Condoleezza Rice Infests DropBox

[SquidInk]

Here is the "upside" of Dropbox's decision:

http://syncthing.net/

People have now been "incentivized" to create lots of options.

Here's another, arkOS...

http://www.fastcolabs.com/3021919/open- ... om-the-nsa

https://arkos.io/



I think I will try this. I have always wanted to run my own server! I think the reason folks want to trust companies like google and dropbox with personal data is certainly due to technical complexity (perceived or real), but maybe in a slightly different way than we think.

Setting up a server is reasonably complicated, but it can be done with a little persistence. The thing that keeps me using third party services is a perception that it will be nearly impossible to keep any server I put online from being "compromised" without nearly constant attention. That's a whole other bit of complexity, and it's ongoing, unlike the initial set-up.

If arkOS (or similar) can bring us just a little closer to a "plug and play" reality, then we will see people get excited about hosting their own email, etc. Of course, this does not stop the Rices of the world. They have backdoors in every American made router, and probably all processors and chips as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/m ... -snowden?r

[Fan]

I have not tried syncthing but I will. ArkOS is good, works well.

All you really need is OwnCloud http://owncloud.org/

Get a VPS server (ie at Linode.com) $20/mo. Install linux, owncloud. Done. Your own cloud, with calendar, file sync, music system, etc. Linode has easy step by step info on how to install everything and secure it.

The big thing here is it is offsite. Running a sync server at home is cool, but you are limited by upload speed, and of course if you have a catastrophe at home you lose everything.

[SquidInk]

I have not tried syncthing but I will. ArkOS is good, works well.

All you really need is OwnCloud http://owncloud.org/

Get a VPS server (ie at Linode.com) /mo. Install linux, owncloud. Done. Your own cloud, with calendar, file sync, music system, etc. Linode has easy step by step info on how to install everything and secure it.

The big thing here is it is offsite. Running a sync server at home is cool, but you are limited by upload speed, and of course if you have a catastrophe at home you lose everything.

I am going to give all of this a shot, as I have a new need for secure file sharing involving sensitive data. It's too bad --- Dropbox would be perfect.

I ran across this, thought it was interesting. Seems like a decent solution for the less hardcore, with no requirement to provide separate hosting.



http://www.syncdocs.com/

[Fan]

imo you would be better off using a simple encryption program - ie: http://daniel-lange.com/83-Encrypting-f ... ernet.html - that is a techie way to do it, but basically use GPG to encrypt the files and give the key to whoever needs to decrypt them (passing the key through secure channels such as encrypted email of course). Here is a GPG frontend for windows (I have not tried it) https://code.google.com/p/cryptophane/ Here is another, the official GPG windows GUI http://www.gpg4win.org/ - this is what GPG is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Privacy_Guard

If you want to be as safe as possible use large open source projects.

If you encrypt a file locally (ie with GPG) then put it on dropbox or google drive you are about as safe as you can be. If you use a small liveCD to do the actual encryption there is much less chance your computer could be infected and compromise your security at source.

Another simple (but closed source) way to do this is using TrueCrypt which is a GUI on windows and linux and mac. You create an encrypted container, then you mount the container as a drive in windows and drag files to it. Once you unmount it you drag that to google drive. Then you just need to share the passphrase with someone to give them access.

[SquidInk]

imo you would be better off using a simple encryption program - ie: http://daniel-lange.com/83-Encrypting-f ... ernet.html - that is a techie way to do it, but basically use GPG to encrypt the files and give the key to whoever needs to decrypt them (passing the key through secure channels such as encrypted email of course). Here is a GPG frontend for windows (I have not tried it) https://code.google.com/p/cryptophane/ Here is another, the official GPG windows GUI http://www.gpg4win.org/ - this is what GPG is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Privacy_Guard

If you want to be as safe as possible use large open source projects.

If you encrypt a file locally (ie with GPG) then put it on dropbox or google drive you are about as safe as you can be. If you use a small liveCD to do the actual encryption there is much less chance your computer could be infected and compromise your security at source.

Another simple (but closed source) way to do this is using TrueCrypt which is a GUI on windows and linux and mac. You create an encrypted container, then you mount the container as a drive in windows and drag files to it. Once you unmount it you drag that to google drive. Then you just need to share the passphrase with someone to give them access.

This is fantastic -- thanks for your thinking on the topic.

I'd love to set up arkOS on a Pi. We'll see --- maybe I need to do a build thread here to document the process.

Here's a little something else: https://pinocc.io/

[Fan]

This is fantastic -- thanks for your thinking on the topic.

I'd love to set up arkOS on a Pi. We'll see --- maybe I need to do a build thread here to document the process.

Here's a little something else: https://pinocc.io/

The build is so simple it is ridiculous. You download the image, flash it to an sD card (using a simple GUI program), plug card in, plug in ethernet, apply power through a USB connection and you are done. Literally 20 minutes work at worst.

[SquidInk]

The build is so simple it is ridiculous. You download the image, flash it to an sD card (using a simple GUI program), plug card in, plug in ethernet, apply power through a USB connection and you are done. Literally 20 minutes work at worst.

20 minutes + me, doing all of that some other, harder way

[Fan]

20 minutes + me, doing all of that some other, harder way

you know how to contact me on skype However, stumbling along means learning usually so it ain't all bad. But really, there is a reason the Pi exploded in popularity, it is all there, all you need is an operating system, and the OSes available have all the drivers and so on preinstalled.

If you can format a hard drive or USB stick you can flash an sD card, it is much easier to do the flash onto sD in fact.

[SquidInk]

you know how to contact me on skype However, stumbling along means learning usually so it ain't all bad. But really, there is a reason the Pi exploded in popularity, it is all there, all you need is an operating system, and the OSes available have all the drivers and so on preinstalled.

If you can format a hard drive or USB stick you can flash an sD card, it is much easier to do the flash onto sD in fact.

Skype? Well, ok, if we want Condoleeeeeeeeeeza to know everything we plot!

[Fan]

Skype? Well, ok, if we want Condoleeeeeeeeeeza to know everything we plot!

dangit