4 ms·

Yes I agree. I am hoping someone reverse engineers the sync protocol so we could build an open source client. But like I mentioned in the article I am using th

Yes I agree. I am hoping someone reverse engineers the sync protocol so we could build an open source client. But like I mentioned in the article I am using this to replace a closed source cloud solution I was previously using so it is a step in the right direction.

TheCraiggers 13y ago
The particulars of the BT protocol are beyond me, but I thought it would already do a compare between the copy you had and the one on the external server, and only send the relevant bytes to bring everything up to sync again. Between that and a "compare timestamps to figure out the newest file" I wouldn't think it would be that hard to re-create? What am I missing here?
- Osiris 13y ago
  BitTorrent creates a hashes of your file. The file is broken down into certain size chunks and hashes taken of each chunk. If you already have a piece with a given hash, you won't download it. If a hash differs, it'll be transmitted. The receiver verifies the hash. If it fails it re-requests that piece. I assume the sync protocol works the same. It hashes the file, checks if any chunks have changed, sends the hash meta-data to the recipient, who then requests and pieces that have changed.
  - dman 13y ago
    What about hash collisions?
    - tokenizerrr 13y ago
      SHA-2 has no collisions found as of yet [1]. The collision attacks on md5 required a lot of junk data, so not sure how much of a problem that would be. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2#Comparison_of_SHA_functions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2#Comparison_of_SHA_functi...
seunosewa 13y ago
Writing a new protocol with an open source reference implementation will probably be a better idea, because: 1) Reverse-engineering isn't clean and can be circumvented. 2) BTsync has not reached a point where it can't be beaten by a competing protocol.
- danielsiders 13y ago
  We're actively developing an open source Dropbox type app that's powered by Tent (https://tent.io https://tent.io).
  - rohamg 13y ago
    you should have a landing page with an email sign up form that you can link people to.
- bascule 13y ago
  Tahoe-LAFS is a mature project of this nature: https://tahoe-lafs.org/ https://tahoe-lafs.org/ I am writing a similar project which is fairly immature: https://github.com/cryptosphere/cryptosphere https://github.com/cryptosphere/cryptosphere

TheCraiggers 13y ago

The particulars of the BT protocol are beyond me, but I thought it would already do a compare between the copy you had and the one on the external server, and only send the relevant bytes to bring everything up to sync again. Between that and a "compare timestamps to figure out the newest file" I wouldn't think it would be that hard to re-create? What am I missing here?

Osiris 13y ago
BitTorrent creates a hashes of your file. The file is broken down into certain size chunks and hashes taken of each chunk. If you already have a piece with a given hash, you won't download it. If a hash differs, it'll be transmitted. The receiver verifies the hash. If it fails it re-requests that piece. I assume the sync protocol works the same. It hashes the file, checks if any chunks have changed, sends the hash meta-data to the recipient, who then requests and pieces that have changed.
- dman 13y ago
  What about hash collisions?
  - tokenizerrr 13y ago
    SHA-2 has no collisions found as of yet [1]. The collision attacks on md5 required a lot of junk data, so not sure how much of a problem that would be. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2#Comparison_of_SHA_functions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2#Comparison_of_SHA_functi...

seunosewa 13y ago

Writing a new protocol with an open source reference implementation will probably be a better idea, because: 1) Reverse-engineering isn't clean and can be circumvented. 2) BTsync has not reached a point where it can't be beaten by a competing protocol.

danielsiders 13y ago
We're actively developing an open source Dropbox type app that's powered by Tent (https://tent.io https://tent.io).
- rohamg 13y ago
  you should have a landing page with an email sign up form that you can link people to.
bascule 13y ago
Tahoe-LAFS is a mature project of this nature: https://tahoe-lafs.org/ https://tahoe-lafs.org/ I am writing a similar project which is fairly immature: https://github.com/cryptosphere/cryptosphere https://github.com/cryptosphere/cryptosphere