Filed under: Internet, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Freeware, P2P, Beta
Wuala P2P online storage service goes live
by Brad Linder Aug 14th 2008 at 4:00AM
Unlike other file storage/sharing services, Wuala doesn't provide you with web space. Rather, your files are encrypted and then stored on the computers of other Wuala users. While this might sound a bit scary, the upshot is that you can store large amounts of data. The more space you allocate for Wuala on your hard drive, the more online space you can access. And your files are duplicated on multiple computers so that you shouldn't have problems accessing your files even if some of the folks in your network have turned their machines off for the night.
Wuala has a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that you can use to upload and download files. Or you can access a web interface. The service is still in beta, so nobody's promising that all the kinks have been worked out. But as of today, Wuala is in public beta, not private.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Transcontinental said 8:06AM on 8-14-2008
Fine for common data, but I wouldn't store confidential matter without even knowing what type of encryption is being used. More subjectively, the idea of disseminating data seems to me quite close to the idea of scattering it...
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Peter said 8:07AM on 8-14-2008
"the idea of disseminating data seems to me quite close to the idea of scattering it" - It's called redundancy.
Fabian said 8:51AM on 8-14-2008
You can look up how the encryption is handled in wuala at their webpage. Furthermore it is planned to release the encryption algorithms as open source, so they can be reviewed by the public.
Ah and wuala was in private alpha until yesterday, not private beta...
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engagdet said 1:29PM on 8-14-2008
Is it me, or does that not add up?
Suppose each user wants to keep 100GB of data, and they share 100GB of their own HDDs. Where is the space for redundancy?
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Fabian said 10:01AM on 8-14-2008
The redundancy is at the other users machines... it wouldn't make sense if the 100GB you share with the system are used up by your own files - the system wouldn't gain and neither would you...
You can think of the system like this: wuala first encrypts your stuff so that noone who is not authorized by you can access it. Lets say the file you wanted to store now has 100 pakets. These 100 pakets are then given to an algorithm that creates 500 fragments. On each participating computer is only 1 of the 500 fragments at max. Now you need any 100 of the 500 fragments to rebuild the encrypted file.
This way you have a 5-time redundancy in the stored data.
engagdet said 1:33PM on 8-14-2008
It isn't redundant simply because it's located elsewhere, it is redundant because your files are duplicated elsewhere.
Here's the caveat I was trying to point out (sorry, from the article it sounded like a 1:1 ratio but it isn't): since your "usefulness" is really dependant on how much time you spend online, that is how the credit is calculated. time(%) multiplied by space allocated = credit. So if I allocate 100GB of my disk and I'm online 50% of the time, it counts as 50GB. This makes sense, as now my 100GB of data needs to be duplicated at least once to remain online.
(see http://www.wua.la/en/support/faq/c/16#id001601 )
The problem is you are now depending on the average time online over a period of ____ hours/days to calculate this number. So if I have 100% online time, and I disconnect, your fragment of data is now gone (rendering X number of files incomplete, depending on the fragmentation algorithm).
mike said 7:25AM on 8-16-2008
RE: 8-14-2008 @ 1:33PM engagdet
Wuala has said they will never delete your data, if you are over your account limit it will just stop you from uploading any more.
cub3 said 11:38AM on 8-14-2008
Thank you very much, ill keep my files IN my computer
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beeboy said 6:38PM on 8-15-2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xKZ4KGkQY8
Here's a link to a (rather long) extremely detailed Google Tech Talk video explaining the whole system.
It seems that they have a very robust system overall, and the redundancy algorithm is very clever. As much as I can understand that is!
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