7 ms·

Yes. Store hundreds of movies and hundreds of thousands of pictures on plug and access them anywhere![1] [1]: So long as you have an absurdly fast internet co

by blhack 13y ago

Yes. Store hundreds of movies and hundreds of thousands of pictures on plug and access them anywhere![1] [1]: So long as you have an absurdly fast internet connection at your house, and also have an absurdly fast internet connection wherever you are that you're trying to use this thing...and aren't on an airplane, or in the car, or on a train...which is when you would generally want to watch movies on your tablet.

pyre 13y ago
On the other hand, store things on a 3rd party cloud storage provider that will happily hand everything over to the NSA whenever they ask... If it's in your home they don't have an easy interface to it, they have to physically infiltrate your residence, which costs a lot more and, presumably, will require more than a passing interest in you to happen.
- runjake 13y ago
  > on a 3rd party cloud storage provider that will happily hand everything over to the NSA whenever they ask That's assuming they just don't have complete access to everything anyway, as Guardian seemed to indicate today is the case with SkyDrive. Even if NSA or the FBI[1] is not interested in you specifically, they still might mine your data. 1. These leaks and especially today's Microsoft leak indicate substantial cooperation and intelligence sharing between NSA and the FBI.
  - pyre 13y ago
    I'm not understanding how these two things are different for the purposes of this discussion: - The government asks for data on an ad hoc basis, and 3rd party providers trip over themselves in an effort to comply. - The government gets a firehose of data for all customers of 3rd party providers. It doesn't matter of the NSA is data-mining your SkyDrive, or the the local sheriff's office gets your SkyDrive data by just asking (i.e. without a warrant). Either way, your data is less secure when it's stored with a 3rd party provider than it is if you keep it in your own home. When it's in your own home, law enforcement needs a warrant, and spy agencies need to physically send someone to bug your home. Either way, the bar has been raised to getting access to your data, so at the very least they will only access your data if there is a real reason to, and there will be some amount of oversight[1]. [1] Maybe not external on the spy agency side, but presumably orders to send people in to bug a home get more scrutiny, if for no other reason than the fact that it costs more.
- tolmasky 13y ago
  Sure but then your hard drive fails (as they tend to do) and you lose all the data. Sounds like the right solution is just encryption on the client + 3rd party cloud storage.
  - DiabloD3 13y ago
    Except its easy to build RAID enclosures that are USB mass storage devices. Plus, it replicates data across multiple Plugs in different location, and I think the Plug software also shares data on your computer (which can be RAIDed) through your private Plug network as well.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - tolmasky 13y ago
      Sure, easy for you and me. But I think for "normal" people this will be a net negative backup-wise. But I agree, possibly a net-positive privacy wise.
    - tjohns 13y ago
      RAID is not a backup solution. If your filesystem is corrupted in software (or you just mistype and delete something important), it will happily replicate the damage across all of your drives. Personally I feel recommending RAID to home users is generally a bad idea. It gives a false sense of security.
      - DiabloD3 13y ago
        Depends on the file system implementation. Smarter RAID implementations, such those integrated into ZFS, will not be easily taken down. In addition, RAID does not require you to use local devices. I agree, however, it is not a backup solution, and I did not claim it was. I merely stated RAID is how you deal with drives dying and taking everything with it. Backups is how you deal with RAIDs or entire locations dying, ergo, offsite backup. And multiple Plug installations seems to cover the concurrent offsite sync part of that.
- medde 13y ago
  Their backbone interface is not easy?
  - pyre 13y ago
    This product will use unencrypted communications?
- codezero 13y ago
  If Plug ended up being widespread enough all they have to do is focus efforts on penetrating Plug devices. Security in the hands of end-users, while great for the tech savvy person with lots of free time, is a disaster for "normal" people.
Nate75Sanders 13y ago
This is going to become less and less of a problem as time goes on. There was a time when the idea of streaming high quality video and doing so using Flash, at that, seemed ridiculous, but it's ridiculously commonplace, now. I often stream things from a VPS instance to my home via sshfs right now. Doing so over even 3G would work in many cases.
- calinet6 13y ago
  Shoot, I do this with Plex:web off my Mac Mini all the time. Works great. Now has HTML5 video AFAIK, and scales the quality to the available bandwidth. I watch on my Android phone over 3G all the time. In reality my "cloud storage" is just my Mac Mini with a set of drives attached, and mounted via SSHfs when I really need it. Works fine, but a nicer software package that's more akin to a self-hosted Dropbox would be pretty nice. I don't need a dongle, though it's a nice idea if you don't have a home server.
- slacka 13y ago
  My parents AT&T DSL tops out at 384kbps upstream. This is not an option for them or 1/2 of American with similar "broadband" options.

by blhack 13y ago

pyre 13y ago

On the other hand, store things on a 3rd party cloud storage provider that will happily hand everything over to the NSA whenever they ask... If it's in your home they don't have an easy interface to it, they have to physically infiltrate your residence, which costs a lot more and, presumably, will require more than a passing interest in you to happen.

runjake 13y ago
> on a 3rd party cloud storage provider that will happily hand everything over to the NSA whenever they ask That's assuming they just don't have complete access to everything anyway, as Guardian seemed to indicate today is the case with SkyDrive. Even if NSA or the FBI[1] is not interested in you specifically, they still might mine your data. 1. These leaks and especially today's Microsoft leak indicate substantial cooperation and intelligence sharing between NSA and the FBI.
- pyre 13y ago
  I'm not understanding how these two things are different for the purposes of this discussion: - The government asks for data on an ad hoc basis, and 3rd party providers trip over themselves in an effort to comply. - The government gets a firehose of data for all customers of 3rd party providers. It doesn't matter of the NSA is data-mining your SkyDrive, or the the local sheriff's office gets your SkyDrive data by just asking (i.e. without a warrant). Either way, your data is less secure when it's stored with a 3rd party provider than it is if you keep it in your own home. When it's in your own home, law enforcement needs a warrant, and spy agencies need to physically send someone to bug your home. Either way, the bar has been raised to getting access to your data, so at the very least they will only access your data if there is a real reason to, and there will be some amount of oversight[1]. [1] Maybe not external on the spy agency side, but presumably orders to send people in to bug a home get more scrutiny, if for no other reason than the fact that it costs more.
tolmasky 13y ago
Sure but then your hard drive fails (as they tend to do) and you lose all the data. Sounds like the right solution is just encryption on the client + 3rd party cloud storage.
- DiabloD3 13y ago
  Except its easy to build RAID enclosures that are USB mass storage devices. Plus, it replicates data across multiple Plugs in different location, and I think the Plug software also shares data on your computer (which can be RAIDed) through your private Plug network as well.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tolmasky 13y ago
    Sure, easy for you and me. But I think for "normal" people this will be a net negative backup-wise. But I agree, possibly a net-positive privacy wise.
  - tjohns 13y ago
    RAID is not a backup solution. If your filesystem is corrupted in software (or you just mistype and delete something important), it will happily replicate the damage across all of your drives. Personally I feel recommending RAID to home users is generally a bad idea. It gives a false sense of security.
    - DiabloD3 13y ago
      Depends on the file system implementation. Smarter RAID implementations, such those integrated into ZFS, will not be easily taken down. In addition, RAID does not require you to use local devices. I agree, however, it is not a backup solution, and I did not claim it was. I merely stated RAID is how you deal with drives dying and taking everything with it. Backups is how you deal with RAIDs or entire locations dying, ergo, offsite backup. And multiple Plug installations seems to cover the concurrent offsite sync part of that.
medde 13y ago
Their backbone interface is not easy?
- pyre 13y ago
  This product will use unencrypted communications?
codezero 13y ago
If Plug ended up being widespread enough all they have to do is focus efforts on penetrating Plug devices. Security in the hands of end-users, while great for the tech savvy person with lots of free time, is a disaster for "normal" people.

Nate75Sanders 13y ago

This is going to become less and less of a problem as time goes on. There was a time when the idea of streaming high quality video and doing so using Flash, at that, seemed ridiculous, but it's ridiculously commonplace, now. I often stream things from a VPS instance to my home via sshfs right now. Doing so over even 3G would work in many cases.

calinet6 13y ago
Shoot, I do this with Plex:web off my Mac Mini all the time. Works great. Now has HTML5 video AFAIK, and scales the quality to the available bandwidth. I watch on my Android phone over 3G all the time. In reality my "cloud storage" is just my Mac Mini with a set of drives attached, and mounted via SSHfs when I really need it. Works fine, but a nicer software package that's more akin to a self-hosted Dropbox would be pretty nice. I don't need a dongle, though it's a nice idea if you don't have a home server.
slacka 13y ago
My parents AT&T DSL tops out at 384kbps upstream. This is not an option for them or 1/2 of American with similar "broadband" options.