The World Would Be Better If Everyone Watched This Video - Pale blue dot - Gizmodo http://ping.fm/epUI3

Top 10 Hedge Fund Managers 2009 Salary, things must change !! http://ping.fm/9epqt

How I'd Hack Your Weak Passwords http://ping.fm/HXEgs

This Is the Future of the Fight Against Cancer - Nanobots - Gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5501103/this-is-the-future-of-the-fight-against-cancer?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A gizmodo%2Ffull %28Gizmodo%29

From a good friend Thomas Findlay, great find, true gent! http://ping.fm/LHD2u

Data security what you need to know http://ping.fm/UCFl9

1024-bit RSA encryption cracked by carefully starving CPU of electricity -- Engadget http://ping.fm/0JN1D

in case you get the wrong link :-) http://ping.fm/cPj6M

A true gent and fantastic grip of the nuances of nature http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/new_best_of_the_3.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A TEDBlog %28TEDBlog%29

Gaga for Google Broadband - Good old Google. Oh it's sometimes sad to see the UK approach to the future. http://ping.fm/MRgby

BT: we won't need Gigabit broadband for a long time | Good old BT ! future thinkers indeed :-) http://ping.fm/UBTcj

Bobby McFerrin hacks your brain with music - pretty amazing and only 3 mins http://ping.fm/oeZAG

If you want to start to understand maidsafe or pd - this logic helps! http://ping.fm/DzF1W

Printing body parts - really http://ping.fm/kcoun

Privacy

Privacy is an increasingly important and mistreated asset in today's digital world. With the likes of search data, purchase histories and many more information profiling (or gathering)  systems are eroding very important and supposedly privacy that we imagine we have. This is certainly not the case as it is clear with very little research that there is significant shift in privacy. We pay for many free systems on the Internet with our very privacy that we have guarded for many years. It is very simple to find sex, birth date, address, friends etc. and this is enough information to track down a person, especially if search results are indexed and maintained. 

This situation exists today and will grow significantly as more and more 'mash up' sites are created and gather more information from us with less security or badly programmed authentication systems. 

maidsafe's perpetual data (pd) product presents a shift in this paradigm and allows people to access information freely and without tracking. In pd data is, well, just data. There is no access wall to data such as web servers, web browsers or traditional data access mechanisms that exist today. The data in maidsafe is 'on your local disk' or appears as 'physical data' on your hard drive on your computer or any computer you happen to log into and use. In pd 

Pure data (pd) is a goal of maidsafe and unfettered access is paramount. The ability to simply open a file of interest or look at a photo or video of interest without divulging ANY information about yourself is key to the growth in data sharing and knowledge transfer. 

This may not be seen as incredibly important today by the majority of people but it is appearing on the horizon as something perhaps to be aware of and will no doubt become one area of modern life we want to reclaim. 

http://bit.ly/cxeH3C

for uk readers, interesting take on privacy. It's time for a new way, a network where privacy is primary ! It's time for perpetual data, it really is. http://ping.fm/HVXF4

life in technology ? it is already there. http://ping.fm/qDBf2

Office is very quiet now, everyone working on Engineering launch. Testing a new cross platform installer form bitrock looking good.

CWTop 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors http://ping.fm/AB2XG

BBC - Earth News - Heroic altruistic ants face death alone to save colony http://ping.fm/PVLWb

Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt | Video on TED.com http://ping.fm/Ufwpj

maidsafe-dht - c++ DHT (kademlia) with NAT traversal and cryptographic libraries http://ping.fm/OHI5y

Paying the price for a free web! http://ping.fm/LXkQ7

This will help our vaults ! | Toshiba Developing High-Density 1TB SSD http://ping.fm/5b0vO

Perpetual Data overview

	Perpetual Data overview A sneak preview of what Perpetual Data does and looks like (for the moment anyway!).	From: maidsafe Views: 168 0 ratings
	Time: 02:57	More in Science & Technology

http://bit.ly/cjmcjm

Startup hotshots are older and more educated than generally thought; it follows that training and finance skills should be offered to all age groups http://ping.fm/RA2K5

Additional funding / maidsafe university ?

http://bit.ly/aKzI3u

Friday night, still working and tonnes more to do. Now is it planning out work or Guinness. It's work that wins. But maybe a pint later

its worth watching, very interesting http://ping.fm/bUUar

if you need dns or web/email etc. go here. Highly recommended http://www.mtgsy.net/

Support Centre - with actual support - amazing stuff a nice person over email. http://ping.fm/9Q1u2

"Both Sides of the Table" - http://tinyurl.com/yhemrzm

Revision 351: general tidy up :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/CMakeLists.txt general tidy up http://bit.ly/bgKb7q

Revision 350: Added TCP implemtation of Transport API and its tests.:
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/sr.. http://bit.ly/dcN5t7

Really interesting article on getting more done efficiently and possibly happier

How much work by who on the Open Source project !

http://bit.ly/9OlpE7

Why Open Source ?

It may appear like a strange move for maidsafe to release the foundation or core networking components of the system open source. In many ways with today's thinking that is true, but you have to look further to understand the reasons why Open Source in this case makes sense and will strengthen our product PD, which will not be open source (not initially).

What is the maidsafe-dht project ?

Basically it's a c++ implementation (lots of boost etc. easily adapted for API to other languages such as java, python, php etc.) which allows p2p or distributed system to be developed.

maidsafe-dht is a kademlia DHT implementation, with built in cryptographic libraries (courtesy of another open source project, cryptopp), a network layer (courtesy of another open source project udt) all wrapped in a nice clean API for people to connect with.

This allows a distributed hash table implementation of a network where you can easily store and find data of practically any type. The network has another API / modular approach and can allow udp, tcp etc. communications as well and importantly has built in NAT traversal methods such as UPnP and nat-pnp as well as a hole punching system very similar to ICE, but without the need for servers as all channels are made available via the dht itself.

This is a very valuable system and will allow p2p development to be carried out without huge up front costs for many people an businesses getting involved in p2p network.

Why give it away ?

The more appropriate question would be why do we think we can build test and maintain this part of the system better than hundreds or thousands of contributors and developers. The truth is we cannot and need to increase reliability, innovation in this area and frankly test it in many situations on many platforms (pc's mobile phones etc.).

It is like a car manufacturer giving away technical specs for a chassis, the car manufacturer may not sell or make money from the chassis, but does with what goes on the chassis. It makes sense all manufacturers use the same chassis for the same reason and they all work together to improve on it and allow small builders and individuals access to to the latest design advances and innovations in that arena.

So basically it simply makes a lot of sense and at no commercial cost.

Does that not encourage competition ?

Yes, and it should, the best products will succeed regardless. Competition is always a good thing and secrecy and not allowing access to information is perhaps not a great business model these days (thank goodness).


This is the first gift to the world maidsafe has made and already it is finding use in some companies, we expect a lot more soon and we know perpetual data will be a better product for it.

Will perpetual data ever be open source ?

In a word, yes and so it should. After launch we will identify revenue streams for maidsafe to continue to innovate. The focus of these revenue streams will be that which allow us to open source the product, although we may have to protect patents whilst doing so for a while (we hope not too long as if we stifle any innovation we will not be doing the right thing, and that's not acceptable for this project. We realise patents and open source in many ways is oil and water, but we also realise that there is always a correct answer to most problems or ssues such as this.

What revenue streams will exist in PD ?

We do not really know at this point, we may introduce a flat rate advertising model (which may be very different from traditional advertising), disk space selling, brokering disc sales between customers and many more. we do not want to pin any hopes on any particular stream just yet.

Can I help ?

Yes, sign up for the release (use anonymous mail if you can,we do not collect such data and we really do not want to know our customers, that way we cannot affect or harm your privacy).

We would love to hear comments and suggestions of how maidsafe should make revenues from such a network and do so as fairly as possible. This has to be done in a way that keeps everyone happy and satisfied we are doing something that is for the benefit of our vision of privacy, security and freedom for all.

http://bit.ly/bpRHb9

Revision 349: Adding CRYPTOPP_DISABLE_ASM flag to MacOS cryptopp cmake:
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/.. http://bit.ly/bLV1xR

Revision 348: making the build a bit quieter - we have a few signed vs unsigned comparisons ne:
Changed Paths.. http://bit.ly/dxJeMa

Revision 347: small changes back to almost clean udt now :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/CMakeList.. http://bit.ly/aCQuKe

Revision 346: cryptopp_static proper now :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/CMakeLists.txt Modify    .. http://bit.ly/cxXCPy

Revision 345: now compiles again release and debug - sorry folks :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/C.. http://bit.ly/dn7A0N

Revision 344: fixed DLL_EXPORTS flag issue :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/udt/CMakeLists.txt fixe.. http://bit.ly/9ft6gd

Revision 343: Added a properties flag to try and ensure we pick up correct libs when linking -:
Changed Paths.. http://bit.ly/a9q3Vf

Revision 341: OK commiting this to see if anyobody can spot the upnp error - it's a silly one :
Changed Paths.. http://bit.ly/8XQBbm

Revision 340: typo :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/udt/CMakeLists.txt typo http://bit.ly/aqdDZY

Revision 339: added __WIN32__ definition in udt compile :
Changed Paths:
    Modify    /trunk/src/CMakeLists.. http://bit.ly/9xRh6O

Feed rss to twitter with this app - testing now I will let you know how I get on with it http://twitterfeed.com

Encryption is not the answer

By itself !

This story here is a very good reason why companies stating, " we use AES 256" etc. are on the right track but it's only half the story. They have chosen a good symmetric encryption standard (Advanced Encryption Standard) in this case. This is ONLY stating that a solid algorithm has been chosen. There are lots more to do yet, such as selecting the appropriate initialisation vectors, selecting the internal block mode (ECB, CFB etc.) and implementing all this properly (NIST certification my help show this part has been done as in the above cases).

This is only the first part of the answer to the problem of protecting something with encryption, sort of like stating you have created a really strong padlock for data. So great "what's the problem?", well the problem is after all this work some vendors of USB keys for instance have taped the key to this lock on the underside of it and hoped nobody would notice it, now the strong padlock is no more than a small delay, it's not protection any more. Worse still some vendors may even use the SAME KEY for all devices.

Although this seems incredible it is what happens, then these same vendors issues "we use AES 256, the industries strongest encryption" statements and we all fall for it assuming they would not be so silly as to do anything as crazy as I have mentioned, but they do!

In maidsafe we use AES 256 and RSA 4096 but we take immense precautions to ensure uniqueness of all keys and secondly to ensure all keys are very strong (for the 'techie's' we use a PBKDF version 2 algorithm) and then we also make sure the initial access to all this information is created by the user and used to access the system. It seems quiet easy and actually it is (although we hold a patent for the access system we have created).

Not only is this a 'nice thing', it's pretty much a requirement if you want to secure information and especially in a peer to peer network with no central repository of usernames or passwords or any ability to censor or monitor peoples communications and data.

I hope this helps clear up the AES is broken or has massive problems as it does not (there is a related key attack on AES 256, which can reduce the security substantially but this does not affect maidsafe either, this requires a much longer and very mathematical explanation, you will find it here).

Bottom line stating you use a strong algorithm does not preclude you from implementing it in a manner that negates all the benefits that algorithm brings you.

http://bit.ly/aGFoP5

Engineering Release

http://bit.ly/bv3lQm

Revision 336: Removed files for TCP implementation of Transport as not implemented yet:
Changed Paths:
    D.. http://bit.ly/a3SWa8

just listened to @kylemcrea about social networks. very good

library madness thank God for cmake though.

what?

maidsafe-dht getting some attention now. got to love open source

test from android

maidsafe has a new blog on line now http://bit.ly/6lpPkY just some idea suggestions and industry comments

Working on the vault logic again, it's pretty solid now. There should be no ability for data loss and no servers are involved - great !