It can be disguised but only so much and also that wont stop them from putting on a cap. If they cannot figure out what you’re doing they can just cap and then any activity like trying to upload 200 gigs on a month or download 200 gigs in a month gets flagged as a suspicious activity pattern.
The upload pattern for a person saving all their data to SAFE Network is probably not going to look like a typical upload pattern. The download pattern can be disguised easier than the upload pattern.
You’ll see exactly what I’m talking about when SAFE Network launches.
All it will take is for SAFE Network to be associated with something like Wikileaks, drugs, child porn or piracy which it inevitably will considering the sort of demographics that seem currently interested in it. Once that happens you’ll get to see the arms race play out.
ISPs around the world can easily cap all traffic to slow the growth of SAFE Network in order to “prevent child pornography” or whatever the threat happens to be as the excuse to put in place global caps. Then deep packet inspection would make it so only the most technical individuals would be able to use SAFE Network at all, behind VPNs and using masking techniques.
SAFE Network might be useful anyway in the same way that Freenet is useful but if it’s to live up to the hype it’s going to have to overcome the bandwidth roadblock. It’s nice to dream about a decentralized Internet but that has to actually be built and if you want to be constructive in building it you should be focused on how to solve the bandwidth problem because a solution to that is worth a lot of Safecoin.
Yep. Tor is way throttled. You’re right…
Read some of the discussions on the forum about how they plan to help out those with caps. It’s already been discussed.
Tor has been attacked many times and probably isn’t safe. SAFE Network isn’t Tor but I hope you don’t believe that your ISP can’t see you as you download Tor.
As for SAFE Network it’s a matter of utility. If you want it to be Tor 2.0 then sure you don’t need to worry about bandwidth. It can be slow as hell to access or download from when you’re only using it for super secret activities.
On the other hand if you want it to have mainstream utility (which Tor will never have and never be used by), then you need to compete with the mainstream Internet. Why would someone from the mainstream Internet purchase Safecoins if the services offered by SAFE Network are slow as hell?
My opinion is bandwidth will be the most important resource to offer the SAFE Network. Whomever offers fast reliable access to SAFE Network will earn the majority of Safecoins. Storage is already abundant so offering that might not get you a lot of Safecoins.
A)Storage offered by humans who can and are screwing with peoples data, correct, abundant.
B)Storage on an autonomous network, with no humans able to screw with data, not abundant, it doesn’t exist!
Two completely different products/services. Personally, i would pay multiple times the price for storing my digital stuff (especially precious family videos, pictures) on an autonomous network, because it offers a true solution. The other, A), is not a solution, imo, it’s self-evidently (all the hacks etc) a risk.
It’s kind of a respect thing, a video of a relative that has passed away for example…i wan’t the best solution possible to store that, it’s priceless, and would be gutted if i lost it. Just some thoughts.
And what about areas of the world that have true monopolies or near monopolies on the internet going on? What about places where there IS no other ISP to switch to? Your whole ideaology seems to be based on the assumption that one lives in an area with competition or that one has enough resources (or freedom) to create compeition.
You would but most people don’t care. They just want cheap secure cloud storage. Consider what most people want and not what a few thousand early adopters want.
Is dropbox or whoever offering people community ownership of a new internet (ultimately)? @luckybit (i hear what you are saying though)
Personally, i just say to folk (out and about)…
We are creating a local community internet, with none of the problems of the current internet…wan’t to own the net with us? 
If you’re in a place without internet, SAFE is of no use to you… If there is no ISP to switch to, then you’re out of luck. Either start your own ISP and lay your infrastructure yourself or start a mesh to get to a real ISP.
What you’re saying with “Your whole ideaology seems to be based on the assumption that one lives in an area with competition or that one has enough resources (or freedom) to create compeition.” has absolutely nothing to do with SAFE. That is a not a SAFE problem. Not yet at least. If you’re not connected to the internet, your cant use SAFE. If you have limited connection to the internet, your usage of SAFE will be limited. SAFE is not a panacea for anything and everything related to networking. It is built ON the network and subject to the limitations OF that network. That will never change.
We can build our OWN network, but that is another discussion entirely.
Then does this not make SAFE dependent on internet 1.0 to operate and therefore not an internet 2.0 and inneffective as a decentralized internet?
No not really since if the ability to scale the SAFE network are not included from the start WITHOUT relying on internet 1.0 then it would be impossible to build a stand alone network as you describe. And if one CAN build a stand alone network then the issue of bandwidth caps via varius ISPs should not be an issue as SAFE should just route around them so really it seems to be it’s either or. Either Maidsafe is dependent on internet 1.0 like Tor or it is not and can function as a stand alone mesh network like say project hyboria.
If all I have is a couple of computers, laptops, tablets and a couple routers then can I network them and create an effective SAFE community using SAFE yes or no? If yes then you have a decentralized internet. If no then you don’t. If yuo need the internet to run SAFE then it is not a decentralized internet, it’s just an app. A very interesting and kick ass app but an app none the less. If SAFE is limited by the limitations of the network it is running on and can’t mesh within itself to overcome them then it is proving that it is just an app and not a stand alone network. To prove SAFE is an internet 2.0 it must prove it is independent of internet 1.0.
Yes, it’s dependant on the existing copper and fiber already run. (for now at least. Again, that’s another discussion) I’m not sure that was ever a question, and if you thought otherwise, you either read something I missed, or need to read about the project. It has always, in the 2.5 years I’ve been following it, been being built on existing infrastructure.
It does NOT fail at decentralizing. There will be more need for server farms. There will be no more need for isp to try and throttle specific kinds of traffic (it will all look the same), the government can’t tap the fiber and split it off to log everything that crosses that pipe. Well, they can but it will be useless. We are not decentralizing the wires. Maidsafe is software…
It can do both… Please read. You CAN mesh maidsafe. It won’t be fast. No one said you can’t. But because you can do it doesn’t mean you have to be compensated JUST for routing traffic. If you’re fart of a mesh, you’re only helping yourself access the data. That’s your reward for being able to get to your secure data.
No where did I describe a “standalone network”. I meant you can mesh yourself to an access point to the Internet. Having a standalone network for safe it possible, but IMO, silly.
Tell that to someone out in a rural area that doesn’t have internet access. Tell that to the whole community. There are many communities that could benefit from SAFE’s ability to create an independant mesh network. Moreover they’d benefit i ever their little network could connect to the larger network by extending the network.
But also if you can mesh you’re not relying so heavily to go through your ISP to route your data. You can go through all your mesh net connections instead. So how much if your data is being downloaded via your internet connection and how much is being downlaoded via your mesh network? It’s the same idea as connectiong to a LAN network or even grabbing a thumb drive to download a large file of a friends computer to save time and bandwidth with a slow or expensive ISP. Doesn’t anyone go to LAN parties anymore?
Safe is not creating the network… This is the crux of what started our discussion. You have to MAKE a physical network and then put safe on top of it. Period. Be it mesh, wired, Internet 1.0, whatever. The smaller the network, the less useful safe is.
So a city full of cell phone, tablet, laptop and computer users is what a bunch of random spare parts? I thought SAFE would allow you to network all those devices into a mesh? Same thing for neighbourhoods. We have networks all over the place they just aren’t correctly synced up, federated and talking to one another. That’s what SAFE would allow. No SAFE doesn’t magically create the physical hardware out of thin air however the question of the day is does it allow for federated and successful communication between devices that already exist on the ground which use SAFE and can those devices link together successfully to form a mesh network independent of one’s ISP?
And back to the badwidth issue if the mesh network is sucessfully established then why does the network not recognize the worth of both high bandwidth low data nodes AND high data low bandwidth nodes? And why doesn’t the network analyze it’s need for bandwidth and award safecoins for it just like it does for data?
SAFE allows us all to become one big network, not a MESH network (yet). So you’d need an internet connection to join the network.
I just found out you did know this a year ago :
Storing data on SAFE seems to me like it will likely be cheaper than any other cloud storage: Firstly it is stored forever for one upfront cost; secondly your info is stored on the unused (free) hard drive space of peoples devices (whereas when one of dropbox’s hard drives goes down they have to buy a new one and charge customers); thirdly it will be free if you contribute your hard drive space and earn Safecoin to buy storage.
I personally think people are more switched on than just looking at the costs though, and that a huge (or at least very significant) percentage of people will ‘get it’ that they no longer need to store their data publicly on the cloud, which is what every cloud storage option currently is in reality.
It’s definitely going to be much more expensive at least in the early days due to the bandwidth issue and the fact that big companies can afford to make cloud storage free and unlimited.
Centralized storage is already so cheap that they could offer unlimited storage to all users knowing that we don’t have the bandwidth due to caps and speed limits to use more than a certain amount at any given time.
So the actual storage space you can use is not limited by storage which is already abundant but the rate at which you can upload and download and the total amount in gigs you can upload and download each month.
If you have fast enough Internet then you could upload terabytes a month and then SAFE Network could become cheaper but right now you cannot do that. I don’t know anyone who has the bandwidth to work with terabytes a month but the amount of data an individual generates in a month probably is in the terabytes range. So if you wanted to mirror all your harddrive to SAFE Network it’s not realistic right now due to bandwidth constraints.
Big companies have to hire people, have an office, a callcentre, pay taxes etc. Before they can store a byte they have to spend first. On the other hand there are people at home, they already have a computer and a lot of disc space and RAM. I paid more than a company who buys a lot of servers, that’s true. But now there’s a way for me to earn some with my computer as well. Not to make a living out of it, but just enough to get back what I give to the network. So I wake up, turn on my PC (already 8 GB of RAM + some TB disc space) and I will become a non-persistent Vault. It’s no problem at all! I already paid for my hardware. So the only real costs I have are electricity and bandwidth. I have no cap on my bandwidth here in Holland and I can download 13MB p/s. and have 2MB p/s as upload. I have friends who are on fiber and they have extremely high up- and downloads at the same time! So a lot of people will become Farmers here in Holland. And for those people who do have a cap? They will connect to the WiFi at their universities or at other places. It’s a bid/ask thing. When people can make money on a network like this, they will. No doubt about it. And what do you think about initiatives like Google Fiber? People can really Farm some good money on these connections. And other providers will come with Fiber as well. The world is getting rid of all these lazy cable-people who are just making easy money.
Have you heard of Freenet? Are you aware of what went wrong with the Freenet project?
I’ve tried that some years ago. The big problem with their system is that it’s very slow. Loading a webpage takes ages. The big difference is that every node stores all the Chunks. So you neighbor asks for Chunk “abc” and you and all the other nodes store them. SAFEnet will do this differently, so only 3 or 4 people store a Chunk live on the network.
Another difference is that when you PUT something into Freenet, all the nodes (HOPS) will get a message and a request to store/share (as far as I know). This brings a lot of overhead! Just like in Bitcoin where every transaction is shared with everyone, in Freenet all the data that is PUT is shared with a big number of HOPS. In SAFEnet the data you PUT is routed to the closest node to that data and stored at that place. That is a very big difference, SAFEnet will handle data much more efficient. And another big difference is that Freenet needs JAVA while the SAFE Client will use C++/RUST which should work quite faster. But I don’t have a crystal ball, we’ll see when SAFEnet goes live how fast it is.