decentralized, encrypted storage

[Marcus G. Daniels]

A decentralized, secure alternative to Dropbox..

http://storj.io


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[Gary Schiltz-4]

I’m very torn when I read about technologies whose goal is to make us anonymous. Something just seems a little sleazy about technologies such as Bittorrent, Bitcoin, illegal warez sites, viruses, trojans, and the referenced decentralized storage system. Whenever I’ve visited such sites, I sort of feel like I need to disinfect the computer (with chemical disinfectant, not antivirus software). I always feel that somehow I’ve been a naughty boy afterwards.

I suppose it hearkens back to what we westerners have always been taught about the relationship between freedom and responsibility. I relate anonymity to freedom, in the sense that I can say whatever outlandish thing I want when I’m anonymous, with no direct repercussions except for conscience or karma. On the other hand, I relate non-anonymity with responsibility, since if my real identity is known, I will likely be held accountable for things I say. My gut feeling is that from a psychological perspective, desire for anonymity (and even freedom) is more associated with adolescence ("I want it my way", or “I know a secret”), and responsibility is more associated with adulthood (when we have hopefully learned that our actions have consequences). I also suspect there is a male / female component, as I view men as more inflexible about abstract things like freedom than are women (I doubt Patricia Henry would have said anything like “Give me liberty or give me death"). That overabundance of testosterone seems to drive men toward wanting freedom (e.g. from commitment) - fortunately we aren’t completely wired that way.

I realize that there are many situations where anonymity is important, such as subverting tyrannical political systems. But in the long run, I suppose I come down more strongly on the non-anonymity side. I think that to truly grow as a species, we need to be take more responsibility for our actions, not less.

Looking forward to a fruitful discussion :-)

Gary Schiltz

> On Jan 11, 2015, at 1:31 PM, Marcus G. Daniels <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> A decentralized, secure alternative to Dropbox..
>
> http://storj.io

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

> I suppose it hearkens back to what we westerners have always been
> taught about the relationship between freedom and responsibility. I
> relate anonymity to freedom, in the sense that I can say whatever
> outlandish thing I want when I’m anonymous, with no direct
> repercussions except for conscience or karma.

I don't really see the connection.

Why should one feel good about using commercial data storage service
that has no implied loyalty to their country, other than it may be
regulated by it?   Why should one trust these companies at all?  Just
because they are supposedly `outraged' by intelligence agencies
intercepting `their' communications (or forcing them to hand over data
using secret court orders)?   All while they model and sell the data
they collect in any conceivable way to improve their bottom line?

With regard to Bitcoin, I really don't get it.  Do you feel embarrassed
and ashamed to use U.S. dollars and other paper currencies?  Traditional
paper currencies are used in far more criminal transactions than the
less than ~$10 billion US Bitcoin market.  Do you only feel like a good
citizen if all of your transactions are well-documented for Equifax and
subscribers of their services?  

As the storj paper points out, it is a simple matter to identify illegal
distribution of information, if it is being done in public (e.g.
Napster).  One works backward from the (say) copyrighted material to the
filesystem shards of it, and gets the hash for those shards.  Then those
hashes are put on greylists and voluntarily censored.  It seems to me
that greylisting capability opens up even more opportunities for
security companies to collect the greylist information.  

However, for secret or private information, there is no way to ground
what the shards are, short of brute-force decryption.  I could imagine
this could be an interesting and useful technology to corporations or
governments that want to work in the cloud to do so.  It gives
resilience by giving alternatives paths to the same chunks.

Marcus


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