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> And consumers are not thinking in terms of encrypted sync, they're just thinking in terms of "I just want to do X, why is it so hard", and so I can't see this
by k2enemy 13y ago
> And consumers are not thinking in terms of encrypted sync, they're just thinking in terms of "I just want to do X, why is it so hard", and so I can't see this (very nice) solution really solving the problems that consumers have, that will make them prioritise security.
I have a use case that is pretty common among my peer group and BT Sync has been the best solution I've been able to find. In a nutshell, I need to sync large datasets across multiple computers.
Dropbox: expensive
AeroFS: buggy, used too much bandwidth, and slow
Sparkleshare: uses git which chokes on large files
Git Annex Assistant: didn't work reliably on mac
rsync/duplicity/unison: needs extra logic for detecting file changes
I also think the "Dropbox replacement" idea is a strawman created by the TorrentFreak article. I've never had the impression that BT Sync is trying to replace Dropbox. It is just trying to do p2p sync with a great interface and some nice features such as read-only and one-time secrets.
- deelowe 13y agoWhat about crashplan?
- __david__ 13y agoIsn't that a different use case? Crashplan creates a opaque encrypted binary blob on a remote computer which is useful for backup, but not really for syncing files around.
- deelowe 13y agoI think the encryption can be disabled, no?
- k2enemy 13y agoI tried crashplan also, but the showstopper is escaping me at the moment.
- niels_olson 13y agoCrashplan is great as a backup plan and offers a web interface for times when everything else has failed. I have used it to retrieve things a few times and I highly recommend it as a backup plan. But their web interface isn't their selling point, and you can't manipulate the files. It's read only access. It does track diffs, though, so that can be pretty handy.
- nessus42 13y agoFor the reasons that you've specified and others, I rolled my own very simple sync system based on Git. The biggest problem I personally have with Dropbbox et. al, is that none of the commercial solutions sync symbolic links opaquely. ("Opaque" syncing of symlinks means to sync the links themselves and not what the symlinks link to.) I use symlinks heavily and so I absolutely require this feature. Most of the commercial solutions just ignore symlinks, but Dropbox does the worst thing possible and treats symlinks transparently. This is utterly wrong and, in fact, downright dangerous! Another feature that I need for telecommuting software development is to be able to exclude artifacts from what is synced. Eclipse, for instance, constantly churns out artifacts, and I certainly don't want or need those artifacts to be synced. Two problems with my roll-your-own little syncing system remain: (1) The large file issue that you mentioned. (Sparkleshare is much worse in this regard than my system, last I tried.) (2) I know of no way to have the Git instance that I use for syncing not pay attention to the .gitignore files that are used by the Git instance that I use for version control. Annoying! In any case, I'm very glad to hear that BitTorrent seems to be coming up with a solution that will address all my issues, and I won't have to roll my own anymore.
- aninhumer 13y agoWhat does Dropbox do in the case of a symlink circular reference?
- jos3000 13y agoI can answer this question since I accidentally created a circular reference the other day. It starts syncing the recursive structure until it runs out of quota.
- nessus42 13y ago> It starts syncing the recursive structure until it runs out of quota. I was curious about this myself, but I never tried it, as I feared that this was precisely the badness that would occur. Dropbox is so good in so many respects, I just can't understand how they could have made such an utterly terrible and wrong decision on this particular issue.
- liotier 13y ago> rsync/duplicity/unison: needs extra logic for detecting file changes Is it so difficult to add a one line configuration item to your inotify cron daemon (incrond) ? /home/my/directory IN_CLOSE_WRITE,IN_CREATE,IN_DELETE /my/unison/sync/script.sh It works.
- k2enemy 13y agoNot on a mac. There is FSEvent, but it doesn't recurse down directory trees,