8 ms·

I recently tried replacing Dropbox with Wuala because of privacy concerns. I failed, and in the process realized how successful Dropbox has been in creating an

by maggit 13y ago

I recently tried replacing Dropbox with Wuala because of privacy concerns. I failed, and in the process realized how successful Dropbox has been in creating an awesome user experience! I'm still looking for a locally encrypted Dropbox-alternative. So if any of you are making one, please speak up :) (Edit) I should specify that it was the user experience that made me give up on Wuala, and any proper Dropbox alternative would need to offer at least decent user experience. Looking forward to trying the alternatives you are suggesting :)

davidjohnstone 13y ago
On my "somebody should create this, and I might eventually" list is an open source, P2P, optionally server-backed, encrypted Dropbox replacement. Bittorrent's Sync almost gets there, but isn't open source. I haven't really looked at it, but ownCloud might do what I want.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  I heard ownsync is really buggy. Havent tried it though.
- simgidacav 13y ago
  +1. I'd like to know more about this. Working on a encrypted FOSS alternative to conventional storage would totally be a perfect side project
- ondmagi 13y ago
  The ownCloud sync client for OS X pins one cpu core to 100% usage on my fairly new i7 mbp, which effectively drains the battery quite quickly if you don't notice. Then it also seems to do a full scan of teh entire folder each time it sync's, if you then have for example your iPhoto library (usually a few GBs) there, the sync process will consume lots of CPU and tend to be out of date across devices.
- cuu508 13y ago
  Wuala used to be P2P (host other people's files to get more space for your files) until LaCie bought it.
ZeroMinx 13y ago
Check out Bittorrent Sync, http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html
simgidacav 13y ago
Immagine a net of people sharing Dropbox accounts where encrypted data is stored, and a decentralized encrypted network for handling the meta-data. Wouldn't that be nice? At this point: gpg keys shared among chains of trust. Need the file X? DHT consulted says the file is stored in accounts Y, Z and W (plus at your home - we don't want users to kill our files, right?). Take the file, decrypt it.
Pyramids 13y ago
If you're concerned about your personal data, and not so much about targeted attacks against you, I'd say stay with Dropbox and just use EncFS. You can do this on Linux (and presumably OS X, as well) fairly easily. On Windows, there is a single-developer port of EncFS, which from what I've heard works fairly well: http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html A quick search turns up a guide which (at first glance) seems fairly comprehensive on how to set this up if you're unfamiliar with the way EncFS works: http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage-on-linux-and-windows-with-encfs/ http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage... With that said, if you're worried about any highly confidential data, potential for watermarking attacks or plausible deniability, this is not the right solution for you. If you're looking for a way to protect your data from dragnet surveillance, your provider, or low-level law enforcement interception, this is a great drop-in solution.
- kyle_t 13y ago
  Thumbs up to this. Been using the EncFS windows port for roughly a year with Google Drive with no issues. I was previously using TrueCrypt but the lack of differential sync was a killer on my TrueCrypt containers.
- phxql 13y ago
  For Windows users: BoyCryptor 1.x is fully compatible with EncFS and features a GUI.
  - nodata 13y ago
    BoxCryptor is most definitely not fully compatible with EncFS - it doesn't even support the default filename encoding option that encfs uses.
    - phxql 13y ago
      Some older version supports that. Maybe they changed their license model, but it definitely had support for that in the past.
showsover 13y ago
What about owncloud? http://owncloud.org/ http://owncloud.org/
- haakon 13y ago
  It doesn't do local encryption before upload. There is an encryption plugin now, but it works server-side so you still have to trust the person running the server (which could be yourself, of course).
noinsight 13y ago
Spideroak supposedly offers that, but it's still U.S. based. They haven't open sourced their client (they've stated they will) so it's hard to completely verify. If you want to host it yourself there's Seafile but I haven't seen any in-depth review of it and it's Chinese-based (if that's a problem [for you]).
- stefanve 13y ago
  I really like SpiderOak I have been using them for more than two years. Resent update added a true dropbox experience. And most importantly it has a client for Linux, OSX, windows, ios and Android.
marquis 13y ago
We were looking at using AeroFS with our own servers, but it doesn't appear to support encryption on the server. I may be wrong about this?
- webmonkeyuk 13y ago
  AeroFS only stores data on clients (unless you run your own team server) and I think it has the option to store it encrypted there but could be wrong.
  - marquis 13y ago
    Exactly, running your own team server and backing up your own data. I'll have to contact them regarding the encryption options: if the team server can have the data encrypted it would be a winner for us.
corford 13y ago
Spideroak or a private BitorrentSync setup are both good choices imho
shin_lao 13y ago
I did the same switch, but didn't experience any specific problem. Actually I thought it was better done than Dropbox and had fewer sync issues.
dteoh 13y ago
I use Dropbox with Boxcryptor (https://www.boxcryptor.com/ https://www.boxcryptor.com/). It creates an encrypted drive/folder using a key of your own choosing.
haakon 13y ago
Syncany (http://www.syncany.org/ http://www.syncany.org/) was supposed to be this locally-encrypted Dropbox-alternative. Unfortunately, it seems to be going nowhere slowly.
RachelF 13y ago
I use Google Drive and Syncdocs (http://syncdocs.com http://syncdocs.com). I does local AES256 encryption of any folder I want BEFORE uploading it to Google Drive
chanux 13y ago
If you are on linux and if you don't think this method sucks... https://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/portable-encrypted-virtual-disk/ https://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/portable-encrypted-v...
claudius 13y ago
git-annex has local encryption for specific remotes (i.e. you can add a remote and say ‘encrypt data before putting it there’, and then add another remote, such as a USB key, and don’t encrypt data on it). I haven’t used it in a while, but it is becoming more and more mature, methinks.
danielsiders 13y ago
We have a product coming out soon that's fully open source, self hostable (but also offered as a service), client-encrypted, and backed by Tent.
- rdl 13y ago
  Mobile API?
  - danielsiders 13y ago
    It's powered by the Tent protocol (https://tent.io https://tent.io) so by definition, yes. The library is also open for anyone who wants to implement their own alternative, compatible apps, and alternative compatible libraries could be implemented since it's all just specific (documented) types of Tent posts.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Is tent designed for large-scale file storage? I always thought of it as an app.net/twitter alternative.
      - danielsiders 13y ago
        Tent is a protocol for decentralized event-based communication at scale. File sync is actually a medium-weight application in terms of the load it's designed for. Of course, just like web servers, the server implementation and hardware it runs on has a lot to do with it. One of our top development priorities is building a very robust, scalable self-hostable server implementation to power apps like file sync and even more demanding applications.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
nine_k 13y ago
SpiderOak.com is nice. It's US-based, but its encryption is client-side, and they state that they never ever get the private keys, specifically to avoid being legally forced to decrypt and disclose info they store.

by maggit 13y ago

davidjohnstone 13y ago

On my "somebody should create this, and I might eventually" list is an open source, P2P, optionally server-backed, encrypted Dropbox replacement. Bittorrent's Sync almost gets there, but isn't open source. I haven't really looked at it, but ownCloud might do what I want.

ekianjo 13y ago
I heard ownsync is really buggy. Havent tried it though.
simgidacav 13y ago
+1. I'd like to know more about this. Working on a encrypted FOSS alternative to conventional storage would totally be a perfect side project
ondmagi 13y ago
The ownCloud sync client for OS X pins one cpu core to 100% usage on my fairly new i7 mbp, which effectively drains the battery quite quickly if you don't notice. Then it also seems to do a full scan of teh entire folder each time it sync's, if you then have for example your iPhoto library (usually a few GBs) there, the sync process will consume lots of CPU and tend to be out of date across devices.
cuu508 13y ago
Wuala used to be P2P (host other people's files to get more space for your files) until LaCie bought it.

ZeroMinx 13y ago

Check out Bittorrent Sync, http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html

simgidacav 13y ago

Immagine a net of people sharing Dropbox accounts where encrypted data is stored, and a decentralized encrypted network for handling the meta-data. Wouldn't that be nice? At this point: gpg keys shared among chains of trust. Need the file X? DHT consulted says the file is stored in accounts Y, Z and W (plus at your home - we don't want users to kill our files, right?). Take the file, decrypt it.

Pyramids 13y ago

If you're concerned about your personal data, and not so much about targeted attacks against you, I'd say stay with Dropbox and just use EncFS. You can do this on Linux (and presumably OS X, as well) fairly easily. On Windows, there is a single-developer port of EncFS, which from what I've heard works fairly well: http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html http://members.ferrara.linux.it/freddy77/encfs.html A quick search turns up a guide which (at first glance) seems fairly comprehensive on how to set this up if you're unfamiliar with the way EncFS works: http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage-on-linux-and-windows-with-encfs/ http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage... With that said, if you're worried about any highly confidential data, potential for watermarking attacks or plausible deniability, this is not the right solution for you. If you're looking for a way to protect your data from dragnet surveillance, your provider, or low-level law enforcement interception, this is a great drop-in solution.

kyle_t 13y ago
Thumbs up to this. Been using the EncFS windows port for roughly a year with Google Drive with no issues. I was previously using TrueCrypt but the lack of differential sync was a killer on my TrueCrypt containers.
phxql 13y ago
For Windows users: BoyCryptor 1.x is fully compatible with EncFS and features a GUI.
- nodata 13y ago
  BoxCryptor is most definitely not fully compatible with EncFS - it doesn't even support the default filename encoding option that encfs uses.
  - phxql 13y ago
    Some older version supports that. Maybe they changed their license model, but it definitely had support for that in the past.

showsover 13y ago

What about owncloud? http://owncloud.org/ http://owncloud.org/

haakon 13y ago
It doesn't do local encryption before upload. There is an encryption plugin now, but it works server-side so you still have to trust the person running the server (which could be yourself, of course).

noinsight 13y ago

Spideroak supposedly offers that, but it's still U.S. based. They haven't open sourced their client (they've stated they will) so it's hard to completely verify. If you want to host it yourself there's Seafile but I haven't seen any in-depth review of it and it's Chinese-based (if that's a problem [for you]).

stefanve 13y ago
I really like SpiderOak I have been using them for more than two years. Resent update added a true dropbox experience. And most importantly it has a client for Linux, OSX, windows, ios and Android.

marquis 13y ago

We were looking at using AeroFS with our own servers, but it doesn't appear to support encryption on the server. I may be wrong about this?

webmonkeyuk 13y ago
AeroFS only stores data on clients (unless you run your own team server) and I think it has the option to store it encrypted there but could be wrong.
- marquis 13y ago
  Exactly, running your own team server and backing up your own data. I'll have to contact them regarding the encryption options: if the team server can have the data encrypted it would be a winner for us.

corford 13y ago

Spideroak or a private BitorrentSync setup are both good choices imho

shin_lao 13y ago

I did the same switch, but didn't experience any specific problem. Actually I thought it was better done than Dropbox and had fewer sync issues.

dteoh 13y ago

I use Dropbox with Boxcryptor (https://www.boxcryptor.com/ https://www.boxcryptor.com/). It creates an encrypted drive/folder using a key of your own choosing.

haakon 13y ago

Syncany (http://www.syncany.org/ http://www.syncany.org/) was supposed to be this locally-encrypted Dropbox-alternative. Unfortunately, it seems to be going nowhere slowly.

RachelF 13y ago

I use Google Drive and Syncdocs (http://syncdocs.com http://syncdocs.com). I does local AES256 encryption of any folder I want BEFORE uploading it to Google Drive

chanux 13y ago

If you are on linux and if you don't think this method sucks... https://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/portable-encrypted-virtual-disk/ https://chanux.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/portable-encrypted-v...

claudius 13y ago

git-annex has local encryption for specific remotes (i.e. you can add a remote and say ‘encrypt data before putting it there’, and then add another remote, such as a USB key, and don’t encrypt data on it). I haven’t used it in a while, but it is becoming more and more mature, methinks.

danielsiders 13y ago

We have a product coming out soon that's fully open source, self hostable (but also offered as a service), client-encrypted, and backed by Tent.

rdl 13y ago
Mobile API?
- danielsiders 13y ago
  It's powered by the Tent protocol (https://tent.io https://tent.io) so by definition, yes. The library is also open for anyone who wants to implement their own alternative, compatible apps, and alternative compatible libraries could be implemented since it's all just specific (documented) types of Tent posts.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Is tent designed for large-scale file storage? I always thought of it as an app.net/twitter alternative.
    - danielsiders 13y ago
      Tent is a protocol for decentralized event-based communication at scale. File sync is actually a medium-weight application in terms of the load it's designed for. Of course, just like web servers, the server implementation and hardware it runs on has a lot to do with it. One of our top development priorities is building a very robust, scalable self-hostable server implementation to power apps like file sync and even more demanding applications.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

nine_k 13y ago

SpiderOak.com is nice. It's US-based, but its encryption is client-side, and they state that they never ever get the private keys, specifically to avoid being legally forced to decrypt and disclose info they store.