Recent Posts

326

Living Room / Re: Apple - least green company

« Last post by Armando on April 23, 2011, 10:41 AM »

[...] and do not eat meat everyday. I do not need GreenPeace to tell me this. [...]

-Shades (April 22, 2011, 09:01 PM)

Slightly off-topic here, but it reminded me of that book about meat etc : Meat - A Benign Extravagance. Fairly interesting. Here's a recent article about it. Meat isn't necessarily evil.

[Added a link to the book]

327

Living Room / Re: Happy Birthday Renegade!

« Last post by Armando on April 23, 2011, 10:30 AM »

Happy birthday Renegade ! It's good to have you around. 

328

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 19, 2011, 02:42 PM »

Thanks. Yes, I should contact them to. But I'd be surprised if they weren't already aware of the problem.

329

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 19, 2011, 12:58 PM »

I notice I'm not able to remove older backedup revisions of a file - so I had to remove the database file completely from the SpiderOak backup
(which deleted 3GB space!)

-tomos (April 19, 2011, 12:26 PM)

I'm curious... How do you plan to solve this uploading/backup issue (same as mine, basically) ?

330

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 19, 2011, 12:57 PM »

Strange... But I've had similar problems and had to use the command line to modify the queue.

Normally, 1-in the "view" tab, 2-click on a file, 3-then click on its version in the right "historical versions" pane, 4-then click on the red cross button ("remove").
I admit it's not super intuitive though... Am additional right click option with a simple "remove from history" would be more intuitive IMO.

331

Living Room / Re: US rolls out Internet Identity Plan

« Last post by Armando on April 18, 2011, 02:32 PM »

the implications of such an id goes far beyond the "[...] fact that passwords are "broken" and the fact that it's almost impossible to prove your identity on the Internet".
As, mostly...

it would be more convenient for law enforcement (not to mention intelligence agencies) if a more traditional, centralized system were used.

In any case here's another related article

332

Living Room / Re: Proof That People Cannot Read (EULAs)

« Last post by Armando on April 18, 2011, 01:33 PM »

 

333

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 18, 2011, 01:31 PM »

My current solution will be to stick with dropbox until this is fixed -- I don't have this problem with dropbox, as I said. They must use a different delta backup algorithm.

-Armando (April 18, 2011, 12:49 PM)

That, or DropBox uses special handling for certain files, including access databases?

-f0dder (April 18, 2011, 01:02 PM)

FWIW:
Dropbox was unable to backup my database until it was closed -
SpiderOak is able to back it up while it's open

-tomos (April 18, 2011, 01:23 PM)

That's true though. I didn't mention it because i always first backup my DB to another folder as I like to have a separated backup place with a different file name for my backup (IQ automated backup does that for you). So, in my case, the file is never opened.

Spideroak might use the volume shadow copy service ?

My current solution will be to stick with dropbox until this is fixed -- I don't have this problem with dropbox, as I said. They must use a different delta backup algorithm.

-Armando (April 18, 2011, 12:49 PM)

That, or DropBox uses special handling for certain files, including access databases?

-f0dder (April 18, 2011, 01:02 PM)

Yes, that could be it too.

But I still need to find the best compromise.

334

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 18, 2011, 12:49 PM »

Hi Tom 
Yes, I am speaking of my IQ DB (but also know that Access is better known so... greater chances of getting feedback).

>how do you see/check this?

Well:
1- on the status tab, overview option/button.
Everytime I backup my DB to the spideroak watched folder, the storage bar adds 300mb to the total. And it never goes down.

2- The "Queue" tab mirrors that : it shows a succession of queued 300MB files

3- My Comodo firewall shows how much data has been transferred by spideroak.

Now, I'd really like to use Spideroak... But I don't have enough time to tinker with that these days. I already used the command line to try to clear the queue etc., but that didn't help.

My current solution will be to stick with dropbox until this is fixed -- I don't have this problem with dropbox, as I said. They must use a different delta backup algorithm.

rarrrrrr said that "SpiderOak was originally based on an extension to the rsync algorithm" and I haven't checked what Dropbox uses.

Eventually I might try to find a way to encrypt my IQ DB with some other cipher. But then I'd also have to check which ones are compatible with Spideroak. Maybe rarrrrrr could tell us ? 

335

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 11:33 PM »

...actually SpiderOak does incremental diff of the file if the old and new version have similarity (however it doesn't make this obvious in the UI, but that's what it's doing behind the scenes.)  SpiderOak was originally based on an extension to the rsync algorithm, so handles this pretty well.

-rarrrrrr (April 17, 2011, 10:46 PM)

Sorry ! I didn't see your post.  Thanks for joining the discussion. Aren't you one of spideroak founders ? I think I recognize your pseudo.

As you probably read, I wonder why my DB is re-uploaded each time it's backed up (i.e. : I periodically send the DB to a folder monitored by spideroak -- the DB is RC4 encrypted). I understand the UI doesn't mirror everything happening behind the scene. But I can definitely see the amount of uploaded data each time.

336

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 11:26 PM »

jgpaiva (or other cryptography experts...) : as you probably know, RC4 is a stream cipher^w and no block cipher. However... could it cause the same problem as a block cipher?

337

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 10:05 PM »

Dropbox doesn't have this problem. I just tried again and spideroak uploads the whole 300mb every single time, dropbox only a few MB.    I was hoping to completely (and easily) switch to spideroak but it's going to be more complicated than I want it to... Argh. Technology.

338

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 07:42 PM »

hmmm... I'm really putting spideroak on hold for now, until I resolve this problem.

339

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 07:03 PM »

Thanks jgpaiva. It's an Access DB (MBD file) using the full file Jet encryption. It's weak encryption by any means -- basically only prevents opening/modifying the file in an editor (it's RC4 algorithm, 32-bit encryption... but encryption key is inside the file header )

I guess I could just use it unencrypted and use a truecrypt container to encrypt it locally. Not sure. But I still don't understand why I didn't have this problem with dropbox, but have it with spideroak... 

340

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 06:23 PM »

[slightly off-topic] hmmmm... I'm having problems with spideroak's deduplication... Maybe because my some of my data is already encrypted? see https://www.donation....msg245855#msg245855 [/slightly off-topic]

341

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 06:19 PM »

I wanted to post this in the dropbox deduplication thread but here is probably better :

I'm backing up an encrypted DB to a "spideroak folder" and spiderOak uploads the file fine. However, spideroak doesn't seem to deduplicate anything and sends the whole 300MB each time. I think If uploaded something like 1.5 useless GB today... and I already almost maxed out my 2gb account !

What am I doing wrong ?

[I checked the forum there and didn't find any useful info... Next step for me : send them an email]

[2nd edit... Wondering if NTFS compression could also be a problem... just thinking out loud...]

342

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 03:46 PM »

Well, they said :

Yes. Dropbox employees can't access the file's contents. They can see the file names, move, delete or even restore files, but can't view them. The only exceptions are the executive staff who have a vested interest the company.

-phitsc (April 16, 2011, 12:19 AM)

... but, to know how they do it... they'd have to tell us exactly.

343

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 01:12 PM »

Would it be unethical to ask SpiderOak for a special donationcoder discount ? I read quite a bit about it and I think they really have a good product. IMO, it's the perfect alternative to DropBox. Especially if the later doesn't put its act together.

344

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 17, 2011, 11:17 AM »

Thanks for the links -- am having problems with the first one though. Installed spideroak last night and will experiment with it today.

Even if I don't have much sensitive stuff in my dropbox account, it's a question of principle: companies offering "cloud" storage should take privacy more seriously. With all that, Dropbook is starting to look like Facebox.

345

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 16, 2011, 11:46 PM »

This is a pretty good and balanced general article : http://web.appstorm....ak-file-sync-battle/

It mentions security, but isn't focused on it.

And the website is also not bad at all... first time I see it.

346

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 16, 2011, 09:52 PM »

...there's more in the blog article the quote is from.

-f0dder (April 13, 2011, 12:51 PM)

Thanks for the link [Edit : Dropbox's lawyers should study it too]. And I'm also going to study that spideroak thing a bit more though before I Drop or prod the box.... which is definitely something I'll do. Just a matter of time.

347

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 16, 2011, 03:34 PM »

And gods easily turn into dogs.

348

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 16, 2011, 10:25 AM »

Yes. Dropbox employees can't access the file's contents. They can see the file names, move, delete or even restore files, but can't view them. The only exceptions are the executive staff who have a vested interest the company.

Thanks for sharing that, phitsc.
It seems very wrong. Even if their definition of employee wasn't slack...

349

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 15, 2011, 04:04 PM »

I don't find that their answers explains much... unfortunately.

350

General Software Discussion / Re: Deduplication, encryption, security and... Dropbox

« Last post by Armando on April 15, 2011, 02:16 PM »

I'm also concerned about it at a general honesty level, though.

-f0dder (April 15, 2011, 11:33 AM)

Me too. Really, I don't see why I should trust them more than others.

Private data should be treated as such. And if "they" make it sound like nobody can access it apart from the user, it should be because it's impossible for them to do so. Not because they're nice people and we should trust them not to do so.