[NMLUG] backup storage trade

[havoc at harrisdev.com (Jody Harris)]

Dan Parrish wrote:
> As for the privacy issue, that's a sticky one.  I'm not sure if you can
> encrypt a folder, but I know you can encrypt a partition.  Perhaps if
> you had a separate partition that was all encrypted, it'd be a bit more
> secure for the client who's uploading their junk for backup purposes.

I like that idea, if it's workable.

I'd like to see something along the lines of mnet 
(http://mnetproject.org/), but with a different mindset.  I'd like to 
see something more along the lines of a distributed file system, rather 
than just a "file store."

I keep thinking that this should be something rather simple to achieve 
by overlaying existing tools with a Perl or Python wrapper.  In my 
imagined system, you would "own" the shares on other peoples drives.  If 
I "give out" ten 0.5GB "shares," then I can get 5GB of shares back from 
the network.  Managing those shares would be the responsibility of a 
system on my end.

On Mnet, you don't ever know where your data is, and you have to ask for 
it by key.  The network tracks down the parts and pieces until you have 
enough to reconstruct the file.  On my imagined system, you (or your 
computer) know where your shares are, and what's on them.  As long as 
you can access 3 out of 5 (as an example), you should be able to 
reconstruct the file.  (redundancy)

On Mnet, once the file is pushed out to the network, it's out there.  No 
taking it back, no deleting it.  Mnet just grows and grows.  On my 
imagined system, your shares are just like a slow, network drive.  You 
can store, delete, update, etc.  Of course, keeping the shares in sync 
would be a problem due to network outages, and machine availability 
issues, but that's not a problem that hasn't already been overcome by 
similar distributed file systems.

There may already be something out there that does what I want to do, I 
just don't know about it.

Finally, all of the owned shares are encrypted and belong to the share 
owner.

jody
-- 
http://www.RealizationSystems.com/ -- start communicating
http://www.GalacticSlacker.com/ -- read it and weep
http://www.NMPerspective.com/ -- a Southwest Perspective