htm?id=10722 Now, client-side encryption is a much more interesting aspect of their service, but is it worth the trouble if Wuala's clunky client takes 100 times long…

Why not just store a TrueCrypt volume(s) in Dropbox?

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#127
post #9

I recently tried replacing Dropbox with Wuala because of privacy concerns. I failed, and in the process realized how successful Dropbox has been in creating an awesome user experience! I'm still looking for a locally encrypted Dropbox-alternative. So if any of you are making one, please speak up :) (Edit) I should specify that it was the user experience that made me give up on Wuala, and any proper Dropbox alternativ…

If you're concerned about your personal data, and not so much about targeted attacks against you, I'd say stay with Dropbox and just use EncFS. You can do this on Linux (and presumably OS X, as well) fairly easily. On Windows, there is a single-developer port of EncFS, which from what I've heard works fairly well: http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html A quick search turns up a guide which (at first glan…

Playing the devils advocate here. What would stop the dropbox service from being able to collect the private keys on the user's computer?

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#128
post #109

Seriously? Wuala is a service run by LaCie. LaCie is owned by Seagate, an American corporation. It doesn't matter where the servers are, because all the important decisions will be made in Cupertino, California. http://www.lacie.com/us/company/news/news.htm?id=10722 Now, client-side encryption is a much more interesting aspect of their service, but is it worth the trouble if Wuala's clunky client takes 100 times long…

Why not just store a TrueCrypt volume(s) in Dropbox?

Because, as far as I know (I haven't used TrueCrypt too much), it will see the volume as a file and then you'll be syncing a huge, x GB file every time you make the smallest change within it.

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#129
post #103
post #96

Hello there, Gianluca from Wuala here. First, this is how Wuala works: You as an user place a file in the client. The file gets encrypted (including using your password and username) and then gets uploaded and split into different pieces. We are currently using AES-256 for encryption (and RSA 2048 fpr signature and key exchange when sharing a folder and SHA-256 for integrity checks). The password does NOT get transmi…

Are you planning on allowing camera upload? I can't get people using your product without it...

we are planning camera upload yes :)

Re: Wuala: Secure Cloud Storage

#130
post #109

Seriously? Wuala is a service run by LaCie. LaCie is owned by Seagate, an American corporation. It doesn't matter where the servers are, because all the important decisions will be made in Cupertino, California. http://www.lacie.com/us/company/news/news.htm?id=10722 Now, client-side encryption is a much more interesting aspect of their service, but is it worth the trouble if Wuala's clunky client takes 100 times long…

Why not just store a TrueCrypt volume(s) in Dropbox?

Storing an EncFS on Dropbox is another alternative, that doesn't depend on Dropbox' ability to recognize small changes in a huge single file.
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