5 ms·

I use Wuala, but only because I think I can trust more Swiss than US based software company. That being said, it's all about trust, since both are closed sourc

I use Wuala, but only because I think I can trust more Swiss than US based software company. That being said, it's all about trust, since both are closed source and there's only trust that's left to the users. I wish there existed an ubiquitous open source alternative.

tombrossman 13y ago
I was typing another comment just as you posted this but making essentially the same point. If you are using Linux, FreeBSD or Mac OSX you can use local open source encryption before your data touches the sync program (or even the online backup servers) with EncFS.[1] I'm using it with Dropbox and it is solid, easy to use and set up, and does efficient file-based encryption (so no re-uploading folders just because you changed a file inside). Gnome desktops even have the Gnome EncFS Manager[2] if you want a GUI way to set it up. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncFS [2]https://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs/ https://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs/
- levosmetalo 13y ago
  Thanks for the info, but I said ubiquitous exactly because I need something that "just works" on each one of Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. And I'm not aware of any open source solution there, hence have to use Wuala.
  - tekacs 13y ago
    Linux & OS X: encfs Windows: encfs4win Android: Cryptonite iOS: Boxcryptor Granted Boxcryptor isn't open source, but otherwise you get yourself a full encfs-compatible Dropbox stack.
    - r00fus 13y ago
      IIRC, Boxcryptor isn't specific to iOS, I have it running on OSX at home, and I believe it also runs on Windows, though I've never had a reason to put it on my VM.
      - tekacs 13y ago
        Sure, though the key redeeming point of the product would be that it's compatible with the (notably open-source) encfs.
lambda 13y ago
There is Tarsnap. While it has licensing restrictions that prevent it from meeting the Free Software or Open Source definitions, the source code is available to study and build yourself. It's run by Colin Percival (cperciva here on HN, former FreeBSD security officer and designer of scrypt, bsdiff, and other useful tools), who many consider quite trustworthy. Data is stored on Amazon AWS, which you may not like, but since it's all encrypted client side all they can really do is traffic analysis. The big advantage of Tarsnap is that it supports efficient encrypted deduplicated snapshots; it only stores block that have not been stored before, so you can have many versioned backups using much less space than they would otherwise.

tombrossman 13y ago

I was typing another comment just as you posted this but making essentially the same point. If you are using Linux, FreeBSD or Mac OSX you can use local open source encryption before your data touches the sync program (or even the online backup servers) with EncFS.[1] I'm using it with Dropbox and it is solid, easy to use and set up, and does efficient file-based encryption (so no re-uploading folders just because you changed a file inside). Gnome desktops even have the Gnome EncFS Manager[2] if you want a GUI way to set it up. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EncFS [2]https://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs/ https://bitbucket.org/obensonne/gnome-encfs/

levosmetalo 13y ago
Thanks for the info, but I said ubiquitous exactly because I need something that "just works" on each one of Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. And I'm not aware of any open source solution there, hence have to use Wuala.
- tekacs 13y ago
  Linux & OS X: encfs Windows: encfs4win Android: Cryptonite iOS: Boxcryptor Granted Boxcryptor isn't open source, but otherwise you get yourself a full encfs-compatible Dropbox stack.
  - r00fus 13y ago
    IIRC, Boxcryptor isn't specific to iOS, I have it running on OSX at home, and I believe it also runs on Windows, though I've never had a reason to put it on my VM.
    - tekacs 13y ago
      Sure, though the key redeeming point of the product would be that it's compatible with the (notably open-source) encfs.

lambda 13y ago

There is Tarsnap. While it has licensing restrictions that prevent it from meeting the Free Software or Open Source definitions, the source code is available to study and build yourself. It's run by Colin Percival (cperciva here on HN, former FreeBSD security officer and designer of scrypt, bsdiff, and other useful tools), who many consider quite trustworthy. Data is stored on Amazon AWS, which you may not like, but since it's all encrypted client side all they can really do is traffic analysis. The big advantage of Tarsnap is that it supports efficient encrypted deduplicated snapshots; it only stores block that have not been stored before, so you can have many versioned backups using much less space than they would otherwise.