HN user
Diode Collab - not fully open source but network and client are all open source. It has dramatic privacy commitment (stores no data on servers, decentralized user-to-user routing, no PII/phone/emails). Diode team just added STUN/TURN to the network last month and streaming will come soon. https://collab.diode.io
Hey there - have added E2E text to home page - thanks again for your input.
Thanks for letting us know - we will check out options...
I empathize - blockchain's benefits do suffer greatly from the behavior of many practitioners. It is wise to carefully evaluate...
However, doing even certain simple things, like securing time (https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/579.pdf), benefit from hardened consensus. Our background is in high reliability IoT infrastructure, so we got here not by bullchain hype, but by discovering and leveraging certain unique technology benefits that directly contribute to allowing solutions like Diode Drive to exist.
Hey there - we'll be posting some videos soon - agree it is not a great experience to have to click or install something without understanding what will happen. Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks for the feedback, we 110% agree - a UI update is coming in the next 2 weeks that is a first step. Please shoot us any specific feedback you have! https://t.me/diode_chain
Agree it is a thin line - check out our article on Blockchain Name System - https://support.diode.io/article/5nsoxvhug1-what-is-bns.
Although the username is just an alias to a public key, it is almost unavoidable to have to use one's username (for example to join a Zone). So, we have support for multi-user single-app coming so different profiles can be applied to different zones so you can use "nikolay" for friends & family, and "myprofessionalhandle" for work stuff, and "myincognitohandleN" for other stuff.
Hey theon144 - one of the differences seems to be public shares. Diode Drive is able to share files with anyone/everyone even if they don't have Diode Drive installed. (send them a link)
e.g. If you need to send a file to someone and it is >25MB, not easy to do with email - Diode Drive makes it easy without having to upload the file to the cloud.
It looks like the Worksharing feature that Revit supports may work with Diode Drive - https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/gettin...
It does not currently do file locking - it leaves that to the application at this point.
If you do give it a shot with Revit worksharing, let us know how it goes! https://t.me/diode_chain
There are similarities for file sync between shared devices, but one of the big differences is that Diode Drive also enables sharing files with anyone by sending them a link (even if they don't have Diode Drive installed). Any of the sync'd devices that has the file can serve the share.
Great feedback on the E2E emphasis - will do that.
Check out https://support.diode.io/article/0joq168vfe-how-does-diode-m...
If you stop paying, the only thing that happens is you lose the ability to use certain features (e.g. password protected public shares) - data / file access is all the same across plans. Also, since the files are actually all resident on systems you own/control, you have a second layer of assurance there.
We'll give some thought about how to support a perpetual license path - it may be sustainable given certain assumptions.
Thanks for the great perspectives...
Correct - storage can be done on a PC or a server system - https://support.diode.io/article/vr156n18cf-is-diodedrive-un.... I personally run some of my personal Zones with a raspberry pi connected to a USB drive as an always-on backup. Enterprise implementations would use whatever server (or private or even public cloud) based storage is appropriate for them.
Great feedback and thoughts.
Those are mostly about using a pool of 3rd party storage for decentralized cloud-based storage, and the "clients" for them are more suited to a patient and tech-savvy person.
Diode Drive is a small app that can run on almost every system, and doesn't use unknown 3rd party cloud-based resources - it uses only the systems you control (or trust) for its resources. So it has benefits in terms of intentionality, regionality, and compliance. Also, since Diode Drive is implemented on the Diode Network, there are many adjacent capabilities it can support.
Nothing wrong with using the CLI, but the CLI is a more general purpose tool for exercising / leveraging the Diode Network, while Diode Drive is tailored to file / folder sharing/collaboration/backup. The CLI doesn't yet support all of the file-specific capabilities implemented in Diode Drive.
Usernames are unique, like a Telegram username - we'll probably be relaxing length restrictions in the future. Thanks for putting that issue in...
Check out our github at https://github.com/diodechain and feel free to join our Telegram channel at https://t.me/diode_chain. The tech, represented by BlockQuick (https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/579.pdf), is a fundamental improvement and https://github.com/diodechain/presentations/blob/master/Taip... has more info about how this approach resolves some of the challenges with PKI.
Thanks for the feedback...
Hey there - it certainly uses E2E encryption - see https://support.diode.io/article/jieo6utgv9-are-my-communica... and the "A serverless solution using end-to-end encryption" at https://diode.io/products/d-drive/ and "Communications through the Diode Network are 256bit end to end encrypted" at https://diode.io/resources/how-it-works/.
The entry plan is free - it is pretty capable and should fulfill most use cases to replace Google Drive and Dropbox for individuals. If people need things like password-protected shares and team-member permissions management, then an upgrade is required. The model is pretty typical for SaaS, but we are certainly enabling MORE capabilities for individuals than perhaps typical because we believe a solution like this is really needed by everyone.
In terms of buy-once, use forever, Diode doesn't have a great consumer-buyer model for that "yet." However, the Diode Network is open to deploy new apps to, and the free Diode Drive plan can be extended with external tech. Gotta pay the bills somehow :-).
We will be coming out with some easy backup-specific options in the near future - it is a pain today to have to bring on a second peer to backup.
We will be releasing some options for this in the near future - stay tuned!
The curl instructions are a method to download the CLI tool...
Great question - probably three differences: 1) Syncthing is storage only - Diode has dDrive for storage, but also supports N other use cases as a true web3 backbone candidate (e.g. currently deployed: video streaming, VPN, decentralized web hosting, remote SSH, etc...) 2) Syncthing uses community relays/nodes without any incentive structure - it limits the scale of the network. Diode implements a relay incentive in proportion to the traffic handled (which is somewhat predicated on the QoS the relay is able to provide) 3) Syncthing is a closed system (an impact of #1), so it can't do things like link sharing, web viewers, etc... whereas Diode is able to provide all those things fully decentralized
There are certainly also specific UX/functionality differences on how the apps are implemented, but those are probably the macro considerations.
I agree - HUGE problem is the monetization - the best models today are ad placement and job postings.
What if we re-used all the other tech (or nearly all) and: a) ensured that infrastructure providers were paid in a market-economy that rewarded quantity of service in proportion to quality of service and b) gave a cut of proceeds to application sponsors?
The Diode Network already implements these things - an answer to the broken systems of today's Internet. We can use the current Web2.0 to drive Web3 forward and allow this sort of "take back the Internet" to work at the local level while connecting globally with new systems that address the underlying problems.
The centralization of core Internet governance functions are a key thing to do better.
decentralized PKI, decentralized DNS are part of the ticket.
The other aspect is a monetization scheme at the transport layer to enable ideas like "Web Monetization" https://webmonetization.org/
Diode has implemented both - it has a full deployed decentralized PKI and DNS, has mapped Web2 domains to dDNS (BNS), monetizes infrastructure at the bandwidth level, and is making other strides on the application front.
Check out the Diode dDNS / BNS: https://diode.io/prenet/#/dns
For storage, My Cloud and other centralized systems (e.g. QNAP and Synology offerings) give some usability, but they are limited to storage and still use a central server. We are trying to get Diode tech widely adopted - it is a network that enables N to N private, fully trustless, tunnels. We implemented dDrive (https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j) over it (in Alpha) that can map any storage (laptop, server, NAS, etc...) so that peers can privately access, or so that you can easily share files without having to use centralized storage / email. Telegram group at https://t.me/diode_chain.
I think more and more people are caring if their life story is recorded, but the majority are not there yet. And, for the folks who care, there are no viable places to turn. It is a driving force behind Diode (diode.io) - most of our tech is open source and we are looking for collaborators who want to grow local and connect global.
Hey dnautics - we just launched the alpha of dDrive - a consumer level storage system implemented on top of the Diode Network - https://support.diode.io/article/irhluyq82j. No promiscuous replication, all peer-based, so availability is solid. Many similar applications are easily enabled with Diode tech.
I live in Hong Kong and work for two international IT organizations and couldn't do it without full access to the Internet. The start of restrictions on what we can access, and possibly on what we do, would trigger an immediate "exit the territory" plan for myself and many others. If mainland China wishes to do irreparable damage to Hong Kong as retribution for bucking the system, this would do it.
While my personal experience in Hong Kong has just been mediocre (have lived in APAC for 13 years - China, Taiwan, Hong Kong), the open access to news, social media, etc... is part of the local culture. Hong Kongers seem to have a similar cynical / critical view of all media - they want to validate the spin by their experience and other data points - a characteristic that is often seen as "western." This contributes to westerners feeling comfortable with Hong Kongers. It would be sad to see HK lose this.
Of course, the wider Internet's concentration of critical network infrastructure in organizations like Cloudflare, Google, and others mean that even the "free" Internet is not fully free or truly egalitarian. The world needs infrastructure-level solutions to the overall troubling trend of great firewalls, malicious cert. authorities, bad actors, etc... that can be trusted by all and maybe even be a ray of light for Hong Kong's future.