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PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

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Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#71

Post by blunte »

scott00 wrote: post #32
moviuro wrote: post #7

FWIW, I've been using syncthing [0] for some years now [1] and am very pleased. Even though my data is unavailable on the cloud from any untrusted computer (like e.g. my corporate laptop), it's synced on my "fleet". I'm not sure that PrivateStorage actually adds anything to the equation? EDIT> The Tahoe LAFS [2] model is more that you spread your data over multiple providers. NAS at home, several VPS providers, or wh…

How much data do you sync? I'm syncing 60 GB with NextCloud and it annoys me frequently: every time I log in it spends 5 minutes scanning my data, pegging at least one core of CPU and using up a lot of my I/O capacity. And of course at a pretty annoying time, since I almost always want to be actually using my machine during the first 5 minutes after logging in. And I'd really like to be syncing more data. Anyway, won…

So far I've been disappointed with sync issues with Spideroak, OneDrive, and Nextcloud.

Now I use Tresorit (which I only became aware of because of... and online ad!?) It doesn't seem to have sync issues for me. Dropbox didn't have issues either, but it wasn't as secure.

I wanted so badly for Nextcloud to work.

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#72

Post by johnchristopher »

moviuro wrote: post #7

FWIW, I've been using syncthing [0] for some years now [1] and am very pleased. Even though my data is unavailable on the cloud from any untrusted computer (like e.g. my corporate laptop), it's synced on my "fleet". I'm not sure that PrivateStorage actually adds anything to the equation? EDIT> The Tahoe LAFS [2] model is more that you spread your data over multiple providers. NAS at home, several VPS providers, or wh…

How do you link to a single file you want to share ?

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#73

Post by stdcli »

tchaffee wrote: post #29

Should anything truly private be stored in the cloud? I have never seen a solution that doesn't boil down to trusting someone. The claim is that the code is open source. But I don't know how I would verify that that's the actual code they are running on their servers. I also don't understand the payoff. For information that's not truly private (like your music collection) but that could possibly be data mined, then a…

You can use gaia hubs, which are user owned stores, to host your data wherever you like. Gaia focuses on user owned data, and leaves the work of network consensus and replication to the identity associated with your gaia hub: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html where the identity is defined here: https://docs.blockstack.org/core/naming/introduction.html

We have an Amazon EC2 AMI, and are working on others, but the idea is you could bootstrap the docker-compose on any VM you like, or a rasberry pi if you want even: https://github.com/blockstack/gaia/blob/master/hub/README.md

There are IPFS driver requests and now requests for drivers to support privatestorage by Least Authority as well, if you also want to replicate your data temporarily across some nodal network.

While gaia fundamentally does not require using the comprehensive Blockstack API, we are working on tutorials to abstract the use of only gaia without Blockstack. They are designed to be functional independent of each other, in the same way people can use Blockstack authentication without gaia, the reverse can be true: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html

Currently, I want it to be even easier than just bootstrapping a docker-compose in gaia for users to host on their own machine, or rasberry pi or what have you. We are working on that as well as cloud hosted solutions.

I would like for people to be able to launch a vm with a preinstalled image locally on their own machine, not just google cloud, amazon, Digital Ocean etc. The groundwork for a secure and minimal VM is mostly in place. We need to set up more instructions for this but feel free to launch the docker-compose and give it a whirl in your environment of choice if you don't want any of the cloud AMI's we currently offer.

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#74

Post by stdcli »

moviuro wrote: post #11
zorked wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big thing is that Tahoe LAFS can be run on untrusted computers.

So you share your data on untrusted machines that you bet will live long enough to hold what you want to keep. Sounds risky. Do storage providers have an incentive to provide the service reliably à la filecoin? [0] [0] https://filecoin.io/

https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html. While we are rolling out AMIs that auto launch gaia hubs, and hosting some to make it user firendly for people with non sys admin skills, you can docker-compose up here: https://github.com/blockstack/gaia/blob/master/hub/README.md on a machine you own or trust.

We are working to make doing even this as user friendly as possible.

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#75

Post by stdcli »

meejah wrote: post #61
rakoo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can configure Tahoe-LAFS to store data wherever you want but I guess PrivateStorage will have its own settings and you won't be able to select a nas at home. Just a guess though.

An expert could figure out how to get the PrivateStorage Tahoe client to use other storage servers, but yes in general it is "a managed service" and I don't think using your own storage-servers will be "a supported configuration".

You can use your own server to host a gaia hub with docker compuse up: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html , or use a one of the cloud AMIs we are rolling out here: https://docs.blockstack.org/storage/overview.html

Making user owned storage user friendly for people with non sys admin skills is a challenge, but something we are working towards.

because our gaia hubs are associated with user's ids, we are also working on automating SSL as much as possible for individual users as well. This is another technical challenge that makes it difficult for the average person to set up their own trusted environment where they control their own data.

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#77

Post by thinkloop »

tchaffee wrote: post #67
lotharrr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data is encrypted on your client before it leaves your computer. You're relying upon the servers to hold onto your ciphertext (i.e. availability), but not to keep it secret (confidentiality). And the client can detect changes to the ciphertext, so you aren't relying upon the servers for integrity either. You have to trust the client code, for sure, but that's something that you're at least nominally in a position…

I'm a programmer. And I still don't think I'm in a position to verify if something is cryptographically secure. It's quite possible that a client has been built with an extremely subtle backdoor already in mind. One that crypto experts won't find for years.

Yes, but it's like when you're at a cafe and need to go to the bathroom so you ask the random guy next to you to watch your laptop. Sure he could steal it, but you reduced the attack vector to just him.

Re: PrivateStorage.io: A secure and privacy-focused cloud storage solution

#78

Post by tchaffee »

thinkloop wrote: post #77
tchaffee wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a programmer. And I still don't think I'm in a position to verify if something is cryptographically secure. It's quite possible that a client has been built with an extremely subtle backdoor already in mind. One that crypto experts won't find for years.

Yes, but it's like when you're at a cafe and need to go to the bathroom so you ask the random guy next to you to watch your laptop. Sure he could steal it, but you reduced the attack vector to just him.

It's a reasonable analogy. To use your analogy I'm suggesting you don't trust anyone with your laptop and bring it to the bathroom with you. If something is truly private and / or valuable information don't put it in the cloud. I'm not alone in that thinking. When it comes to storing people's digital currency you hear about things like cold storage. For very good reason.
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