
Storj – Blockchain-based decentralized storage network - gk1
http://storj.io/#gk1
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chuckup
I can't tell if StorJ and MaidSafe are "scams" or not. I think they are.
They're very handwavy about the exact algorithms they will use to solve the
big problems (such as sybil attacks, etc). The StorJ "white paper" really does
not explain much. Maidsafe recently made millions of dollars without having
much to show for it, I get the feeling StorJ is the same thing. Pretty
website, nice buzzwords, but no explanation of how it will work against greedy
actors.

Now, here is another p2p storage-meets-bitcoin idea that actually has a very
informative paper, Permacoin:
[http://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/permacoin.pdf](http://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/permacoin.pdf)

Compare the StorJ whitepaper to the above :)

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herpderper
I'm a hacker so when I met the head of storj at texas bitcoin conference I was
hammering him with technical questions... they had a sketchy front end in
python but when it came down to brass tacks on storage all I got was something
like "well for now we're just uploading it to box.net"

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ohazi
I may have missed it, but I didn't see any mention of data duplication. How
resiliant would this system be to N nodes suddenly disappearing? What
percentage of the network could go down and still allow you to reliably
retrieve your data?

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super3
Whitepaper briefly goes over this. The user or application software get to
decide their replication number N. The network is self healing, as in if a
portion of a file misses a heartbeat(check in) the network will recover it
from the other peices.

To affect a file large amount of nodes would have to go down simultaneously.
Again the user has control over this N = 1 - Data failure N = 3 - Good for
just average cases. Probably still Sybil attacks possible if the have 20-30%
of the network. N = 100 - Are you expecting tactical nuclear strikes or acts
of God?

Cool thing is if you increase redundancy to a large number Storj starts to act
like a CDN or torrent network. But thats outside the scope of your question.

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Carrok
>Are you expecting tactical nuclear strikes or acts of God?

Are you not?

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dmix
From the whitepaper: [BitCumulus the web interface to the Storj network]
"relies on clientside javascript encryption to secure the file in the client’s
browser before uploading"

Also it seems to be decentralizing the file storage metadata but not the
actual data?

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super3
Note the whitepaper is outdated. We are in the process of rewriting it. Its a
better description of Metadisk, which is one of our front end web apps.

The metadata for the file is stored in a blockchain. The actually data may
live on a centralized or decentralized source.

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gojomo
How similar is StorJ's approach to that outlined in the 'Permacoin' paper...

[http://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/permacoin.pdf](http://cs.umd.edu/~amiller/permacoin.pdf)

...?

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spolu
Is there a permacoin blockchain running right now?

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gojomo
I believe Permacoin is just a concept; but it seems more rigorously described
than the Storj white-paper, which has a lot of hand-waving on the
important/tough details.

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Xcelerate
Very interesting. I knew there was a race for this kind of thing.
Incidentally, I've been working on a very similar idea except I was calling
mine Scatter haha.

The whitepaper is lacking on technical details so it's hard to tell exactly
how they're going to implement everything. It's a little disappointing to see
yet another cryptocurrency invented though. I guess there's a lot of
competition in this area. I suppose the first group to get a functional,
secure, easy-to-use network like this up and running will be the one that
acquires a critical mass of users.

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super3
I'd take a look at some of my writings for meta transactions and templates
here:
[https://github.com/Storj/Metadisk/wiki](https://github.com/Storj/Metadisk/wiki)

Bitcoin only supports up to 80 byte of data per transaction, our model uses 1
kb or more, which makes unusable for our current platform. We are not creating
another cryptocurrency just for the sake of doing so. There are many technical
reasons why we can't do this yet.

So we already have a long term plan to implement sidechains or treechains.
Currently this is only concept/vaporware, so we are not waiting around until
it happens.

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deftnerd
I'm writing a system for my OpenID provider servicewith background checks
(blockauth.com - BitAngels.co backed project launching in 20 days) that has to
store a lot of data in a decentralized system.

Since MaidSafe and all the others don't have a working product yet, I've had
to make my own system. Each user is assigned a transaction ID and the 80 bytes
on the blockchain simply store a DHT hash for the document, so the system can
download the encrypted user dossier through bittorrent. It's working pretty
well so far.

The system isn't able to pay users for helping seed the file, but all of the
franchised Identity Registrars that'll use my system will be required by
contract to seed all of those files.

It doesn't totally solve your problem, but 80 bytes is enough space for a DHT
hash and that might be helpful.

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nijiko
The encryption part would be trivial (to a certain degree), but then thousands
of people could potentially store incriminating chains on their computers,
should they be seized, it would be for the worst.

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chatmasta
Is there any particular software solution that has traction for implementing
BitCoin protocol cryptocurrencies? I've seen Ethereum... is that the most
popular right now? Any other options?

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u124556
With all these blockchain based permanent storage service the question that
always comes to me is: What happens when someone uploads Cheese Pizza? What
about copyrighted content?

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super3
Data is not stored on the blockchain in our system. Simply "file pointers".

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ceejayoz
That argument hasn't worked well for torrent sites.

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xhrpost
Been waiting to see this happen, though it's not the first attempt at
decentralized storage. Interested to see if someone can pull this off with
WebRTC.

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spolu
Am I mistaken or is Storj just a frontend to the Datacoin blockchain?

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duplexer
Our web application, Metadisk, is being prototyped on the Datacoin blockchain,
because it is the only cryptocurrecy that supports data transactions over 80
bytes.

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spolu
So this just a web app running on a blockchain that does not yet exist, right?

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mef51
what happens if a big harddrive on the network storing lots of people's data
crashes or gets wiped? I guess you could deal with that by putting copies on
other drives

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jradd
+1 for the coinage of “BitCumulus” in the context of data.

