

SkyDrive in Windows 8.1: Cloud storage the way it’s meant to be - boduh
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/skydrive-in-windows-8-1-cloud-storage-the-way-its-meant-to-be/

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RyanZAG
Wow, this is evil.

 _The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write
location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on
SkyDrive._

Most office workers won't even notice this. Any time someone hits save in
Word, their document is sent directly to the NSA for review. This is like the
'url bar goes to google' problem in Chrome, but 1000x worse.

~~~
flexie
In other words: Saving a document in the Documents library means sharing it
with the government.

~~~
stinos
I have been with my head under a rock lately and don't know much about this
NSA stuff. So please enlighten me: is there hard proof that all or some of
your SkyDrive/GoogleDrive/... documents are passed directly to the NSA? Also
if you're outside the US?

~~~
RyanZAG
It has been stated that all data - this includes SkyDrive or GoogleDrive files
- is available for government agencies if a warrant is issued.

In the case of being outside the US, it has been stated that the warrant is
not necessary, and any communications or data between US and non US citizens
is also fair game.

There is also speculation that the NSA is legally allowed access to any data
transfers going through peering points out of the US, and that internal US
traffic can be diverted specifically to allow this to occur.

SkyDrive in particular is very likely to be sharing this information as any
link placed into a document in SkyDrive is visited by Microsoft, and any
pornography or other 'invalid' content is deleted from SkyDrive. This implies
Microsoft must keep records of all files you store there and the likely
content of those files, and that 'metadata' appears to be freely available for
law enforcement in the USA through the PRISM and similar programs.

EDIT: In addition, it is believed that the NSA pays Microsoft for access to
Skype communications, and one would assume that they would also pay for access
to SkyDrive data.

~~~
statictype
_There is also speculation that....is very likely...and that 'metadata'
appears to be....it is believed....and one would assume..._

Thanks for the concrete feedback. I was wondering for a sec if this was just
blatant fear-mongering and imagination stretching.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Oh come on. Please, the documents Snowden revealed, _if_ true, show all of the
parents comments to accurate and with no need to be hedged by "appears".

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jasonkester
I don't think I like the part where it mocks up your UI to look like your
files have synced, but they're not actually sitting on your drive.

I've been burned enough times by "Delayed Write", where you stick a bunch of
files on a USB drive, pull it out and hop in the car, while back on your
machine it pops up a little box saying "Whoa! hold up! we didn't actually copy
any of those files yet, even though we said we had." This seems like another
version of that same idea, except this time designed to leave me without any
of the music and video I'd "synced" onto my new road machine right before
hopping that month-long riverboat down the Congo.

Given a choice, I think I'd prefer that my machine actually did the things
with my files that I've told it to do. Copy them when I copy them, sync them
when I sync them. I hope there's an option to do that here.

~~~
boduh
Haven't tried it yet but I hope the visual icons (green, blue) would help me
see which files have been actually synced.

And yes, I know the USB drive scenario, I got burned myself many times.

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antninja
They will delete your account if you upload pornographic images. Since your
data is private, the only possble reason for this policy is to make the job of
spies more comfortable. The way it's meant to be.

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greyman
Cloud storage the way it’s meant to be? Without client-side encryption
support? Hmm...

BTW, can someone share the experience regarding the syncing speed? Lastly I
had been evaluating both Dropbox and Skydrive, I found the DB to be quicker to
upload modified files - the uploading started almost immediately, which was
not the case with Skydrive.

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Nux
"Cloud storage the way it’s meant to be" \- what a frickin joke! They should
be ashamed of themselves to come up with such subjects after all that has
happened!

~~~
josteink
Fair enough complaint really, but keep in mind this article is around 2 weeks
old at this point.

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forkrulassail
Yes, go ahead, trust Microsoft again.

~~~
boduh
Asides from PRISM/privacy concerns, the integration is pretty interesting.

~~~
sounds
Well, except for the lack of Linux integration

[http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windowslive/forum/skydriv...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/windowslive/forum/skydrive-files/when-is-skydrive-going-to-be-released-for-
the/0e4d175a-3370-4e6c-8604-3db4f1b642ad)

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cmircea
I think I'm going to write my own cloud storage app, to use Azure Storage or
something, while encrypting everything on the client.

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twentyfourseven
Serious, snark-free question: is this a paid review by Microsoft? I've never
been an Arstechnica reader but I thought they had more integrity than this.

Talking up SkyDrive is like extolling the virtues of ivory from elephant
tusks. In both cases there is a horrible hidden cost.

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yungchin
"The files themselves use the reparse point mechanism first introduced in
Windows 2000. During that first sync, stub files ("reparse points") are
created to mimic the directory structure stored on SkyDrive. Any operation on
these files is intercepted automatically, allowing SkyDrive to download the
file on-demand."

Being a long-time luser, I hadn't heard of NTFS reparse points before.
Somehow, every time I read something about NTFS features, it strikes me how
well thought-out that FS is, especially for its time.

~~~
Dylan16807
Prepare for some disappointment. Reparse points weren't added until Vista, and
they require admin privileges to make symlinks.

~~~
nikbackm
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_reparse_point](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_reparse_point)

Seems to be from Windows 2000 according to Wikipedia.

~~~
Dylan16807
This article is a mess. It's talking about a whole variety of NTFS redirection
features, but only some of them existed in 2000. It also got me confused, I
should have said ' _those_ reparse points', not just 'reparse points'.

In 2000 you could make junction points but they only worked on directories.
2000 also supported multiple hard links to a single file. But what the article
talks about, individual soft links for files, didn't get added until Vista.
Despite it being a standard feature on filesystems going back decades.

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josephers
I'm actually interested in this. I'm out of space on my Macbook Air, but I
have gigabytes of photos that I'd like to be able to use with Aperture or
Lightroom without using an external drive.

Has anyone tried a solution to mount an online server/drive/storage as a
network drive in order to do the same things that this new SkyDrive will do?

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Achshar
I just can't trust any big corp after the whole NSA thing. Never. Period.
Unless they take some very drastic steps. This looks pretty slick, but I can
never use this. I hope microsoft and others are reading this. All the recent
flack has seriously damaged public image, at least in the power user world.

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hereonbusiness
I'm just thinking, maybe the NSA should start their own cloud storage service,
cut out the middle man, you see.

Think about it, free, no size or bandwidth restrictions, and if you use
encryption they'll probably keep a backup for you, forever.

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LeeHunter
Cloud storage should, first of all, be OS agnostic, secondly it should be
content agnostic (meaning the provider doesn't review the content for
compliance to its policies). Skydrive fails on both counts.

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contingencies
RMS called this "Windows: PRISM Edition" @
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6045421)

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dschiptsov
Paid content the way it meant to be.

How Google Drive is less meant to be cloud storage?)

