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Perhaps this is self-serving of me, since I want to build a product like this, but: I think honestly the problem is that these systems are not consumer-oriente

Perhaps this is self-serving of me, since I want to build a product like this, but: I think honestly the problem is that these systems are not consumer-oriented products. I think there is a real desire by people to not have to live as rentiers in the digital marketplace, but there are not really products that cater to that. IMO There's a place for something that merges a NAS, with some sort of overlay over current IP that is encrypted and fully peer-to-peer. But NASes are still too hard for many consumers to set up, and most techniques to overlay over IP are likewise too difficult, and basically impossible to correctly multi-tenant (you can't share your network space with your aunt and your coworker without sharing with both). Unlike IPFS, or bittorrent, availability is important, but not critical, and you don't need to promiscuously replicate your information across the entire world, encrypted or otherwise. I think there's a market for something that is like "plug in to your local network, do minimal configuration, you can set up shared folders a la dropbox, and you can access it over the net". You can sync credentials with a username and a one-time PIN. You should be able to easily set up rules for sharing with friends, with smart defaults. I think what's interesting from a consumer perspective is that there are things you can do on such a platform that many (not all) people would think twice about letting facebook do, like tag and organize photos of your young kid and share them with relatives/friends who have a PIN. I also think that the time horizon for this is relatively short (5-years?) soon people will be so desensitized to advertisements/being a digital rentier that the opportunity will have aged out. 20-somethings don't know what a NAS is. I haven't started on this yet, but if anyone is interested, my info's here.

balaa 6y ago
Check out our project: https://noteworthy.tech/overview https://noteworthy.tech/overview
Nbox9 6y ago
Have you looked at Western Digital’s My Cloud? It’s more or less what you described.
- dnautics 6y ago
  thanks! This looks pretty cool, I'll test it out for competition analysis. There's features i'd want (like pluggable applications) but it looks nice.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Pogoplug used to be something like a personal cloud, but it looks like it's now an online backup service. There's also OwnCloud. I haven't tried either.
- buildanduse 6y ago
  For storage, My Cloud and other centralized systems (e.g. QNAP and Synology offerings) give some usability, but they are limited to storage and still use a central server. We are trying to get Diode tech widely adopted - it is a network that enables N to N private, fully trustless, tunnels. We implemented dDrive (https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j) over it (in Alpha) that can map any storage (laptop, server, NAS, etc...) so that peers can privately access, or so that you can easily share files without having to use centralized storage / email. Telegram group at https://t.me/diode_chain https://t.me/diode_chain.
  - ajvs 6y ago
    What's the pros/cons vs Syncthing?
    - buildanduse 6y ago
      Great question - probably three differences: 1) Syncthing is storage only - Diode has dDrive for storage, but also supports N other use cases as a true web3 backbone candidate (e.g. currently deployed: video streaming, VPN, decentralized web hosting, remote SSH, etc...) 2) Syncthing uses community relays/nodes without any incentive structure - it limits the scale of the network. Diode implements a relay incentive in proportion to the traffic handled (which is somewhat predicated on the QoS the relay is able to provide) 3) Syncthing is a closed system (an impact of #1), so it can't do things like link sharing, web viewers, etc... whereas Diode is able to provide all those things fully decentralized There are certainly also specific UX/functionality differences on how the apps are implemented, but those are probably the macro considerations.
rmrfstar 6y ago
If I was going to do this in a weekend, I would avoid the NAS device. "The ecosystem is moving", availability, etc. Build a simple system around "content groups", something that people will put in the same mental category as "group chats". Each "content group" has a LUKS encrypted filesystem somewhere in the cloud. Keys are exchanged using Megolm and Matrix rooms. The filesystems are mounted via sshfs and decrypted locally. The "pin" is replaced by membership in a Matrix room. The cloud never sees the LUKS key, and the tagging is done locally. The cloud back-end can be changed using the Matrix control channel, so you're not locked in to one vendor. I really don't think people will buy in though. At this point, no one cares if their whole life story is recorded by FAAMG.
- Maakuth 6y ago
  I mostly like your idea, but filesystems are probably the wrong abstraction for this - concurrency when writes are ongoing is difficult and corruption will likely result. How about something like S3, overlaid with rclone's encryption: https://rclone.org/crypt https://rclone.org/crypt? The rest of the system could work like you described, exchanging keys via Matrix.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    Wow, rclone is very cool! Works with 50 different storage providers.
- buildanduse 6y ago
  I think more and more people are caring if their life story is recorded, but the majority are not there yet. And, for the folks who care, there are no viable places to turn. It is a driving force behind Diode (diode.io) - most of our tech is open source and we are looking for collaborators who want to grow local and connect global.
mro_name 6y ago
indeed! My take on self-hosted services (not infrasructure, though) is layperson-friendlyness. See https://mro.name/ShaarliGo#install--update https://mro.name/ShaarliGo#install--update or the 5min talk I did a while ago: https://txt.mro.name/34c3 https://txt.mro.name/34c3 (that page isn't layperson-friendly, but you'll make it) anyone?
l33tman 6y ago
Isn't this built into all modern Wifi routers? Asus has had this for 10 years or so, and they also had their share of security issues that comes with the territory :/
buildanduse 6y ago
Hey dnautics - we just launched the alpha of dDrive - a consumer level storage system implemented on top of the Diode Network - https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j. No promiscuous replication, all peer-based, so availability is solid. Many similar applications are easily enabled with Diode tech.
foxhop 6y ago
I did some analysis of the hardware requirements of replacing my YouTube account with files hosted at home. https://russell.ballestrini.net/dreaming-of-unlimited-home-computer-storage-capacity/ https://russell.ballestrini.net/dreaming-of-unlimited-home-c... I'm also interested, details on my contact page. I have a lab and hardware and a decent internet connection.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
One the qualities of what you are describing is that the overlay networks do not have to be large. Almost every "LAN over IP" project you will find on the internet tries to be able to scale to infinity, so most of them are not appropriate for what you describe. However there is at least one I know of that does not try to scale like that and it works well. It is easy to segregate "LANs" (family, friends, colleagues). Each one can have its own TAP interface.

balaa 6y ago

Check out our project: https://noteworthy.tech/overview https://noteworthy.tech/overview

Nbox9 6y ago

Have you looked at Western Digital’s My Cloud? It’s more or less what you described.

dnautics 6y ago
thanks! This looks pretty cool, I'll test it out for competition analysis. There's features i'd want (like pluggable applications) but it looks nice.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  Pogoplug used to be something like a personal cloud, but it looks like it's now an online backup service. There's also OwnCloud. I haven't tried either.
buildanduse 6y ago
For storage, My Cloud and other centralized systems (e.g. QNAP and Synology offerings) give some usability, but they are limited to storage and still use a central server. We are trying to get Diode tech widely adopted - it is a network that enables N to N private, fully trustless, tunnels. We implemented dDrive (https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j) over it (in Alpha) that can map any storage (laptop, server, NAS, etc...) so that peers can privately access, or so that you can easily share files without having to use centralized storage / email. Telegram group at https://t.me/diode_chain https://t.me/diode_chain.
- ajvs 6y ago
  What's the pros/cons vs Syncthing?
  - buildanduse 6y ago
    Great question - probably three differences: 1) Syncthing is storage only - Diode has dDrive for storage, but also supports N other use cases as a true web3 backbone candidate (e.g. currently deployed: video streaming, VPN, decentralized web hosting, remote SSH, etc...) 2) Syncthing uses community relays/nodes without any incentive structure - it limits the scale of the network. Diode implements a relay incentive in proportion to the traffic handled (which is somewhat predicated on the QoS the relay is able to provide) 3) Syncthing is a closed system (an impact of #1), so it can't do things like link sharing, web viewers, etc... whereas Diode is able to provide all those things fully decentralized There are certainly also specific UX/functionality differences on how the apps are implemented, but those are probably the macro considerations.

rmrfstar 6y ago

If I was going to do this in a weekend, I would avoid the NAS device. "The ecosystem is moving", availability, etc. Build a simple system around "content groups", something that people will put in the same mental category as "group chats". Each "content group" has a LUKS encrypted filesystem somewhere in the cloud. Keys are exchanged using Megolm and Matrix rooms. The filesystems are mounted via sshfs and decrypted locally. The "pin" is replaced by membership in a Matrix room. The cloud never sees the LUKS key, and the tagging is done locally. The cloud back-end can be changed using the Matrix control channel, so you're not locked in to one vendor. I really don't think people will buy in though. At this point, no one cares if their whole life story is recorded by FAAMG.

Maakuth 6y ago
I mostly like your idea, but filesystems are probably the wrong abstraction for this - concurrency when writes are ongoing is difficult and corruption will likely result. How about something like S3, overlaid with rclone's encryption: https://rclone.org/crypt https://rclone.org/crypt? The rest of the system could work like you described, exchanging keys via Matrix.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  Wow, rclone is very cool! Works with 50 different storage providers.
buildanduse 6y ago
I think more and more people are caring if their life story is recorded, but the majority are not there yet. And, for the folks who care, there are no viable places to turn. It is a driving force behind Diode (diode.io) - most of our tech is open source and we are looking for collaborators who want to grow local and connect global.

mro_name 6y ago

indeed! My take on self-hosted services (not infrasructure, though) is layperson-friendlyness. See https://mro.name/ShaarliGo#install--update https://mro.name/ShaarliGo#install--update or the 5min talk I did a while ago: https://txt.mro.name/34c3 https://txt.mro.name/34c3 (that page isn't layperson-friendly, but you'll make it) anyone?

l33tman 6y ago

Isn't this built into all modern Wifi routers? Asus has had this for 10 years or so, and they also had their share of security issues that comes with the territory :/

buildanduse 6y ago

Hey dnautics - we just launched the alpha of dDrive - a consumer level storage system implemented on top of the Diode Network - https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j. No promiscuous replication, all peer-based, so availability is solid. Many similar applications are easily enabled with Diode tech.

foxhop 6y ago

I did some analysis of the hardware requirements of replacing my YouTube account with files hosted at home. https://russell.ballestrini.net/dreaming-of-unlimited-home-computer-storage-capacity/ https://russell.ballestrini.net/dreaming-of-unlimited-home-c... I'm also interested, details on my contact page. I have a lab and hardware and a decent internet connection.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

One the qualities of what you are describing is that the overlay networks do not have to be large. Almost every "LAN over IP" project you will find on the internet tries to be able to scale to infinity, so most of them are not appropriate for what you describe. However there is at least one I know of that does not try to scale like that and it works well. It is easy to segregate "LANs" (family, friends, colleagues). Each one can have its own TAP interface.