8 ms·

Show HN: ORC – Onion Routed Cloud

96 points by sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago

herbst 9y ago
This sounds interesting and got me thinking, i have some high bandwidth storage just sitting around. However i the machine runs on a skylake pentium and docker seems overkill. Is there anything like this that works without docker?
- sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
  It's not required to run in docker, just there for ease of setup. Check out https://orcproject.github.io/orc/tutorial-install.html https://orcproject.github.io/orc/tutorial-install.html
  - herbst 9y ago
    Nice. Seems there is a error tho: npm install -g @orcproject/orc only works as: npm install -g orcproject/orc
    - sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
      Oo! Sorry hasn't been published to npm yet, still prepping for beta. Try `npm install orcproject/orc` to get the latest from master branch on github.
    - sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
      Aanndd just saw you did that already.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
Best_Teaser 9y ago
I wonder how much storage would cost? I found Amazon's cloud storage surprisingly affordable. It doesn't seem like it would add so much cost just to run it through a TOR network.
fiatjaf 9y ago
What is it? There's no explanation of what it is in the website, although there is a whitepaper, documentation, a tutorial and a description of the protocol. From the whitepaper Abstract: "A peer-to-peer cloud storage network implementing client-side encryption would allow users to transfer and share data without reliance on a third party storage provider. The removal of central controls would mitigate most traditional data failures and outages, as well as significantly increase security, privacy, and data control. Peer-to-peer networks are generally unfeasible for production storage systems, as data availability is a function of popularity, rather than utility. We propose a solution in the form of a challenge-response verification system coupled with direct payments. In this way we can periodically check data integrity, and offer rewards to peers maintaining data. We further propose that in order to secure such a system, participants must have complete anonymity in regard to both communication and payments."
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  Somewhat related: why every project out there that wants to appear as serious has to publish a "whitepaper", which is basically any gibberish you want in a PDF format? (Not saying ORC is gibberish at all, but I do have seem the most simple and stupid ideas written in tech projects whitepapers over the last years.) Why can't a project write all it wants in HTML pages, with links, clickable topics, separated pages, images, code snippets, examples etc., everything that could make it better to read and understand?
  - dna_polymerase 9y ago
    Because whitepapers look scientific and somewhat professional. At least enough to let people believe a given project is worth an ICO investment. (Not ORC, but still, guys c'mon just give us the information on a website)
  - api 9y ago
    It reminds me of the Kickstarter and Angellist video fad.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
philippnagel 9y ago
Interesting, does anyone know how this is related to storj.io?
- Dystopian 9y ago
  It looks like a bunch of their team was part of the Storj team previously - maybe a fork of Storj's core to be compatible with Onion vs Blockchain? It looks like their website is also based on the same theme. From a commented out paragraph: 
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    >maybe a fork of Storj's core to be compatible with Onion vs Blockchain? That is the impression I get from the Storj and ORC faq's. They both are distributed storage networks with files split up in pieces and encrypted. Storj uses the blockchain to make files immutable, ORC uses tor hidden services and zcash to make the file owners anonymous and the servers hidden.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  IIUC, this was a fork of storj created by a recently-former maintainer [1]. Strikes me as a great time to liquidate your SJCX (I just did). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_friends/ https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...
woodandsteel 9y ago
This looks like the opposite of IPFS in terms of what gets stored on your computer if you are part of the network. On IPFS, something gets on your computer only if you decide to let it, and there are blacklists to automatically keep off material you don't want. On ORC, it seems that encrypted pieces of everything get stored, so you can wind up with all sorts of things you don't want, but on the other hand might be able to deny legal responsibility.
- polle626 9y ago
  Well, in ORC you get paid for storing things, in IPFS you don't.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    Another comparison would be FreeNet, also where you don't get paid anything, but you don't know what's on your particular hard drive either. With FreeNet though, you can anonymously post and distribute content to others. I didn't see anything on the page or FAQ indicating if you could create a public key/link (like you can with Mega).
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    True, except with filecoin you get paid in IPFS. Anyway, my comment wasn't meant as a total comparison, just focusing on one particular issue.
kodablah 9y ago
Sorry I have not dug too deeply, but I have some questions. 1. Are there controls (i.e. proof-of-stake) to enforce equitable and lasting storage of your items on others' machines? 2. What is the consensus model for marking peers as bad actors? 3. What are the redundancy guarantees? That is, how many nodes store my data? 4. What is the "currency" of sorts that I must "pay" in order to store a certain amount? Amount of hard disk I contribute back? 5. Why was the AGPL chosen? Surely adoption by any means, commercial or otherwise, would be welcome in a system that has equitable sharing guarantees. Now if I want to implement your spec in my choice license, I can't even read your reference implementation. Maybe some fodder for the FAQ. If not answered later, I'll peruse the whitepaper.
- polle626 9y ago
  proof-of-retrievability, I imagine somewhat like what Storj, Sia and Filecoin do. zcash is the currency.
woodandsteel 9y ago
The web page says files are encrypted and then split into chunks that are stored around the network, and then reassembled when you want to access your file. That sounds like no one could alter your file. The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages." Does this means files can't be lost, as long as you keep paying your bill?
- vgb2k11 9y ago
  >The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages." >Does this means files can't be lost, as long as you keep paying your bill? The white-paper mentions: >"ORC will soon implement client-side Reed-Solomon erasure coding (Plank (1996)). Erasure coding algorithms break a file into k shards, and programmatically create m parity shards, giving a total of k + m = n shards". So at first glance its seems like the usenet parchive/PAR2 redundancy methodology, but storing the parity shards locally (client side). Well that's my interpretation of this section of the white-paper anyways. So in short: it certainly doesn't mean that the files "can't be lost", but it means the owner of the files can rebuild the files using parity shards from client side in that case that network outages affect file availability.
simcop2387 9y ago
Based on what I'm reading here, it looks a lot like freenet. Does orc give any kind of privacy promises like it?
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, functionally it's like Freenet. But it's all done through Tor onion services, so participants can be at least somewhat anonymous. With Freenet, there is no anonymity, only "plausible deniability". Which in practice has ended up being pretty worthless by itself. Consider that guy in Philadelphia, who's rotting in prison for refusing to provide his FDE password. He claims to have forgotten it, but that's not working out so well.
trackofalljades 9y ago
Is this viral marketing for Silicon Valley? Mostly kidding, but really, this is pretty close to "Pied Piper" isn't it?

96 points by sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago

This sounds interesting and got me thinking, i have some high bandwidth storage just sitting around. However i the machine runs on a skylake pentium and docker seems overkill. Is there anything like this that works without docker?

sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
It's not required to run in docker, just there for ease of setup. Check out https://orcproject.github.io/orc/tutorial-install.html https://orcproject.github.io/orc/tutorial-install.html
- herbst 9y ago
  Nice. Seems there is a error tho: npm install -g @orcproject/orc only works as: npm install -g orcproject/orc
  - sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
    Oo! Sorry hasn't been published to npm yet, still prepping for beta. Try `npm install orcproject/orc` to get the latest from master branch on github.
  - sp0rkyd0rky 9y ago
    Aanndd just saw you did that already.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

Best_Teaser 9y ago

I wonder how much storage would cost? I found Amazon's cloud storage surprisingly affordable. It doesn't seem like it would add so much cost just to run it through a TOR network.

fiatjaf 9y ago

What is it? There's no explanation of what it is in the website, although there is a whitepaper, documentation, a tutorial and a description of the protocol. From the whitepaper Abstract: "A peer-to-peer cloud storage network implementing client-side encryption would allow users to transfer and share data without reliance on a third party storage provider. The removal of central controls would mitigate most traditional data failures and outages, as well as significantly increase security, privacy, and data control. Peer-to-peer networks are generally unfeasible for production storage systems, as data availability is a function of popularity, rather than utility. We propose a solution in the form of a challenge-response verification system coupled with direct payments. In this way we can periodically check data integrity, and offer rewards to peers maintaining data. We further propose that in order to secure such a system, participants must have complete anonymity in regard to both communication and payments."

fiatjaf 9y ago
Somewhat related: why every project out there that wants to appear as serious has to publish a "whitepaper", which is basically any gibberish you want in a PDF format? (Not saying ORC is gibberish at all, but I do have seem the most simple and stupid ideas written in tech projects whitepapers over the last years.) Why can't a project write all it wants in HTML pages, with links, clickable topics, separated pages, images, code snippets, examples etc., everything that could make it better to read and understand?
- dna_polymerase 9y ago
  Because whitepapers look scientific and somewhat professional. At least enough to let people believe a given project is worth an ICO investment. (Not ORC, but still, guys c'mon just give us the information on a website)
- api 9y ago
  It reminds me of the Kickstarter and Angellist video fad.
- vertex-four 9y ago

philippnagel 9y ago

Interesting, does anyone know how this is related to storj.io?

Dystopian 9y ago
It looks like a bunch of their team was part of the Storj team previously - maybe a fork of Storj's core to be compatible with Onion vs Blockchain? It looks like their website is also based on the same theme. From a commented out paragraph: 
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  >maybe a fork of Storj's core to be compatible with Onion vs Blockchain? That is the impression I get from the Storj and ORC faq's. They both are distributed storage networks with files split up in pieces and encrypted. Storj uses the blockchain to make files immutable, ORC uses tor hidden services and zcash to make the file owners anonymous and the servers hidden.
wyldfire 9y ago
IIUC, this was a fork of storj created by a recently-former maintainer [1]. Strikes me as a great time to liquidate your SJCX (I just did). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_friends/ https://www.reddit.com/r/storj/comments/6llxpn/so_long_frien...

woodandsteel 9y ago

This looks like the opposite of IPFS in terms of what gets stored on your computer if you are part of the network. On IPFS, something gets on your computer only if you decide to let it, and there are blacklists to automatically keep off material you don't want. On ORC, it seems that encrypted pieces of everything get stored, so you can wind up with all sorts of things you don't want, but on the other hand might be able to deny legal responsibility.

polle626 9y ago
Well, in ORC you get paid for storing things, in IPFS you don't.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Another comparison would be FreeNet, also where you don't get paid anything, but you don't know what's on your particular hard drive either. With FreeNet though, you can anonymously post and distribute content to others. I didn't see anything on the page or FAQ indicating if you could create a public key/link (like you can with Mega).
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  True, except with filecoin you get paid in IPFS. Anyway, my comment wasn't meant as a total comparison, just focusing on one particular issue.

kodablah 9y ago

Sorry I have not dug too deeply, but I have some questions. 1. Are there controls (i.e. proof-of-stake) to enforce equitable and lasting storage of your items on others' machines? 2. What is the consensus model for marking peers as bad actors? 3. What are the redundancy guarantees? That is, how many nodes store my data? 4. What is the "currency" of sorts that I must "pay" in order to store a certain amount? Amount of hard disk I contribute back? 5. Why was the AGPL chosen? Surely adoption by any means, commercial or otherwise, would be welcome in a system that has equitable sharing guarantees. Now if I want to implement your spec in my choice license, I can't even read your reference implementation. Maybe some fodder for the FAQ. If not answered later, I'll peruse the whitepaper.

polle626 9y ago
proof-of-retrievability, I imagine somewhat like what Storj, Sia and Filecoin do. zcash is the currency.

woodandsteel 9y ago

The web page says files are encrypted and then split into chunks that are stored around the network, and then reassembled when you want to access your file. That sounds like no one could alter your file. The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages." Does this means files can't be lost, as long as you keep paying your bill?

vgb2k11 9y ago
>The webpage also says, "Redundancy is achieved through the use of erasure codes so that your data can always be recovered even in the event of large network outages." >Does this means files can't be lost, as long as you keep paying your bill? The white-paper mentions: >"ORC will soon implement client-side Reed-Solomon erasure coding (Plank (1996)). Erasure coding algorithms break a file into k shards, and programmatically create m parity shards, giving a total of k + m = n shards". So at first glance its seems like the usenet parchive/PAR2 redundancy methodology, but storing the parity shards locally (client side). Well that's my interpretation of this section of the white-paper anyways. So in short: it certainly doesn't mean that the files "can't be lost", but it means the owner of the files can rebuild the files using parity shards from client side in that case that network outages affect file availability.

simcop2387 9y ago

Based on what I'm reading here, it looks a lot like freenet. Does orc give any kind of privacy promises like it?

mirimir 9y ago
Yes, functionally it's like Freenet. But it's all done through Tor onion services, so participants can be at least somewhat anonymous. With Freenet, there is no anonymity, only "plausible deniability". Which in practice has ended up being pretty worthless by itself. Consider that guy in Philadelphia, who's rotting in prison for refusing to provide his FDE password. He claims to have forgotten it, but that's not working out so well.

trackofalljades 9y ago

Is this viral marketing for Silicon Valley? Mostly kidding, but really, this is pretty close to "Pied Piper" isn't it?