Determinant's dashboard

Hey guys, I'm writing this comment to let everyone know that I'm abusing the system. I'm sorry but this is the only way that I can control how much bandwidth is used because this issue isn't fixed by the Wuala team.

So this is how I'm taking advantage of the system. I upload my files at 120 KBps (kilobytes per second) and once my files are uploaded then I set the maximum upload speed to 3 KBps this way I know that at most I will only upload 7.7 Gigs per month.

I would like to share my upload speeds with the Wuala community but there needs to be a bandwidth scheduler in place so that I can ensure that Wuala stays below a specified monthly bandwidth limit.

Hey nmat, you don't gain space at the same rate that you would lose it. It actually takes more time to gain space. It takes much less time for your online % to go down then it took for it to go up. See my reply to this topic:

http://getsatisfaction.com/wuala/topi... – Determinant, on November 04, 2008 17:13

The problem lies with the formula that Wuala uses to compute your online %:

Online time = (31 * P + P1) / 32, where P1 is today's online % and P is your overall online %.

In the beginning, Wuala starts you off with one month of presumed 10% online time. So even if you have Wuala online 100% of the time for a full month then you would only be at 55%.

The sneakiest part about it is that this is not a true average online % (I'm not refering to the 1 month of 10% presumed online time). Lets say that you are at 90% online time and all of a sudden your computer is off for 1 day, your new online % = (90 * 31 + 0)/32 = 87.2%. Now lets say that you leave your computer on 100% for a full day so your new online % = (87.2 * 31 + 100) / 32 = 87.6%. The sneaky part about it is that it took you took you 3 months and 4 days (95 days) to reach 90% so if your computer was offline for 1 day then the correct new online % would be (90 * 95 + 0) / 96 = 89.1% (instead of 87.2%).

So the moral of the story is that it's really hard to build up your online % but it's really easy to lose it. If you're at 95% online time and are on vacation for 1 week and for whatever reason (like power outage) your computer shuts down then a nice surprise would be waiting for you when you get back so now you would only be at 76.1%!!!!! Even though you previously had your computer online 100% for 4 and a half months. This 1 week mistake will take you 2 and a half months to fix in order to get back to 95%.

The server definately knows if a file belongs to you even though it can't decrypt the metadata. The reason why the server knows is twofold:

1. The server needs to be able to reliably determine how much storage you've used.

2. For effiency, It would be very innefficient to have to decrypt the metadata in order to know which file it's attached to. As a programmer, let me reasure you that I can guarantee you that the Wuala servers have an efficient means of relating the metadata to the actual file. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the hash value as the key to locating the metadata.

This is my last post in this topic as my request was intended to be read by the Wuala developers and clearly I am just wasting my time here. – Determinant, on November 04, 2008 16:27

I agree that storage is cheap, it's the insane amount of bandwidth that has me puzzled. My guess is that Wuala has reverted to storing files directly on the network (except for small files) instead of having everything backed up on their servers as well. I'm also guessing that the data will be backed up on the servers only for those that will be paying for storage. – Determinant, on October 09, 2008 04:42

Sure, I'll try to explain as best as I can. First of all, your initial question was whether or not Caleido can determine if an account stores a file with hash ABC123 so no mention was made about how the hash was actually stored or whether it was stored as cleartext. So the question is: "Given hash ABC123, can Caleido verify if I'm storing this file?"

Caleido mentioned that the metadata (and also small files) are stored on their servers. Because of this fact, we can deduce that Caleido stores a relation that relates the metadata (even though encrypted) to the actual file that is stored on the network and also that Wuala has a means to identify which account the metadata belongs to.

Caleido also mentioned that they determine if the file that is uploaded is identical to a file that is already stored in the network using the following explanation: "files with identical content will be encrypted the same way".

So to make a long story short, Wuala can determine if a given file is identical to a file already stored on the network and by using the above mentioned relation, Wuala can determine the metadata connected to that file and using the metadata it can determine which acct is storing that file.

Of course Wuala probably uses a much more direct route but based on only what can be deduced with 100% certainty using the information that we're given, this is just a proof to show how my answer was correct. – Determinant, on October 08, 2008 15:15

I think that the website is misleading because it makes it look real by randomizing the numbers. Personally, I would prefer to just see the file count and have it updated only when I refresh the page.

I agree that 2MB/s is easily doable but it doesn't make sense cost wise. Using my assumption of 2.67 MB/s download and 163 KB/s upload, this translates into: 6.9 terabytes downloaded per month and 412 gigabytes uploaded per month. So if it costs you $0.07 for each gigabyte of download bandwidth and $0.11 for each gigabyte of upload bandwidth then this would cost you about $530 each month for bandwitdh usage. I believe I have underestimated the numbers and the cost but regardless of that, this figure will only increase with time.

If everyone (or almost everyone) is a power user and has the advertisements disabled then this leaves you with only 2 ways of making a profit:

-Sell storage: It will be very difficult to convince businesses to trust a peer to peer network unless Wuala opens up and shares MUCH more information about the inner workings of what's going on(eg. statitistics, formulas etc) so that businesses can verify for themselves before trusting their valuable data with a stranger.

-Migrate to have all the data only stored in the network so that you don't have to use the servers and incur alot of bandwidth costs.

Am I missing anything?

I agree that Metadata is encrypted, I was just showing you how Caleido can see if you are storing a file with hash ABC123.

Bugreport: "If cleartext-hashes are stored somewhere (you assume Caleido has them) it won't matter how the files are encrypted since it still would be easy to track the file down to your account"

If the hash is computed from a unique file (by adding a random byte before computing the hash or similar) then it doesn't matter if they can see that I'm storing a file with the given hash code because that code would be meaningless to everyone except myself.

You keep jumping back to the idea of "someone finding out about illegal activities" so I'm going to spell this out for you so that you understand and hopefully I won't have to explain this again:

I don't live in the U.S. It is legal for me in my country to store a backup of my music collection. The authorities in my country even publicly stated that they will not go after people that download illegal content (just before you start getting excited again, let me make it clear that I don't intend to store illegal content) but they will instead only go after those that upload and share illegal content. So, my goal is to store a backup of my music collection that I rightfully own without having to worry that the laws might change and all of a sudden I would be flagged as being involved in illegal activities. A response similar to "if it's not illegal then just do it" is not a valid response due to the reasons already mentioned.

The problem also lies with the fact that Wuala makes it really really easy to share my legal content with friends so I would have to prove that I never shared it otherwise I would be suspected of illegal activities. Making a file completely private also ensures that I can't share it with anyone. – Determinant, on October 06, 2008 14:35

Thanks guys. Maybe the problem is related to the number of connections (or half-open connections) that are allowed.

Does anyone have more information about this?

You could potentially sign out everytime you leave your computer but I agree that options such as Parental Control should require a Master password for you to be able to change it.

A simpler solution might be to just ask for your password again when changing sensitive information to make sure that the actual user is making the change.

Your son could also just make a new acct for himself but that would require more work than just unchecking the parental control option.