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joanou's comments

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Dropbox Lack of Security

Dropbox is a good service, and I am sure file access is limited to a few employees, but I wouldn't use it for sensitive data or for a business. Any service where you do not control the encryption keys, e.g. Box.net, and myriad others will have the same issue. It's all about tradeoffs. Ultimately they can access your data. The truecrypt option may solve it for some but that means the whole archive has to be shared.

AltDrive unlimited online backup versions your files and allows you to control your encryption key. It runs on *nix, OSX, Windows, and other OSs. http://altdrive.com

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: Best alternative to Mozy?

AltDrive (http://altdrive.com) is unlimited, has a free two month trial, and is $4.45/mo or $44.50/yr. The client is lightweight and full featured. Data is encrypted using AES-256 CTR mode with your key before leaving your computer. It supports Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux, has data deduplication, throttle control, and file versioning. It is easy to setup and use and has online video tutorials and a knowledgebase.

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Tarsnap critical security bug

I applaud the openness of this submittal. Nobody's perfect and the topic is difficult and the implementation is tricky to get absolutely right.

At AltDrive, we use a nonce generated w/ secure random and that is used for encrypting an entire file in CTR (EAX) mode. The issue with 64k chunks does not apply. The mature and well-respected BouncyCastle AES-256 libraries are used from the low level API. Usage of the API was independently reviewed by the BouncyCastle organization. I can share that on the AltDrive blog if anyone is interested. http://altdrive.com

joanou | 15 years ago | on: 10 petabytes - visualized

That's a sizable operation and difficult to visualize. I'm guessing their failure points reduce potential damage to minimal levels. At AltDrive, we use ZFS RaidZ2 with a number of hot spares. Six drives would have to fail consecutively on a given machine before any data loss... we replace them as they occur. And we have inter-H/W duplication. ZFS is self healing and makes management easy. Additionally we periodically compare the integrity of the user's AES-256 CTR encrypted data against the database records and make corrections if necessary. From our customer's and white label provider's view, it just works. http://altdrive.com

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: What's your favorite online-backup tool?

I love AltDrive.com. But I'm partial since I created it...and took 5 years doing so. I think tarsnap is good but it seems more for hackers and IT types. Reading their blogs, they do seem to well understand security and encryption.

AltDrive has a free two month trial for either home or business users. You can control your own encryption key too. It is highly secure and uses AES-256 EAX mode encryption. It works in Windows, OSX, Linux. Plus other OSs for business users. It is easy to use and is full featured. There is also a white label offering for the business service.

Check it out. http://altdrive.com I'm always looking for feedback of any kind that would help improve it.

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Blockbuster files for bankruptcy

In 1998 they tried to charge me for a late fee which I thought was not correct. So, in a long line on Friday night at Blockbuster, I asked the employee for the scissors where I promptly cut the card up and left it for them on the counter. I never went back and was happier shopping elsewhere. Then Netflix came around and I've been loyal to them ever since.

Losing customers by overcharging doesn't make for a good long-term strategy.

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: How fast do you code?

It depends on the type of work. For safety critical avionics software, it can be three eLOC per day. For tools, web and others, it can be a few hundred to two thousand per day.

joanou | 15 years ago | on: Ask HN: Which Android Phone to Buy?

I really like my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide. It is the right form factor for me and has a usable keyboard. Only 600Mhz but plenty fast and will be much faster when Froyo is available later this year. Plus I tether it via usb cable when I travel. The network speed is quite good in my area 1.5Mbps up and down.

I looked at the EVO, but it was too big and power hungry for my liking. And I didn't want to root the phone to "fix" it. Great screen though.

joanou | 16 years ago | on: Notepad++ leaves SourceForge

That's about the stupidest waste of time and energy I've every heard of. Also France is not neutral... they have their priorities too.

joanou | 16 years ago | on: It's all about the cores. Why AMD doesn't use HyperThreading

It's just my experience, I have no formal studies to back it up...

In my multithreaded java application, turning off HT improved performance 100%. Granted, it was one of the early HT implementations wit ha single core, but I still always turn it off in my BIOS.

I tend to prefer AMD over Intel because you get more MIPS/$ and less heat.

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