[tahoe-lafs-weekly-news] TWN #6

[Patrick R McDonald]

=====================================================
 Tahoe-LAFS Weekly News, issue number 6, July 9, 2011
=====================================================

Welcome to the Tahoe-LAFS Weekly News (TWN).  Tahoe-LAFS_ is a secure,
distributed storage system. `View TWN on the web`_ *or* `subscribe to
TWN`_.

.. _Tahoe-LAFS: http://tahoe-lafs.org
.. _View TWN on the web: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/TahoeLAFSWeeklyNews
.. _subscribe to TWN: http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-lafs-weekly-news

Announcements and News
======================

Tahoe-LAFS Summit
-----------------

As promised here are the updates from the Summit.  Thanks to everyone
who provided me notes.  Once again, please enjoy the feeds by nejucomo_
and secorp.

Ladies and gentleman, we have a visualizer thanks to Brian Warner.  The
visualizer demonstrates how encryption and hashing take significantly
less time than network operations.  It shows network issues which are
explained (lock-step progress per-segment means higher K leads to more
servers slowing each other down, redundant computation of the
satisfaction algorithm leads to gaps between segments), as well as 
unexplained (one server has response time X, all the others have
response time ~Y, Y is about an order of magnitude greater than X).

Currently, the visualizer could use some usuability improvements.  It is
best understood with Brian explaining its functionality to you.  Tahoe
would greatly appreciate anyone who would like to work on 1265_ to make
the visualizer more user friendly.  Items needed are more labels and
documents.

Currently the visualizer will use a significant portion of CPU to render
an image if it is asked to display all items available.  Any Javascript
performance experts (or others interested) who could patch it to only
render visible and meaningful items will receive a write up in TWN.

We discussed append-only caps. `Moxie Marlinspike`_ and Zooko want
append-only caps as they are the correct security property for backups.
The implementations sketched out at the Summit seem overly complicated.
There are questions if append-only caps require such complication or if
we could implement a simpler solution which would cover all the
different threat models.  The threat models include servers conspiring
to rollback, someone/something compromising the capability and
uncoordinated writes and/or servers being off-line.  If such
complication can not be removed and still cover all the threat models,
should the Tahoe developers explore a simpler design which covers less
threat models?  Please send us your thoughts either to the `mailing
list`_ or join us in #tahoe-lafs in Freenode.

Peter Secor reported on Tahoe's funds.  We have donations of 244.56b,
received donations of about $30/month from Flattr.  Thank you to all
donors!  We spend more than $30/month on Peter's costs to run our
servers.  Thanks Peter for running our servers.

Josh, David-Sarah and Zooko worked on 999_.  This ticket is adapting the
codebase to support multiple backends including Amazon S3.  There is a
distinct possibility this ticket could be included in the upcoming 1.9.0
release.

David-Sarah implemented Dropbox-like functionality.

.. _nejucomo: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tahoe-lafs-summit
.. _secorp: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tahoe-lafs-summit-end
.. _1265: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1265
.. _`mailing list`: http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-lafs-weekly-news
.. _`Moxie Marlinspike`: http://www.thoughtcrime.org
.. _999: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/999

Tahoe on Plug Computers
-----------------------

More good news from the `FreedomBox Foundation`_.  Tahoe just runs with
an "apt-get install" on plug computers.

.. _`FreedomBox Foundation`: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2011-July/002043.html

Interview with the Developers
=============================

There is no interview this week as well.  Sorry for the delay.  We will
be returning to our regular interview schedule next week.  Are there any
questions you want me to ask the developers or a specific developer?
Perhaps there is a topic and you want various developers' opinions on
it.  Please let me know and I will ask it here.

Open Source Project of the Week
===============================

The Open Source Project of the Week is FranC'ois Deppierraz's `Android
client`_.  This is the killer application for me for Tahoe.  No longer
am I tied to my laptop or my desktop to use Tahoe.  I can use Tahoe
wherever my cell phone can carry me.  I am really looking forward to
running this on my Nook Color when I root it later this year.

Warning: you may be thinking that fdz's Android client is actually doing
encryption on your phone. Alas, no, it is delegating that to a
remote gateway running on a server.

.. _`Android client`: http://github.com/ctrlaltdel/TahoeLAFS-android

>From the tahoe-dev Mailing List
===============================

The `DMCA discussion`_ continues.

Zooko asked when `patches need to be completed`_ to be included in
1.9.0_.

.. _`DMCA discussion`: http://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2011-July/006525.html
.. _`patches need to be completed`: http://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2011-July/006526.html
.. _1.9.0: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/roadmap

Patch Needing Review of the Week
================================

The Patch Needing Review of the Week is 1425_.  This patch allows webapi
gateway operators to block access to files natively in Tahoe rather than
through of a frontend proxy (i.e. nginx, Apache).  The patch creates a
blacklist file, with a list of storage-index strings and a reason for
each.  This patch may be useful in enabling webapi gateway operators to
effectively deal with DMCA complaints.

.. _1425: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1425

----

*The Tahoe-LAFS Weekly News is published once a week by The Tahoe-LAFS
Software Foundation, President and Treasurer: Peter Secor. Scribes:
Patrick "marlowe" McDonald, Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn, Editor: Zooko.* `View
TWN on the web`_ *or* `subscribe to TWN`_ *. Send your news stories to*
marlowe at antagonism.org_ *b submission deadline: Friday night.*

.. _marlowe at antagonism.org: mailto:marlowe at antagonism.org




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