4 ms·

Good to know. Just to re-iterate one point, the ideal is that the server does not have a hold over the data (by say withholding download of backup data), or tha

Good to know. Just to re-iterate one point, the ideal is that the server does not have a hold over the data (by say withholding download of backup data), or that the data is held tied to a certain server. Server and data (encrypted) should just be commodities, and the domain DNS is what should describe ownership. That's why I would like the focus to be on federation than easy import/export.

kentonv 10y ago
Realistically, if you want to run code on the server, the server needs some control over the data. There are some distributed systems lately that really only distribute storage while all computation happens client-side. That doesn't work well if you want real-time collaboration (the latency is too high) or multi-user permission constraints. Not to mention, it requires rewriting the world. So, I'm skeptical of those approaches. I'd rather make it easy to get your data out when you need/want to. But it's certainly an opinion that is open to debate.
- anilgulecha 10y ago
  Copying from a sister comment on this thread: > To ensure low latency, I'm OK with the protocol allowing a server to cache and render recent data, while a background service syncs to the de-centralized store. This would be a help for the UI from the protocol, but the ideal IMO should be something that normal SaaS companies/products hold you on for -- they have your data hostage. I understand that for sandstorm above many not be possible as you'd have to re-write a lot, and this feature does not hold sufficient priority for the relevant code re-write to happen. That's too bad though -- I was expecting this need of mine to be provided by the project. Still I wish you the best of luck as you're head and shoulders the better option above any of the current SaaS apps for a personal clouds.
michaelchisari 10y ago
> Server and data (encrypted) should just be commodities They should be. But the difficulties and complexities of getting that right are what's kept that from becoming reality yet.
- anilgulecha 10y ago
  Understood. The exciting thing about sandstorm to me was (and is) that it promised a lay-person easy server and cloud data management. To make this viable, the user would only need to pay for compute and storage. However, compute and storage providers must not be able to hold user data hostage. Yes, the ideal is hard to acheive, but, for example, nntp had shown decades ago that data storage federation is possible. It's about coming up with the right protocol. To ensure low latencies, I'm OK with the protocol allowing a server to cache and render recent data, while a background service syncs to the de-centralized store.
  - michaelchisari 10y ago
    NNTP didn't maintain any kind of privacy of data, though. Once you layer that in, the complexities are tenfold. It's the issue that arose when I was working on Appleseed. People really wanted a fully decentralized social network, but they wanted to maintain the kind of lock & key access that silos provide. Federation allows you to have a modicum of control over data, but you still have the "message passing" problem, where once you distribute the information across the network, you don't control what people do with it anymore. This exists, to a lesser extent, in a silo as it concerns the users, but with federation, it concerns the hosts as well. So people want it fully decentralized, but also encrypted, but also available easily, but also secure, but also user friendly with a decent UX (discoverability, speed, etc). That's a whole lot you have to balance. It is about coming up with the right protocol, but that's a much bigger problem than that sentence broadcasts.
    - anilgulecha 10y ago
      Thank you for your insight .. I did not know you are a part of the decentralization arena. If I may ask, who or what project do you think is the closest to the fully-decentralized/encrypted/secure/available easily? I think friendly UI only has to build on the above.
      - michaelchisari 10y ago

kentonv 10y ago

Realistically, if you want to run code on the server, the server needs some control over the data. There are some distributed systems lately that really only distribute storage while all computation happens client-side. That doesn't work well if you want real-time collaboration (the latency is too high) or multi-user permission constraints. Not to mention, it requires rewriting the world. So, I'm skeptical of those approaches. I'd rather make it easy to get your data out when you need/want to. But it's certainly an opinion that is open to debate.

anilgulecha 10y ago
Copying from a sister comment on this thread: > To ensure low latency, I'm OK with the protocol allowing a server to cache and render recent data, while a background service syncs to the de-centralized store. This would be a help for the UI from the protocol, but the ideal IMO should be something that normal SaaS companies/products hold you on for -- they have your data hostage. I understand that for sandstorm above many not be possible as you'd have to re-write a lot, and this feature does not hold sufficient priority for the relevant code re-write to happen. That's too bad though -- I was expecting this need of mine to be provided by the project. Still I wish you the best of luck as you're head and shoulders the better option above any of the current SaaS apps for a personal clouds.

michaelchisari 10y ago

> Server and data (encrypted) should just be commodities They should be. But the difficulties and complexities of getting that right are what's kept that from becoming reality yet.

anilgulecha 10y ago
Understood. The exciting thing about sandstorm to me was (and is) that it promised a lay-person easy server and cloud data management. To make this viable, the user would only need to pay for compute and storage. However, compute and storage providers must not be able to hold user data hostage. Yes, the ideal is hard to acheive, but, for example, nntp had shown decades ago that data storage federation is possible. It's about coming up with the right protocol. To ensure low latencies, I'm OK with the protocol allowing a server to cache and render recent data, while a background service syncs to the de-centralized store.
- michaelchisari 10y ago
  NNTP didn't maintain any kind of privacy of data, though. Once you layer that in, the complexities are tenfold. It's the issue that arose when I was working on Appleseed. People really wanted a fully decentralized social network, but they wanted to maintain the kind of lock & key access that silos provide. Federation allows you to have a modicum of control over data, but you still have the "message passing" problem, where once you distribute the information across the network, you don't control what people do with it anymore. This exists, to a lesser extent, in a silo as it concerns the users, but with federation, it concerns the hosts as well. So people want it fully decentralized, but also encrypted, but also available easily, but also secure, but also user friendly with a decent UX (discoverability, speed, etc). That's a whole lot you have to balance. It is about coming up with the right protocol, but that's a much bigger problem than that sentence broadcasts.
  - anilgulecha 10y ago
    Thank you for your insight .. I did not know you are a part of the decentralization arena. If I may ask, who or what project do you think is the closest to the fully-decentralized/encrypted/secure/available easily? I think friendly UI only has to build on the above.
    - michaelchisari 10y ago