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Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

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Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#41

Post by Alupis »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #23
Alupis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops. Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc. I'd personally jump over to some system that d…

As opposed to how “easy” it is to install Linux this doesn’t seem half bad.

What do you mean?

You download an ISO, put it on a USB key or burn it to a CD, and install it like you would Windows10 or any other OS.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#42

Post by cpach »

Alupis wrote: post #13
lunixbochs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're possibly something like a dosdude patcher or modified bootloader to run an OS like Catalina on it.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops. Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc. I'd personally jump over to some system that d…

Every operating system/hardware combination has its own pros and cons. For you, it seems the cons outnumber the pros when it comes to macOS and Apple hardware. Fair enough. For me, I see no major reasons to consider anything else than Mac. I really enjoy using both the OS and the hardware. To each their own.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#43

Post by frammie »

rsync wrote: post #38
frammie wrote: post #21

Really well done interview, some real interesting bits in there. One part concerned me though, in the interview, it mentions "we own (and have built) all of our own platform." and it fails to mention a few critically important key parts of a storage platform, first being encryption. How are personal files being handled? Is encryption being used? Are you able to access this data using a shared key? As well as continge…

"How are personal files being handled? Is encryption being used? Are you able to access this data using a shared key?" We give you an empty UNIX filesystem. So, if you push up files over rsync or sftp, they will sit here unencrypted. However , there are now excellent "tools like rsync that encrypt the remote result with a key rsync.net never sees" - chief among them being 'borg'[1]. Other options include duplicity an…

Thank you for clarifying your points, as I've said in my previous reply I do appreciate the simplistic approach.

As well I mean no offense, the entire platform seems very sturdy though it leaves some questions which aren't apparent immediately (which may just be me)

If I wasn't contempt with my current backup solution I would seriously consider yours, and I wish you guys the best of luck. You're one of the few keeping simplicity as a key value.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#44

Post by jsmith99 »

sparkling wrote: post #26

Hetzner has a similar product at better pricing that i have been using a minimalist dropbox alternative https://www.hetzner.com/en/storage/storage-box Access via rsync/sftp/scp

It seems a very similar product, also offering zfs snapshots, but I like the fact rsync.net snapshots are immutable: you can browse them but there is no way to delete them without contacting support (and the CEO once posted he would review every such request). It makes me feel more confident about my backups if someone got hold of the cached credentials from my backup software.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#45

Post by Sunspark »

Aeolos wrote: post #7

> "I have a early-2009 “octo” Mac Pro [...]" > > OS: macOS Does this make anyone else a bit uncomfortable? I don't think MacOS is still receiving security updates on that hardware. I'm all for using old hardware for as long as it keeps working, but I would never browse the internet with a vulnerable OS on a vulnerable processor (spectre etc...) Or am I missing something?

Browsers have put in patches for Spectre. I turned off Spectre and Meltdown in my OS because I wasn't willing to live with the performance hit for a scenario that is unlikely to befall me. I think it's fine if the Mac Pro is using a completely up to date browser and isn't installing new random applications.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#46

Post by rsync »

formerly_proven wrote: post #37
tyingq wrote: post #33

I do get the "no separate firewall" reasoning, but I'm paranoid enough that I'd at least want some PF rules just in case some daemon gets started by accident.

Oh I'm pretty sure there is a firewall configured on the nodes themselves (customers get shell access) and he just meant that there isn't a separate firewall box in front of the servers.

Correct. The storage arrays themselves have a (modest) ruleset which, among other things, locks them to TCP22 only and disallows broken/impossible things like xmas-tree packets.

Simple stuff.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#47

Post by Alupis »

gambiting wrote: post #20
Alupis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have trouble understanding why people go through these hoops. Yeah, I get it, people love their Mac's... but the company that produces them actively undermines your ability to continue using perfectly good hardware past what they feel is "profitable". This leads to huge efforts to hack/reverse the updaters, or alter newer OS versions to trick them into installing, etc. I'd personally jump over to some system that d…

It's not out of some love for Macs. I have a 2008 MacBook running Catalina and it's simply because the cost of replacing it is >0. If this works and works well(and it does) then why would I get rid of it? Just to spite apple, which doesn't care either way? I also have a 2005 car that still runs - should I get rid of it because the company that made it stopped providing any kind of support for it long time ago? Or you…

Maybe it was easy for you to modify your OS to continue updating, or you downloaded some ISO of Catalina someone else pre-hacked for you - but it was certainly a non-trivial effort for whoever figured out how to trick the OS into installing and/or updating.

It just seems like wasted effort, since the company all this supports really has made it clear they do not want you to have this ability, and can at any moment make future updates break everything all over again, leading to a new effort to reverse engineer the changes.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#48

Post by korethr »

I wonder if they have any sales to large enterprises or similar institutions.

In my experience, the larger organizations will have a "security" questionnaire required of their vendors, and the person administering it is a droid, incapable of evaluating whether the questions, originally written in the mid-00s and only updated for buzzword compliance since, are applicable to modern security practice today, or to the particular product/service/vendor in question. And no firewalls or routers would be massive, disqualifying red flags on such a questionnaire.

Never mind that a KISS setup tends to bring security because of its minimized attack surface. In the minds that write and administer those questionnaires, security only comes from sufficient amounts of the right kinds of complexity.

I'm sure it can be done. IIRC, Cloudflare doesn't use any firewalls, and they do some big business. It just isn't easy to get past the droids programmed to ensure that all pegs shall be properly square, IME.

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#49

Post by Jonnax »

sideshowmel wrote: post #39

Don't know if running a dumb switch connected to your ISP is the best infosec policy: https://blogs.cisco.com/manufacturing/the-top-5-reasons-to-a...

I'm not sure those reasons really apply to their case.

Especially since they're running the boxes that it's connected to.

They can do resiliency, network segmentation, and monitoring on their platform.

What's a Cisco box going to do for them?

Re: Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers”

#50

Post by rsync »

kplex wrote: post #28

Is rsync.net related to rsync the project?

No, there is no relationship.

However, in 2005 or 2006 when we spun out of JohnCompanies[1] and incorporated under the name "rsync.net" I requested, and was given, explicit permission to use the name and domain by the maintainers of rsync.

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