
VFsync – Secure file synchronization system - ingve
https://vfsync.org/index.html
======
beagle3
The title doesn't do the linked page justice.

1\. It is by Fabrice Bellard, of QEMU, FFMPEG, TCC, BPG, ... fame.

2\. It runs Win2000 in QEMU in Linux in JS on your browser. Seriously. Not
very quickly, but it works. See
[https://vfsync.org/vm_list.html](https://vfsync.org/vm_list.html) ; Also X
windows if you prefer.

3\. The idea seems to be that you can store encrypted data in the cloud, and
use it on _any_ machine capable of running javascript, by booting into a
Windows or Linux machine emulated in the browser. Obviously, it is only as
secure as the machine you run it on -- but if you can trust that machine, you
have an encrypted "fat" client everyone on "thin client" hardware. Dropbox
lets you take your data, this lets you take your whole machine.

~~~
Capt-RogerOver
This guy is truly a legend. A force of nature. "Windows 2000 Demo It is done
in an unusual way: the browser runs a Javascript VM, which runs x86emu, which
runs Linux, which runs QEMU, which runs Windows. "

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tptacek
I'm not confident, because I read this code for less than 5 minutes, but it
looks like this is unauthenticated AES-CBC, complete with a padding oracle in
fs_wget.c that, ironically, protects the system from what would otherwise be
an exploitable integer overflow.

If I'm wrong, and there's a message authenticator somewhere I missed that
makes this system secure, I sincerely apologize. It is not even a little
unlikely that I'm wrong.

~~~
nickpsecurity
After reading Win2000-on-this-on-that, I thought the whole thing was some kind
of joke or experiment along these lines:

[http://www.networkworld.com/article/2223927/opensource-
subne...](http://www.networkworld.com/article/2223927/opensource-subnet/why-
this-linux-user-is-now-using-windows-3-1.html)

Maybe he just missed using Windows 2000. Then, decided to make it run on any
of his machines. (shrugs)

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sanbor
This project is made by Fabrice Bellard who is the author of QEMU and ffmpeg
[1].

For what I see in this page, seems that finally his PC emulator in JS has a
MIT license [2]. Previously he didn't share the source code.

I don't quite understand the synchronization part of this project but this guy
knows what he is doing so it might be a good project to invest time in.

I hope I will be able to host everything in my computers and avoid trusting a
third party service.

[1] [https://bellard.org/](https://bellard.org/) [2]
[https://bellard.org/riscvemu/](https://bellard.org/riscvemu/)

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lathiat
Why Windows 2000? Is that suddenly free or something or is it just fast enough
to run in JS emulation?

There's a small industry targeting this kind-of thing but its a hosted remote
desktop targeted at high value online banking users.. for example BankVault:
[https://www.bankvaultonline.com/](https://www.bankvaultonline.com/)

This could potentially be some kind of alternative idea I guess.

~~~
0xcde4c3db
> Why Windows 2000? Is that suddenly free or something or is it just fast
> enough to run in JS emulation?

My speculation:

1) NT 3.51 or 4.0 would be faster, but significantly less compatible with any
remotely modern software.

2) XP is significantly heavier while only being marginally more capable.

3) 95/98/ME is a horrifying amalgam of DOS and Windows code, which presumably
makes demands on the completeness and accuracy of the x86 emulation.

~~~
aruggirello
But it isn't free AFAIK.

Would ReactOS work at all though?

------
DonbunEf7
Why would I use this instead of Tahoe-LAFS or magic-wormhole?

~~~
beagle3
It carries an OS/Desktop, not just files.

