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Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

martin.kleppmann.com

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Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#51

Post by Geee »

saurik wrote: post #45
Geee wrote: post #42

You can own your data if you use client-side encryption with cloud. When encrypted, you don't have to trust the cloud provider. This opens up new possibilities such as P2P networks with fair pricing, no provider lock-in, equal access and censorship resistance. I'm excited about Sia / Skynet which enables these kind of apps.

That works fine as long as you don't care that advances in computers and cryptography would one day (maybe after you are dead, and likely only with some notable effort) allow someone to read your data and (much more practically) you are extremely confident you can't lose control of your key somehow.

Managing and using private keys safely is still a huge unsolved problem in general.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#52

Post by matthewn »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #50

PouchDB/CouchDB is great for this kind of software. Shameless self-promotion: I used it for thinktype[1], a note-taking app. [1]: https://thinktype.app

Glad to hear someone say this! I'm itching to make a selfhosted Workflowy clone and have pretty much zeroed in on PouchDB/CouchDB to make the syncing easy. Would love to know if you found any pitfalls while working with the pair.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#53

Post by sportsaw »

I love this:

> In the Trellis project we experimented with a “time travel” interface, allowing a user to move back in time to see earlier states of a merged document, and automatically highlighting recently changed elements as changes are received from other users. The ability to traverse a potentially complex merged document history in a linear fashion helps to provide context and could become a universal tool for understanding collaboration.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#54

Post by doggodaddo78 »

Geee wrote: post #51
saurik wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works fine as long as you don't care that advances in computers and cryptography would one day (maybe after you are dead, and likely only with some notable effort) allow someone to read your data and (much more practically) you are extremely confident you can't lose control of your key somehow.

Managing and using private keys safely is still a huge unsolved problem in general.

Keychains, Vault, GPG, HSMs, password managers. It's solved, just requires effort and understanding to setup. It's neither "huge" nor "unsolved" as pks have to live somewhere and cannot exist in the aether.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#55

Post by doggodaddo78 »

pdimitar wrote: post #12
dvt wrote: post #3

These kinds of ideas always get traction here on HN or similar places (slashdot), but I think that ship has long sailed. People, by and large, seem to be totally okay with storing data in the cloud -- from Dropbox, to Google Docs, to InVision. All things considered, data breaches are rare, and if they do happen, they're usually to be blamed on configuration blunders, not the services at large. Other than a few highly…

You seem to underestimate the pressure from the market. At one point the younger generation does not even remember there was a local-first software. Sadly the relentless efforts of the corporations are paying off. That doesn't mean people are okay with it. It means their choice is made for them.

I know plenty of enterprise guys who won't store critical documents, designs, code, or IP in cloud services. Also, local untethers from SaaS changes (prices/features), snooping, data loss, hacking, etc. at the expense of supporting, backup/restore, disaster recovery, and securing it yourself. It's fine if you have a competent IT shop and already have the scale to do it, but it's not the first choice for small, non-technical ventures.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#56

Post by motives »

Geee wrote: post #51
saurik wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works fine as long as you don't care that advances in computers and cryptography would one day (maybe after you are dead, and likely only with some notable effort) allow someone to read your data and (much more practically) you are extremely confident you can't lose control of your key somehow.

Managing and using private keys safely is still a huge unsolved problem in general.

If it wasn't considered a solved problem, we wouldn't have public CA's for our browsers to trust, as their very premise is based on having a secure way to store private keys. I think a FIPS-140-2 level 4 HSM and hashicorp vault enterprise will cover 99.9999% of all other use cases for private CA's and PKI.

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#57

Post by amadeuspagel »

matthewn wrote: post #52
amadeuspagel wrote: post #50

PouchDB/CouchDB is great for this kind of software. Shameless self-promotion: I used it for thinktype[1], a note-taking app. [1]: https://thinktype.app

Glad to hear someone say this! I'm itching to make a selfhosted Workflowy clone and have pretty much zeroed in on PouchDB/CouchDB to make the syncing easy. Would love to know if you found any pitfalls while working with the pair.

I did struggle with representing a graph and put that on ice. Though I only tried it with "raw" pouchdb, and researching this right now I found a plugin that supports many-to-many relationships[1].

[1]: https://github.com/pouchdb-community/relational-pouch#many-t...

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#58

Post by secfirstmd »

Geee wrote: post #42

You can own your data if you use client-side encryption with cloud. When encrypted, you don't have to trust the cloud provider. This opens up new possibilities such as P2P networks with fair pricing, no provider lock-in, equal access and censorship resistance. I'm excited about Sia / Skynet which enables these kind of apps.

Yes I have high hopes for Sia / Skynet

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#59

Post by [deleted] »

motives wrote: post #56
Geee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managing and using private keys safely is still a huge unsolved problem in general.

If it wasn't considered a solved problem, we wouldn't have public CA's for our browsers to trust, as their very premise is based on having a secure way to store private keys. I think a FIPS-140-2 level 4 HSM and hashicorp vault enterprise will cover 99.9999% of all other use cases for private CA's and PKI.

[deleted]

Re: Local-First Software:You Own Your Data, in Spite of the Cloud (2019) [pdf]

#60

Post by Geee »

doggodaddo78 wrote: post #54
Geee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managing and using private keys safely is still a huge unsolved problem in general.

Keychains, Vault, GPG, HSMs, password managers. It's solved, just requires effort and understanding to setup. It's neither "huge" nor "unsolved" as pks have to live somewhere and cannot exist in the aether.

Yeah, I meant that the security tradeoff with usability is unsolved in personal use. It requires too much effort and understanding. If you use hardware keys, you still have to backup your keys somewhere safely.
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