[tahoe-lafs-weekly-news] TWN42

Sun Mar 3 13:33:22 UTC 2013

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`_.
If you would like to view the "new and improved" TWN, complete with pictures;
please take a `look`_.

.. _Tahoe-LAFS: https://tahoe-lafs.org
.. _View TWN on the web: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/TahoeLAFSWeeklyNews
.. _subscribe to TWN: https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-lafs-weekly-news
.. _look: https://tahoe-lafs.org/~marlowe/TWN42.html

Announcement and News
=====================

Least Authority Enterprise Mentioned in Wired
- ---------------------------------------------

Wired `mentioned`_ `Least Authority Enterprises`_ |LAE| in its article
on `Crypton`_.  Crypton is an effort by `SpiderOak`_ |SpiderOak| to
"make it trivial for any developer to add encryption to an application
— even if the developer doesn’t have extensive experience with such
things" [`0`_]. The article references Least Authority making it easy
for users to encrypt the data users store on Amazon's S3.
Congratulations to the Least Authority team for this mention.

.. _`mentioned`: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/crypton/
.. _`Least Authority Enterprises`: https://leastauthority.com
.. _`Crypton`: https://crypton.io/
.. _`Spideroak`: https://spideroak.com/
.. _`0`: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/crypton/

.. |LAE| image:: LAE.png
   :height: 35
   :alt: Least Authority Enterprises
   :target: https://leastauthority.com

.. |SpiderOak| image:: spideroak.jpg
   :height: 35
   :alt: SpiderOak
   :target: https://www.spideroak.com

Weekly Dev Chat Meeting Notes
=============================

Below are Zooko's `meeting minutes`_ from the `Weekly Dev Chat`_.

In attendance: Zooko, Andrew, Iraklis, David-Sarah, Anna, Amber,
Rohit, Oleksandr, Samuel

Topic: Message-Locked Encryption, convergent encryption

Discussion: Wide-ranging survey of possible future compression and
encryption schemes; segment-level deduplication, segment permutation
and dummy-segment-insertion (sort of like Oblivious RAM?),
content-determined+variable-length segmentation (like bup and
backshift), Amber's idea of a novel way to do that sort of
segmentation besides using a rolling hash, pre-image-resistant rolling
hashes, Ristenpart et al.'s "Randomized Convergent Encryption",
probably more stuff.

Next week will be a "Nuts And Bolts" meeting. It will be at 16:00 UTC
(8:00 Pacific) so that Brian can attend before going to work. The
topic will be "Let's close a bunch of tickets for Tahoe-LAFS v1.10
now, while we're on this videoconference together".

.. _`meeting minutes`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008063.html
.. _`Weekly Dev Chat`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/WeeklyMeeting

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

Secure OS for Running Tahoe
- ---------------------------

Simon Forman `inquired about a secure operating system`_ for running
Tahoe-LAFS. Patrick McDonald recommended Simon construct a threat model
for the information he wished to protect and then find an OS which
meets or exceeds that threat model. Greg Troxel provided a `solid
case for NetBSD`_ as the secure OS. P S `offered Qubes OS`_ as a
possibility particularly for handling multiple threat models.

.. _`inquired about a secure operating system`:
  https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008037.html
.. _`solid case for NetBSD`:
  https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008040.html
.. _`offered Qubes OS`:
  https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008045.html

What Tahoe-LAFS Reveal to an Attacker
- -------------------------------------

Inspired by the above thread, Patrick `asked what information Tahoe-LAFS
would reveal to someone with root`_. Kevin Reid provided an informative
`synopsis of the possibilities`_. In light of redundant array of
independent clouds becoming more a reality, Patrick asked,

"How do we protect ourselves against attacks from service providers who
have full root access on one or more of our storage nodes?" [`1`_]

Ed Kapitein provided the idea of mounting home directories on a chosen
cryptoloop and mount .tahoe directories over SSHFS from a machine which
you do trust. Zooko provided an `excellent summation`_ of what we need
to do.

.. _`asked what information Tahoe-LAFS would reveal to someone with
   root`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008041.html
.. _`synopsis of the possibilities`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008042.html
.. _`1`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008055.html
.. _`excellent summation`:
   https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2013-February/008060.html

Glowing Quotes
==============

Tahoe-LAFS on Twitter
=====================

"This week's Tahoe-LAFS Weekly Dev Chat was a heady mix of
encryption+compression+deduplication ideas.
http://identi.ca/url/75340004" [`2`_]

"I really hope the scientists who attended this week's Tahoe-LAFS Dev
Chat to invent new crypto show up at next week's to review Python code."
[`3`_]

"Greg Troxel makes good arguments for NetBSD being a good secure
platform for Tahoe-LAFS: http://identi.ca/url/75296362  (also aliens)"
[`4`_]

.. _`2`: https://twitter.com/zooko/status/307190054823014401
.. _`3`: https://twitter.com/zooko/status/307190931948462080
.. _`4`: https://twitter.com/zooko/status/305568012663140352

Patches Needing Review of the Week
==================================

There are five (5) ticket still needing review for 1.10.0:

* `#1679`_: Nondeterministic NoSharesError for direct CHK download in
  1.8.3 and 1.9.1
* `#1713`_: redesigned welcome page
* `#1159`_: stop using .tac files: make it possible to change appname,
  Python package-directory name, perhaps other names
* `#166`_: command line order is problematic
* `#1539`_: stop putting pkg_resources.require() into .tac files

There are six (6) tickets still needing review of 1.11.0:

* `#1818`_: leasedb: track leases in a sqlite database, not inside
* shares
* `#1265`_: New Visualizer is insufficiently labelled/documented (plus
* layout problem)
* `#1864`_: turn off the AUTOINCREMENT feature in our use of sqlite?
* `#1411`_: sftp server does not accept pubkey auth
* `#1807`_: cleanup: HUMAN_RE regexes in uri.py are never used
* `#1382`_: immutable peer selection refactoring and enhancements

.. _`#1679`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1679
.. _`#1713`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1713
.. _`#1159`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1159
.. _`#166`: https//tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/166
.. _`#1539`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1539
.. _`#1818`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1818
.. _`#1265`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1265
.. _`#1864`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1864
.. _`#1411`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1411
.. _`#1807`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1807
.. _`#1382`: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1382

- ----

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

.. _marlowe at antagonism.org: mailto:marlowe at antagonism.org
.. |peter| image:: psecor.jpg
   :height: 35
   :alt: peter
   :target: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/AboutUs
.. |marlowe| image:: marlowe-x75-bw.jpg
   :height: 35
   :alt: marlowe
   :target: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/AboutUs
.. |zooko| image:: zooko.png
   :height: 35
   :alt: zooko
   :target: http://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/AboutUs

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