11 ms·

Show HN: Duple – Private cloud at home

78 points by louisknows 7y ago

r00fus 7y ago
So how does this thing work? Does the private cloud only exist when the storage device is plugged in? I see "smart TV" as a host option, does that mean the storage devices can use unaware USB hosts to be a communication mechanism? Interesting idea, I'll have to try it @home. Whitepaper on how the tech works would be nice.
- aloknnikhil 7y ago
  A white paper is necessary to understand this. It doesn't make sense otherwise. How would a smart TV or any TV for that matter be configured to export it's USB devices as a network mount? I mean, there's absolutely no way to reach a USB drive attached to your TV except from within the TV itself.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
projectramo 7y ago
This is the offer: "The beta version of Duple is now available. You can download it and use it for free. However if you’d like to participate in the Duple beta program, and get a lifetime discount as a reward, click here." But I don't understand what we are paying for going forward. Presumably you pay for the software once. Is there a recurring charge of some sort? What for? If the software is on premise, you can't really turn it off or stop it from working. Does duple, the company, ever touch the data? If privacy is the killer feature, it seems that an open source version will ultimately displace this.
- davidandgoliath 7y ago
  Better to use syncthing, simple equivalent & free / open source.
  - taborj 7y ago
    Agreed. This just feels like closed-source syncthing.
  - anderspitman 7y ago
    Syncthing is great (I use it for all my syncing needs), but it's scope is limited. It doesn't really solve file sharing in a user-friendly way.
    - smush 7y ago
      While I agree Syncthing is about seamlessly syncing files with devices you own, not file sharing as such, it does a good 98% of what this program offers with a more open source background and is completely free. I share files, what, once a year? Syncthing works great for that use case. If I want to share files too big to email, I can stand to upload to Onedrive/Dropbox/an open directory on my web server for that one-time use. For more frequent setups, sure an Owncloud/Nextcloud instance wouldn't be amiss.
      - anderspitman 7y ago
        Oh I wasn't arguing in favor of using this. I doubt I'll ever use non open software for my data again. Just saying I've run into problems trying to use syncthing for sharing files.
        smush 7y ago
        No offense intended or taken, you and are I are in complete agreement re: what software should be touching our data. I believe you when you say you've had problems performing file shares to arbitrary people, my comments were directed only that my use case is somewhat different. Cheers!
- thedanbob 7y ago
  I found this in the FAQs: > We will have in the future our own dynamic DNS name service that will be included in the app price, so people don't have to pay for it with another company if they don't want to.
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  It's free now, but you have to enter a magic code. The code expires in a month or so and then you'll need a new code, which will presumably cost money. So it's a free trial.
peterwwillis 7y ago
When someone says "modern day snake oil", this is what I think of. A "cloud" that isn't the cloud at all, pretends to be more reliable and secure than it is, and over-sells basic features like replication. "This USB stick will solve all your problems for a low, low price!"
milad_nazari 7y ago
tl;dr: It's an easier to install and use Nextcloud alternative, with open source components (to be released in the future) but closed source core.
- acomjean 7y ago
  I thought of nextcloud. Seems very similar: For those unfamiliar nextcloud is kinda an open source Dropbox. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nextcloud-13-how-get-started-and-why-you-should https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nextcloud-13-how-get-st...
dperfect 7y ago
> No server needed. No expensive hardware required... You can use your Router, NAS, Raspberry Pi, Smart TV. So... it turns those things into servers then (many of which already run servers by default)? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but a device running server software is still a server, even if it isn't dedicated to only that task.
- phil248 7y ago
  Reminds me the ridiculous "no software" campaign by Salesforce.
  - Aperocky 7y ago
    LMAO, now I need to hear about it.
- magashna 7y ago
  Cloud = servers someone else has and mostly maintains for you Cloud...at home? This is a dumb headline. The definition of "server" has gone from big bulky slabs of bare metal to include smaller things like a RPi.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Cloud = servers someone else has and mostly maintains for you No, ”cloud = on-demand provisioned server resources”; that was what distinguished cloud computing from pre-existing remote-leased or on-premises resources. “Private cloud” (usually, on-premises of the user) has been a thing since very early in cloud computing, and “at home” has been plausible for even fairly casual users at least since Ubuntu 9.04 bundled Eucalyptus. But this service is just abusing “cloud” to mean “SaaS”, I think (in that it's a demo of a paid SaaS product that incorporates your hardware.)
  - furst 7y ago
    I think the biggest issue in this thread is the multiple definitions of what a cloud is. To most of the people in this thread, the cloud isn't possible at home. To consumers, the cloud is just somewhere else to store their files. This addresses the latter, giving consumers an easy way to store their files on a "server" i.e. their computers, while having it in your home.
lonelappde 7y ago
It's not open source and it's not for sale, even though it's a business, so beware about what it's future may be. However it might be reusable with an alternate core: > Q: Do you plan to open-source it later? A: We'll open source everything (server, interface, etc...), except from the C Library. Reason being that the library is what gives us our technical competitive advantage (being that you get the full private cloud experience with no need for a server). It's also important to note that you can't patent your code/algorithm in Europe, so there's no other way to protect it. But everything else expect from the library will be open-source.
swiley 7y ago
>How does it work? >Just turn it on! That’s not an explanation of how it works, that’s an explanation of how to use it. (I mean, you just know something stupid like that is coming the moment you see a loading progress bar for a static page. It’s not surprising, just disappointing.)
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  I mean, we need this sort of technology to take hold with non-technical users, so I applaud it from that aspect... but us technical users want to know what's actually happening here. And the fact that the source is "coming soon" doesn't help either. Oh, here's what we're looking for: https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >we need this sort of technology to take hold with non-technical users, I'm pretty sure non-technical users are not looking for a private cloud.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      Are you sure? Eventually people are going to realize that the SaaS companies have sold them out. And they may not understand what a private cloud is, but that's what they're going to want: The convenience they're accustomed to in a device only they control which can't be shut down or taken away from them.
      - anderspitman 7y ago
        ISPs (at least in the US) have been selling their customers out for years. Nobody cares as long as Netflix works and their photos get to the people they want to see them.
      - macspoofing 7y ago
        >Eventually people are going to realize that the SaaS companies have sold them out. In what way? And which SaaS companies?
Mathnerd314 7y ago
https://doc.duple.io/duplecli-documentation/ https://doc.duple.io/duplecli-documentation/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/ So basically Dropbox but with an SFTP server or network/local filesystem for hosting.
infinisil 7y ago
From what I can gather from the FAQ, this won't work for routers behind a NAT, which is the case for me and I assume many others too, this should probably be mentioned somewhere. A bit worrying that it'll be forever closed source, especially since it needs to expose your router to the internet and that it's written in C and also this sentence from the FAQ: > Everything was built from scratch
- jbverschoor 7y ago
  Long live zerotier
  - redblacktree 7y ago
    Thanks for the tip. I'd never heard of it. For others like me: https://www.zerotier.com/manual/ https://www.zerotier.com/manual/
    - mceachen 7y ago
      Here's their getting started page (not terribly mobile friendly though) https://zerotier.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SD/pages/8454145/Getting+Started+with+ZeroTier https://zerotier.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SD/pages/8454145/...
  - eximius 7y ago
    Or wireguard with your own DNS (unbound) blackhole-ing ad networks: https://www.ckn.io/blog/2017/11/14/wireguard-vpn-typical-setup/ https://www.ckn.io/blog/2017/11/14/wireguard-vpn-typical-set... Or IPv6. Personally, I like running a Mikrotik Hex Lite as my home router with Ubiquiti wireless APs behind it. I've definitely learned a lot about networking trying to get everything set up nice and secure. That'd make a good blog post, actually... EDIT: Zerotier is a great service. I kind of dream of some collaboration between Zerotier and Wireguard. Zerotier is Software Defined Networking, I guess(?), and it'd be cool to have wireguard be part of that stack. Though maybe that's not necessary. I haven't dug into Zerotier recently enough to know if thats redundant or at all useful.
sorryitstrue 7y ago
I need more from private cloud than just storage
gramakri 7y ago
How is this different from syncthing - https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/ https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/ ? I am still trying to figure out
- Mathnerd314 7y ago
  Syncthing is peer-to-peer, Duple is one master + many slaves.
  - nodesocket 7y ago
    First time I have seen Syncthing. I am currently using Resilio Sync to sync my "Sites" directory across my iMac and MacBook Pro. Resilio seems to work well, but it has not been updated in a long time (running v2.6.3) and sometimes it uses nearly 100% of a single CPU core for no apparent reason for extended periods of time. How does Syncthing stack up against Resilio?
ignoramous 7y ago
I see https://www.duple.io/en/blocked.html https://www.duple.io/en/blocked.html when I click Try Duple What countries do they intend to not sell their software in and why? A FAQ would be nice.
zelon88 7y ago
I'm really into home Cloud stuff. This answers none of my questions. 1) Where will my files be stored? 2) Does Duple store a copy? 3) What does Duple do with my meta data? What do they do with usage stats? 4) Does Duple have any third party contracts or contractors with access to my data? 5) How does putting Duple software on an RPI make my files available from anywhere? How do you enable access to my device from anywhere? These guys are asking for an awful lot of faith from users who are looking to potentially store their entire lives on their service. We deserve to know how it really works.
- mvanbaak 7y ago
  A lot of those questions are answered in their FAQ. The Duple application on your 'server' will simply expose a directory on that system (or a remote SFTP server) to other Duple applications you connect to it. All data will be on the machine you maintain. So no, they are not storing your data for you. To enable access to your device from outside your local network, you have to either give the Duple running machine a public ip and open the port, or do port-forwarding if you are behind a NAT firewall (which is the most common situation for home cloud stuff)
  - indigodaddy 7y ago
    So this concept is similar to BitTorrent Sync? (Or whatever it’s called now)
    - mvanbaak 7y ago
      Yups, and syncthing as well. and probably others.
- human20190310 7y ago
  What is the purpose of having "the cloud" in your home at all? To me "the cloud's" primary value is that it is running off-site, in an environment that capably and regularly deals with broken equipment. If my work is backed up in Google/Dropbox's data center, I don't have to worry about it if my house gets flooded. Having the cloud in your house, running on whatever stuff is laying around, just seems one small step removed from just keeping everything on your laptop and hoping it doesn't break.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
A bit offtopic, but does anybody know a micro server the size of an Intel NUC or Mac Mini, but with 100+W desktop/server (real, not cloud) hardware for use as CI server?
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  Good question. I too wonder. To extend your question with my own; What would be a cost effective solution to setting up home servers for CI/storage/whatever? I could of course just buy random PC parts, but I'm curious to hear what people are liking. Are you liking your home servers form factor? Price tag? etc.
  - kevstev 7y ago
    I have long been a fan of Synology NAS's for this type of thing (I have been using one since 2007). They offer CPUs these days that should be beefy enough for a CI use case, unless you have a very large project. QNAP offers similar products as well. I bought one as I just wanted a low power always-on server that Just Worked with a software ecosystem around it. You can now run docker containers on them as well easily. I can access at home or via the web- they provide a dyndns service so I can just go to http://quickconnect.to/$username http://quickconnect.to/$username and access from anywhere.
- IloveHN84 7y ago
  A Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB Ram or a Intel NUC Skull Canyon
  - tannhaeuser 7y ago
    A Pi is too weak for my workloads I'm afraid ;) Actually I considered a Hades Canyon (successor to Skull Canyon) with an early Intel 10th gen part but it has it's iGPU disabled and comes with a Radeon (!) GPU which just calls for trouble and additional cooling, though it's still much better than nvdia for Linux I guess. But then I'd rather go all-in on AMD CPUs which are winning in the bang-for-buck and multi-threaded department anyway. Plus, I don't want lasercut skull-shaped grilles and similar gaming traits if I can help it ;) Edit: also it's already out well over a year, and given Intel's atypical immaturity wrt their 9nm parts, it might be better to skip on this one
asdkhadsj 7y ago
I clicked for a "Private Cloud", and all I saw was storage of files. Am I missing more?
mvanbaak 7y ago
"You have one repository folder and one folder Duple on each device where you can access your cloud. This Duple folder works like a Dropbox folder, and everything is synchronized in multidirectional way between all the devices (all the Duple folders) and the repository folder which contains the totality of the private cloud." So, here I am, exposing my 36TB nas using this new duple thing. Because every client needs the repository folder which contains the totality of the privace cloud, how is this going to work?
kmano8 7y ago
Somewhat related- I've gotten a lot of mileage out of using Cryptomator (no affiliation) with iCloud to have access to encrypted documents across devices without having to worry about the pain of self-hosting. Here's a blog post I wrote about it https://karlshouler.com/posts/2019-05-31-secure-cloud-storage https://karlshouler.com/posts/2019-05-31-secure-cloud-storag...
samirm 7y ago
Terrible website design. Absolutely no reason to block all content just because I have js turned off.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  While it would be nice if they provided HTML endpoints, there are valid reasons for using SPAs, even for text-heavy sites. That said, the loading bar is a bit mind-blowing IMO.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    What are those valid reasons?
ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
They have some fairly hefty competition: https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive https://www.drobo.com/homeoffice/#file https://www.drobo.com/homeoffice/#file I'm pretty sure that most NAS vendors have some variation on "Home Cloud." I think most folks that want to set something like this up, will want a turnkey solution.
- adamredwoods 7y ago
  Looking at their "about us" page removed my confidence from their product. They should fix that asap. For my data, I want reliability and security. I want something that has been battle-tested, and that I am confident will be around in a few years. This is why I went with Synology. Two guys in a "garage/bootstrapping" does not instill confidence.
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  I recently went from a DIY NAS (Linux PC with lots of HDDs shared on my LAN) to a Synology and am now absolutely in love with it. All my devices now back themselves up to the NAS overnight. Cameras dump direct into the NAS via a card reader plugged into it. Family can all browse the family photo library from their phones or any device they want or cast slideshows to the TVs. Download torrents with my phone, saving directly to the NAS, then immediately watch it on my TV transcoded in real-time with automatic pulling of subtitles and metadata. I want to marry it. Sure I’d prefer if all this was open source etc, but I played with FreeNas and various other packages and they don’t even come close in usability or ease of administration.
dochtman 7y ago
Apart from all the other stuff, it seems suspicious that they would use Serpent for encryption, rather than using AES or another more well-known cipher suite (also, no talk about AEAD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(cipher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(cipher)
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  The article you link perhaps hint at why the developers felt like this: The NIST report apparently suggested Serpent was actually a bit more secure, but Rijndael was chosen for AES because it allowed for a more efficient software implementation. The developers may feel that that trade-off wasn't worth it, although obviously, going with a less-common strategy for encryption is generally discouraged.
  - peterwwillis 7y ago
    Which is crazy. AES is good enough for TOP SECRET, it's the most widely supported & vetted modern cipher, and all modern hardware has instruction sets dedicated to it that prevent timing side channels (which Serpent can't claim). Not using AES here is a product design red flag.
akerro 7y ago
So I read the frontpage, download/try page and installation and still have absolutely no idea what this project is about.
mattsfrey 7y ago
Does anyone remember younity? Same exact product, same exact tag line "personal cloud" etc. (ex-engineer here)
JoshuaMulliken 7y ago
"military-grade encryption" in marketing materials always scares me. Just tell me what the algos are
- kube-system 7y ago
  ROT13 of course, designed to Roman military specifications.
  - tlb 7y ago
    Caesar ciphers mostly shifted by 1 or 3. Their alphabet had only 23 letters (no J, U, or W) so ROT-13 wouldn't had the cool property of being its own inverse.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      My mistake, ROT-13 is actually beyond military grade :D
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      ROT13 is 4 rounds of Caesar-3 and one round of Caesar-1, and multiple rounds of encryption and mixing different modes makes it that much more secure, right?
tibbydudeza 7y ago
Blocked in South Africa.
anderspitman 7y ago
I found the FAQ[0] to be the most informative. [0] https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/
kemonocode 7y ago
Blocked in Venezuela. Not entirely surprised, but very disheartening.
cat199 7y ago
how does this differ from owncloud/nextcloud?
wheresvic3 7y ago
I'm sorry but Nextcloud is getting a bit of an unfair shake here. I recently got a raspberry pi 4 and installing nextcloud on there wasn't rocket science: https://smalldata.tech/blog/2019/07/12/setting-up-a-raspberry-pi-4-home-server https://smalldata.tech/blog/2019/07/12/setting-up-a-raspberr... In fact the biggest issue that I faced was that my router did not support NAT loopback which led me to using the pi for DNS in order to be able to use my "private" cloud. Nextcloud is an open-source dropbox and is written in PHP. It can be very easily installed via docker and is quite mature at this point with a rich ecosystem of 3rd party apps for functionality other than file sync. Big props to the folks working on it!
dplgk 7y ago
Home cloud is an oxymoron, no? At what point is it just "I have some servers"?
sealthedeal 7y ago
From a problem solution perspective. Your "why" section does not actually describe "why". Its more listing reason why you think this is good. I was hoping to see more of "Why" your own private cloud is a good idea. You are describing the solution not the problem. Hope that is helpful in some way :)
cik 7y ago
I finally ditched SpiderOak for SyncThing about a month ago - and I haven't looked back. It solves all of these issues, I fully host it myself, and I can access everything, exactly the way I want to based on shares. I have a machine in my office, a shared folder on my mobile, two machines at home, and my wife has her office, and her work laptop. It's everything these things should be, other than the lack of an iOS app for her.
- smush 7y ago
  I have a lot of devices as well - syncthing can handle em all. 3x phones for photo upload, music sync, TWRP zips etc. 2x personal laptops 2x work devices + a personal VM 2x close friend party shares for easy linux iso sharing overnight And most recently, added one volunteer device for instant/eventually consistent overnight poor-man's offsite data backup. I can mix n match folders for this on the fly and feel no loss of functionality with how little I do arbitrary internet file sharing.

78 points by louisknows 7y ago

So how does this thing work? Does the private cloud only exist when the storage device is plugged in? I see "smart TV" as a host option, does that mean the storage devices can use unaware USB hosts to be a communication mechanism? Interesting idea, I'll have to try it @home. Whitepaper on how the tech works would be nice.

aloknnikhil 7y ago
A white paper is necessary to understand this. It doesn't make sense otherwise. How would a smart TV or any TV for that matter be configured to export it's USB devices as a network mount? I mean, there's absolutely no way to reach a USB drive attached to your TV except from within the TV itself.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

projectramo 7y ago

This is the offer: "The beta version of Duple is now available. You can download it and use it for free. However if you’d like to participate in the Duple beta program, and get a lifetime discount as a reward, click here." But I don't understand what we are paying for going forward. Presumably you pay for the software once. Is there a recurring charge of some sort? What for? If the software is on premise, you can't really turn it off or stop it from working. Does duple, the company, ever touch the data? If privacy is the killer feature, it seems that an open source version will ultimately displace this.

davidandgoliath 7y ago
Better to use syncthing, simple equivalent & free / open source.
- taborj 7y ago
  Agreed. This just feels like closed-source syncthing.
- anderspitman 7y ago
  Syncthing is great (I use it for all my syncing needs), but it's scope is limited. It doesn't really solve file sharing in a user-friendly way.
  - smush 7y ago
    While I agree Syncthing is about seamlessly syncing files with devices you own, not file sharing as such, it does a good 98% of what this program offers with a more open source background and is completely free. I share files, what, once a year? Syncthing works great for that use case. If I want to share files too big to email, I can stand to upload to Onedrive/Dropbox/an open directory on my web server for that one-time use. For more frequent setups, sure an Owncloud/Nextcloud instance wouldn't be amiss.
    - anderspitman 7y ago
      Oh I wasn't arguing in favor of using this. I doubt I'll ever use non open software for my data again. Just saying I've run into problems trying to use syncthing for sharing files.
      - smush 7y ago
        No offense intended or taken, you and are I are in complete agreement re: what software should be touching our data. I believe you when you say you've had problems performing file shares to arbitrary people, my comments were directed only that my use case is somewhat different. Cheers!
thedanbob 7y ago
I found this in the FAQs: > We will have in the future our own dynamic DNS name service that will be included in the app price, so people don't have to pay for it with another company if they don't want to.
Mathnerd314 7y ago
It's free now, but you have to enter a magic code. The code expires in a month or so and then you'll need a new code, which will presumably cost money. So it's a free trial.

peterwwillis 7y ago

When someone says "modern day snake oil", this is what I think of. A "cloud" that isn't the cloud at all, pretends to be more reliable and secure than it is, and over-sells basic features like replication. "This USB stick will solve all your problems for a low, low price!"

milad_nazari 7y ago

tl;dr: It's an easier to install and use Nextcloud alternative, with open source components (to be released in the future) but closed source core.

acomjean 7y ago
I thought of nextcloud. Seems very similar: For those unfamiliar nextcloud is kinda an open source Dropbox. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nextcloud-13-how-get-started-and-why-you-should https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nextcloud-13-how-get-st...

dperfect 7y ago

> No server needed. No expensive hardware required... You can use your Router, NAS, Raspberry Pi, Smart TV. So... it turns those things into servers then (many of which already run servers by default)? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but a device running server software is still a server, even if it isn't dedicated to only that task.

phil248 7y ago
Reminds me the ridiculous "no software" campaign by Salesforce.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  LMAO, now I need to hear about it.
magashna 7y ago
Cloud = servers someone else has and mostly maintains for you Cloud...at home? This is a dumb headline. The definition of "server" has gone from big bulky slabs of bare metal to include smaller things like a RPi.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Cloud = servers someone else has and mostly maintains for you No, ”cloud = on-demand provisioned server resources”; that was what distinguished cloud computing from pre-existing remote-leased or on-premises resources. “Private cloud” (usually, on-premises of the user) has been a thing since very early in cloud computing, and “at home” has been plausible for even fairly casual users at least since Ubuntu 9.04 bundled Eucalyptus. But this service is just abusing “cloud” to mean “SaaS”, I think (in that it's a demo of a paid SaaS product that incorporates your hardware.)
- furst 7y ago
  I think the biggest issue in this thread is the multiple definitions of what a cloud is. To most of the people in this thread, the cloud isn't possible at home. To consumers, the cloud is just somewhere else to store their files. This addresses the latter, giving consumers an easy way to store their files on a "server" i.e. their computers, while having it in your home.

lonelappde 7y ago

It's not open source and it's not for sale, even though it's a business, so beware about what it's future may be. However it might be reusable with an alternate core: > Q: Do you plan to open-source it later? A: We'll open source everything (server, interface, etc...), except from the C Library. Reason being that the library is what gives us our technical competitive advantage (being that you get the full private cloud experience with no need for a server). It's also important to note that you can't patent your code/algorithm in Europe, so there's no other way to protect it. But everything else expect from the library will be open-source.

swiley 7y ago

>How does it work? >Just turn it on! That’s not an explanation of how it works, that’s an explanation of how to use it. (I mean, you just know something stupid like that is coming the moment you see a loading progress bar for a static page. It’s not surprising, just disappointing.)

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
I mean, we need this sort of technology to take hold with non-technical users, so I applaud it from that aspect... but us technical users want to know what's actually happening here. And the fact that the source is "coming soon" doesn't help either. Oh, here's what we're looking for: https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >we need this sort of technology to take hold with non-technical users, I'm pretty sure non-technical users are not looking for a private cloud.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    Are you sure? Eventually people are going to realize that the SaaS companies have sold them out. And they may not understand what a private cloud is, but that's what they're going to want: The convenience they're accustomed to in a device only they control which can't be shut down or taken away from them.
    - anderspitman 7y ago
      ISPs (at least in the US) have been selling their customers out for years. Nobody cares as long as Netflix works and their photos get to the people they want to see them.
    - macspoofing 7y ago
      >Eventually people are going to realize that the SaaS companies have sold them out. In what way? And which SaaS companies?

Mathnerd314 7y ago

https://doc.duple.io/duplecli-documentation/ https://doc.duple.io/duplecli-documentation/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/ So basically Dropbox but with an SFTP server or network/local filesystem for hosting.

infinisil 7y ago

From what I can gather from the FAQ, this won't work for routers behind a NAT, which is the case for me and I assume many others too, this should probably be mentioned somewhere. A bit worrying that it'll be forever closed source, especially since it needs to expose your router to the internet and that it's written in C and also this sentence from the FAQ: > Everything was built from scratch

jbverschoor 7y ago
Long live zerotier
- redblacktree 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I'd never heard of it. For others like me: https://www.zerotier.com/manual/ https://www.zerotier.com/manual/
  - mceachen 7y ago
    Here's their getting started page (not terribly mobile friendly though) https://zerotier.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SD/pages/8454145/Getting+Started+with+ZeroTier https://zerotier.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SD/pages/8454145/...
- eximius 7y ago
  Or wireguard with your own DNS (unbound) blackhole-ing ad networks: https://www.ckn.io/blog/2017/11/14/wireguard-vpn-typical-setup/ https://www.ckn.io/blog/2017/11/14/wireguard-vpn-typical-set... Or IPv6. Personally, I like running a Mikrotik Hex Lite as my home router with Ubiquiti wireless APs behind it. I've definitely learned a lot about networking trying to get everything set up nice and secure. That'd make a good blog post, actually... EDIT: Zerotier is a great service. I kind of dream of some collaboration between Zerotier and Wireguard. Zerotier is Software Defined Networking, I guess(?), and it'd be cool to have wireguard be part of that stack. Though maybe that's not necessary. I haven't dug into Zerotier recently enough to know if thats redundant or at all useful.

sorryitstrue 7y ago

I need more from private cloud than just storage

gramakri 7y ago

How is this different from syncthing - https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/ https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/ ? I am still trying to figure out

Mathnerd314 7y ago
Syncthing is peer-to-peer, Duple is one master + many slaves.
- nodesocket 7y ago
  First time I have seen Syncthing. I am currently using Resilio Sync to sync my "Sites" directory across my iMac and MacBook Pro. Resilio seems to work well, but it has not been updated in a long time (running v2.6.3) and sometimes it uses nearly 100% of a single CPU core for no apparent reason for extended periods of time. How does Syncthing stack up against Resilio?

ignoramous 7y ago

I see https://www.duple.io/en/blocked.html https://www.duple.io/en/blocked.html when I click Try Duple What countries do they intend to not sell their software in and why? A FAQ would be nice.

zelon88 7y ago

I'm really into home Cloud stuff. This answers none of my questions. 1) Where will my files be stored? 2) Does Duple store a copy? 3) What does Duple do with my meta data? What do they do with usage stats? 4) Does Duple have any third party contracts or contractors with access to my data? 5) How does putting Duple software on an RPI make my files available from anywhere? How do you enable access to my device from anywhere? These guys are asking for an awful lot of faith from users who are looking to potentially store their entire lives on their service. We deserve to know how it really works.

mvanbaak 7y ago
A lot of those questions are answered in their FAQ. The Duple application on your 'server' will simply expose a directory on that system (or a remote SFTP server) to other Duple applications you connect to it. All data will be on the machine you maintain. So no, they are not storing your data for you. To enable access to your device from outside your local network, you have to either give the Duple running machine a public ip and open the port, or do port-forwarding if you are behind a NAT firewall (which is the most common situation for home cloud stuff)
- indigodaddy 7y ago
  So this concept is similar to BitTorrent Sync? (Or whatever it’s called now)
  - mvanbaak 7y ago
    Yups, and syncthing as well. and probably others.
human20190310 7y ago
What is the purpose of having "the cloud" in your home at all? To me "the cloud's" primary value is that it is running off-site, in an environment that capably and regularly deals with broken equipment. If my work is backed up in Google/Dropbox's data center, I don't have to worry about it if my house gets flooded. Having the cloud in your house, running on whatever stuff is laying around, just seems one small step removed from just keeping everything on your laptop and hoping it doesn't break.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

A bit offtopic, but does anybody know a micro server the size of an Intel NUC or Mac Mini, but with 100+W desktop/server (real, not cloud) hardware for use as CI server?

asdkhadsj 7y ago
Good question. I too wonder. To extend your question with my own; What would be a cost effective solution to setting up home servers for CI/storage/whatever? I could of course just buy random PC parts, but I'm curious to hear what people are liking. Are you liking your home servers form factor? Price tag? etc.
- kevstev 7y ago
  I have long been a fan of Synology NAS's for this type of thing (I have been using one since 2007). They offer CPUs these days that should be beefy enough for a CI use case, unless you have a very large project. QNAP offers similar products as well. I bought one as I just wanted a low power always-on server that Just Worked with a software ecosystem around it. You can now run docker containers on them as well easily. I can access at home or via the web- they provide a dyndns service so I can just go to http://quickconnect.to/$username http://quickconnect.to/$username and access from anywhere.
IloveHN84 7y ago
A Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB Ram or a Intel NUC Skull Canyon
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  A Pi is too weak for my workloads I'm afraid ;) Actually I considered a Hades Canyon (successor to Skull Canyon) with an early Intel 10th gen part but it has it's iGPU disabled and comes with a Radeon (!) GPU which just calls for trouble and additional cooling, though it's still much better than nvdia for Linux I guess. But then I'd rather go all-in on AMD CPUs which are winning in the bang-for-buck and multi-threaded department anyway. Plus, I don't want lasercut skull-shaped grilles and similar gaming traits if I can help it ;) Edit: also it's already out well over a year, and given Intel's atypical immaturity wrt their 9nm parts, it might be better to skip on this one

asdkhadsj 7y ago

I clicked for a "Private Cloud", and all I saw was storage of files. Am I missing more?

mvanbaak 7y ago

"You have one repository folder and one folder Duple on each device where you can access your cloud. This Duple folder works like a Dropbox folder, and everything is synchronized in multidirectional way between all the devices (all the Duple folders) and the repository folder which contains the totality of the private cloud." So, here I am, exposing my 36TB nas using this new duple thing. Because every client needs the repository folder which contains the totality of the privace cloud, how is this going to work?

kmano8 7y ago

Somewhat related- I've gotten a lot of mileage out of using Cryptomator (no affiliation) with iCloud to have access to encrypted documents across devices without having to worry about the pain of self-hosting. Here's a blog post I wrote about it https://karlshouler.com/posts/2019-05-31-secure-cloud-storage https://karlshouler.com/posts/2019-05-31-secure-cloud-storag...

samirm 7y ago

Terrible website design. Absolutely no reason to block all content just because I have js turned off.

anderspitman 7y ago
While it would be nice if they provided HTML endpoints, there are valid reasons for using SPAs, even for text-heavy sites. That said, the loading bar is a bit mind-blowing IMO.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  What are those valid reasons?

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

They have some fairly hefty competition: https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/drive https://www.drobo.com/homeoffice/#file https://www.drobo.com/homeoffice/#file I'm pretty sure that most NAS vendors have some variation on "Home Cloud." I think most folks that want to set something like this up, will want a turnkey solution.

adamredwoods 7y ago
Looking at their "about us" page removed my confidence from their product. They should fix that asap. For my data, I want reliability and security. I want something that has been battle-tested, and that I am confident will be around in a few years. This is why I went with Synology. Two guys in a "garage/bootstrapping" does not instill confidence.
Sendotsh 7y ago
I recently went from a DIY NAS (Linux PC with lots of HDDs shared on my LAN) to a Synology and am now absolutely in love with it. All my devices now back themselves up to the NAS overnight. Cameras dump direct into the NAS via a card reader plugged into it. Family can all browse the family photo library from their phones or any device they want or cast slideshows to the TVs. Download torrents with my phone, saving directly to the NAS, then immediately watch it on my TV transcoded in real-time with automatic pulling of subtitles and metadata. I want to marry it. Sure I’d prefer if all this was open source etc, but I played with FreeNas and various other packages and they don’t even come close in usability or ease of administration.

dochtman 7y ago

Apart from all the other stuff, it seems suspicious that they would use Serpent for encryption, rather than using AES or another more well-known cipher suite (also, no talk about AEAD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(cipher) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(cipher)

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
The article you link perhaps hint at why the developers felt like this: The NIST report apparently suggested Serpent was actually a bit more secure, but Rijndael was chosen for AES because it allowed for a more efficient software implementation. The developers may feel that that trade-off wasn't worth it, although obviously, going with a less-common strategy for encryption is generally discouraged.
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  Which is crazy. AES is good enough for TOP SECRET, it's the most widely supported & vetted modern cipher, and all modern hardware has instruction sets dedicated to it that prevent timing side channels (which Serpent can't claim). Not using AES here is a product design red flag.

akerro 7y ago

So I read the frontpage, download/try page and installation and still have absolutely no idea what this project is about.

mattsfrey 7y ago

Does anyone remember younity? Same exact product, same exact tag line "personal cloud" etc. (ex-engineer here)

JoshuaMulliken 7y ago

"military-grade encryption" in marketing materials always scares me. Just tell me what the algos are

kube-system 7y ago
ROT13 of course, designed to Roman military specifications.
- tlb 7y ago
  Caesar ciphers mostly shifted by 1 or 3. Their alphabet had only 23 letters (no J, U, or W) so ROT-13 wouldn't had the cool property of being its own inverse.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    My mistake, ROT-13 is actually beyond military grade :D
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    ROT13 is 4 rounds of Caesar-3 and one round of Caesar-1, and multiple rounds of encryption and mixing different modes makes it that much more secure, right?

tibbydudeza 7y ago

Blocked in South Africa.

anderspitman 7y ago

I found the FAQ[0] to be the most informative. [0] https://doc.duple.io/faq/ https://doc.duple.io/faq/

kemonocode 7y ago

Blocked in Venezuela. Not entirely surprised, but very disheartening.

cat199 7y ago

how does this differ from owncloud/nextcloud?

wheresvic3 7y ago

I'm sorry but Nextcloud is getting a bit of an unfair shake here. I recently got a raspberry pi 4 and installing nextcloud on there wasn't rocket science: https://smalldata.tech/blog/2019/07/12/setting-up-a-raspberry-pi-4-home-server https://smalldata.tech/blog/2019/07/12/setting-up-a-raspberr... In fact the biggest issue that I faced was that my router did not support NAT loopback which led me to using the pi for DNS in order to be able to use my "private" cloud. Nextcloud is an open-source dropbox and is written in PHP. It can be very easily installed via docker and is quite mature at this point with a rich ecosystem of 3rd party apps for functionality other than file sync. Big props to the folks working on it!

dplgk 7y ago

Home cloud is an oxymoron, no? At what point is it just "I have some servers"?

sealthedeal 7y ago

From a problem solution perspective. Your "why" section does not actually describe "why". Its more listing reason why you think this is good. I was hoping to see more of "Why" your own private cloud is a good idea. You are describing the solution not the problem. Hope that is helpful in some way :)

cik 7y ago

I finally ditched SpiderOak for SyncThing about a month ago - and I haven't looked back. It solves all of these issues, I fully host it myself, and I can access everything, exactly the way I want to based on shares. I have a machine in my office, a shared folder on my mobile, two machines at home, and my wife has her office, and her work laptop. It's everything these things should be, other than the lack of an iOS app for her.

smush 7y ago
I have a lot of devices as well - syncthing can handle em all. 3x phones for photo upload, music sync, TWRP zips etc. 2x personal laptops 2x work devices + a personal VM 2x close friend party shares for easy linux iso sharing overnight And most recently, added one volunteer device for instant/eventually consistent overnight poor-man's offsite data backup. I can mix n match folders for this on the fly and feel no loss of functionality with how little I do arbitrary internet file sharing.