Been keeping an eye on AeroFS. I don't see why syncing and storage should be mixed together (Dropbox)...
I just want them to support syncing existing folders rather than blessing a particular folder as the syncing one. Then we've got a nice zero-config p2p replacement for rsync.
I too really like the idea of aerofs. It was pretty buggy when I first tried it (years ago, at least it feels that way). In the meantime I found spideroak, which can sync whatever directories you tell it to sync, there's no special "spideroak" directory that you have to use. It also encrypts everything locally with my key that they have no access too before sending my data to their servers. It does have to use their servers though, it isn't p2p like aerofs.
I have been looking around the aerofs site for a few minutes now, but I haven't been able to get any details about pricing etc. My main question: how is this different from what JungleDisk has been offering for years? Besides the "unlimited" data promise (which should be immediate turn-off for anyone remotely serious about cloud storage), I don't see any advantage at all: JungleDisk has been
* in development for years,
* is owned by Rackspace
* but also offers storage in s3,
* the abstraction over s3 is open source (atleast, that was the pitch when the company was starting up -- I haven't been able to find the link to the source in the new rackspace branded site)
* also offers AES encryption and de-dup,
* syncs files,
* has apps on windows/mac/ios/android
I'm a cofounder at AeroFS. The main advantage of AeroFS is P2P file syncing without using servers. S3 support is a nice addition to the basic functionality, allowing users to use S3 as a "super" peer.
I haven't tried AeroFS yet but this new feature is giving me the push to try it now. Being in control of my data and my costs is something I was looking for.
Something is bugging me though, what is AeroFS' long term viability if they don't charge for their services?
I think they're a P2P, 'cloud' storage service. Space is shared by users (or that's what I understand). You can also choose to upload (some) stuff to their own servers. And everything with strong AES encryption.
I haven't tried it yet, I still stick to the old fashioned solutions (Dropbox, Backblaze, Time Machine) as they serve me well, but sounds like something interesting with uses to explore (…maybe not the very same ones that have current services!).
Hasn't AeroFS/Regular been in beta for years now? I like this idea but perhaps some focus on the core product so the company survives would suit them better.
Additionally - how do they emulate any kind of locking? Backup to s3 is easy but multi-device sync requires substantially more coordination that needs a lock of some variety.
I wonder which key derivation function is used. In practice, this is probably more important for security against brute-forcing than choosing AES-256 vs. AES-128.
I hope they take some inspiration from the excellent tarsnap and use scrypt.
(PS: posting here because I refuse to register for yet another service or associate any social networking account with their site just to comment)
I'm an engineer at AeroFS, and yep, we use scrypt. The client applies scrypt with a per-user salt to the S3 encryption passphrase you enter at install-time, which gives a 512-bit key that the client stores. This is not quite the AES key itself - we apply PBKDF2 an additional time to this stored value to derive the actual 256-bit AES key (it fit more easily into our existing codebase...), but it retains the same hardness of derivation that scrypt provides (unless the stored key is stolen, as is the case in any system with stored keys).
In this manner, the AeroFS client can (and does) access the data stored on S3 directly, but if you were to lose the machine that runs the client (but still know the password you used at setup), you can still decrypt those files by deriving the same key on a different machine.
Colin Percival's writings ([1] in particular) were very helpful in picking the appropriate set of cryptographic primitives to use. Thanks, cperciva! :D
I've been using AeoroFS for a while now, and its been incredible. I got to bed at ease knowing that Drew Houston isn't creeping over my files at night.
Yeah I've been waiting to use AeroFS for years.. I don't understand why it would take so long for a product that has incredibly small marginal costs (unlike say, Dropbox or Gmail where there were/are real server storage costs involved).
They claim that if you invite 5-10 of your friends you can get an invite, but I don't want to invite 10 people just to be a beta user of the product, it's unfair to my friends to do so unless I'm a rabid evangelist who genuinely loves the product (which I'm not, yet).
You don't have to invite the backlog of users straight away, but try to invite say 5-10% of the beta-requested users every month (I don't mind giving 3 months warning for AeroFS to get its systems ready, so AT MOST by September/November it should begin this)
Every time I search around the web for AeroFS I see claims of it being vaporware but then there also always seems to be pro-AeroFS employees astroturfing. Even here, the CEO (not a regular user) is linking to a company blog-post (a practise which I don't necessarily have any against, but it's worth noting)
AeroFS can be so much - it fills an incredible important niche (like someone said in another comment - an easy to setup P2P rsync). Local, cross-computer syncing is an important thing - many places in the developed and developing world have limited internet bandwidth but heaps of local network bandwidth. Hundreds of gigabytes to multiple terabytes of media, documents and data need to be shared and Dropbox would require immense amounts of money to do so.
It may not be as profitable as Dropbox on a per-user basis, but it doesn't need to be since we are using our own bandwidth so it doesn't cost AeroFS anything.
They had YC-funding, have like 15-ish employees last I checked. With that, Dropbox arguable is in the process of changing the internet forever. AeroFS can do the same.
I got burned by AeroFS recently. Uninstalled AeroFS and then wiped one computer; when I woke another one up, all the data I had synced with the first computer started getting deleted, as indicated by many Growl notifications.
I could not stop the action and was only able to recover bits and pieces of data from deleted blocks. On OSX, one might think that deleted actions would move the file to the trash but, nope, straight up deleted. These two unexpected behaviors have convinced me drop AeroFS and stop telling others about it.
There's a good chance you won't ever see this response since the thread has aged off the front page, but I figured I'd respond to it anyway, just in case.
We've actually addressed this behavior in the beta release recently by introducing local revision history. Unfortunately we haven't exposed this through the UI yet, but if this happens again in the near future I'd be happy to help you recover.
I tried AeroFS for a while but in the end went with InSync GD and Google's cloud, though Google Drive works just as well. I use a TrueCrypt vault for personal stuff.
I just want them to support syncing existing folders rather than blessing a particular folder as the syncing one. Then we've got a nice zero-config p2p replacement for rsync.