91–100 of 170 posts
The only thing I dislike about this idea is that it appears to be another centralised service. Why can't we come up with something similar but using HTTPS and Public Key Infrastructure that I can host on my own server but still be interoperable?
I don't think you fully read how it works. It said the storage providers etc can be self hosted.
It's a bit unclear how email-based identifiers should work when publishing long-lived, public files. In particular, which email address should you use? Will the general public learn your email address? What about people who want to post publicly and keep their email addresses private? What happens if you switch email providers? Also, there is there any provision for actually making public files available via https? H…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
This doesn't really clarify what an "unofficial" Google project is. Does it mean that people don't work on it full-time and it's a 20% project? Does it mean that it was developed at home without using Google's resources, so they don't have an ownership interest in it, but they are letting it be hosted on their infrastructure and announced on their blog to be nice? Does it mean that Google isn't sure how long it will…
Edit: looking at the LICENSE file, scratch that, it appears Google doesn't even own the copyright.
I'm not sure I understand the problem with URLs. "Copy share link" is a standard operation both on the web and in apps.
It's a bit unclear how email-based identifiers should work when publishing long-lived, public files. In particular, which email address should you use? Will the general public learn your email address? What about people who want to post publicly and keep their email addresses private? What happens if you switch email providers? Also, there is there any provision for actually making public files available via https? H…
I saw nothing about requiring email address usernames to be backed by an email provider in the documentation. The email address is literally just a username format and is authenticated by public key. Anyone concerned with the privacy of their actual email address would obviously not use that address as their user. As I understand it, you can just make one up for a username. If this is incorrect, someone more informed…
> If one wants to post a Facebook picture on one’s Twitter feed, one does that by downloading the data from Facebook and then uploading it to Twitter. Shouldn’t it be possible to have the image flow directly from Facebook to Twitter? How does my upspin file "ann@example.com/pub/hello.jpg" solve the problem here? I would have a single source for my image to share but still no way to describe an image hosted by FB as a…
No new tech is needed, only the will to open up the walled gardens.
By the way, this was sort of taking shape for a while with 3rd-party aggregators ("all your social media in one feed!"), but that approach just withered away with the growth of FB into an unstoppable juggernaut.
EDIT: Which isn't to say that Upspin doesn't have some very interesting uses, but the barrier of UGC walled gardens not wanting to open up in the first place makes this particular use-case moot.
> Other than occasional workarounds using a URL, information given to these services becomes accessible only through those services. If one wants to post a Facebook picture on one’s Twitter feed, one does that by downloading the data from Facebook and then uploading it to Twitter. Shouldn’t it be possible to have the image flow directly from Facebook to Twitter? I'm not sure I understand the problem with URLs. "Copy…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw nothing about requiring email address usernames to be backed by an email provider in the documentation. The email address is literally just a username format and is authenticated by public key. Anyone concerned with the privacy of their actual email address would obviously not use that address as their user. As I understand it, you can just make one up for a username. If this is incorrect, someone more informed…
Seems like that results in a different problem? Someone could take your email address.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
This doesn't really clarify what an "unofficial" Google project is. Does it mean that people don't work on it full-time and it's a 20% project? Does it mean that it was developed at home without using Google's resources, so they don't have an ownership interest in it, but they are letting it be hosted on their infrastructure and announced on their blog to be nice? Does it mean that Google isn't sure how long it will…
> Does it mean that people don't work on it full-time and it's a 20% project?
That there are a few of us paid full-time to work on this, plus some 20% contributors.
> Does it mean that it was developed at home without using Google's resources, so they don't have an ownership interest in it, but they are letting it be hosted on their infrastructure and announced on their blog to be nice?
No, this was developed by Google employees on Google's time.
> Does it mean that Google isn't sure how long it will want to continue to contribute resources?
I'm not sure what "Google" thinks about this, but I do know that the foreseeable future this is what I and my other teammates will be working on.
> Does it mean that support is only available on an ad-hoc basis (isn't that the case with all free Google products)?
There is definitely no support for Upspin beyond us and the community helping people on the mailing list.
> Does it mean that serious customers shouldn't rely on it to work reliably?
As is stated in the README, Upspin is still very rough. It's early days.
> Does it not really mean anything, and just thrown on there for legal protection (against what?)?
I'm not sure what "unofficial" means in this case but I hope I have answered your questions sufficiently.
It's a bit unclear how email-based identifiers should work when publishing long-lived, public files. In particular, which email address should you use? Will the general public learn your email address? What about people who want to post publicly and keep their email addresses private? What happens if you switch email providers? Also, there is there any provision for actually making public files available via https? H…
I saw nothing about requiring email address usernames to be backed by an email provider in the documentation. The email address is literally just a username format and is authenticated by public key. Anyone concerned with the privacy of their actual email address would obviously not use that address as their user. As I understand it, you can just make one up for a username. If this is incorrect, someone more informed…