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A comment on the idea "Complete Privacy; feature request" in Wuala:

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

MikeSobe replied on October 16, 2008 12:25 to the question "Roadmap and future plans of Wuala?" in Wuala:

I would be interested in some major features that the Wuala team is working on, ideas they are considering.

Deathbob replied on October 11, 2008 18:48 to the question "Storage plans are too expensive!!!!!!" in Wuala:

Most of Wuala's cost is bandwidth. Also, I would anticipate as Wuala becomes more used the cost could go down.

rtfm started following the idea "Let wua.la start as a service!!!" in Wuala.

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Bugreport replied on October 09, 2008 12:18 to the question "Storage plans are too expensive!!!!!!" in Wuala:

Well, you have unlimited access to all of your files and other benefits if you use Wuala...

However I'm not a marketing guy or caleido employee so I can definitely say that I think those prices are also too high in my opinion.
However, since it's possible to share storage this is not an issue for me and thus I really don't care that much about such things.

I guess it all comes down to what you need:
if you need it cheap - there are numerous competitors out there.
if you need the features Wuala gives - well, invest a bit more (quality isn't cheap...) or trade storage.

Maybe it could be possible to develop something like http://www.drobo.com/ just for Wuala that shares the whole disks and runs just Wuala while using just a few Watts...

A comment on the question "Roadmap and future plans of Wuala?" in Wuala:

Haha, you should apply for a Customer Relations job! :D

No really, a roadmap would be great but I fear there are just too few devs atm. to give out exact dates and even possible features since it all depends on rather short-term effects.
If you have different teams that have deadlines + stuff I guess it's easier to say "we expect feature X to be ready in ~4 weeks" but atm. I think they are fixing + polishing the client on every end that seems to be in need rather than following a big "master plan" where feature after feature gets pumped into the client but everything breaks if a major bug occurs... – Bugreport, on October 09, 2008 11:59

A comment on the idea "Complete Privacy; feature request" in Wuala:

Well, the owner of a file is set in the meta data I think - so it would be possible to ask the server if a file with the hash ABC123 is already in the network _but_ that the server has no Idea who has access to those fragments. In the metadata only the keys to the individual fragments would have to be stored and this information is encrypted. Anyone could access any fragment in the network I guess but only if you have the ability to decrypt a given file with the keys in your metadata you can access it.

I guess it all comes down to: Files and metadata do NOT have to be tied and so even though files are encrypted always the same way, metadata is not (Username+Password=RSA key) and metadata is not attached to any file but something different that just gives you information how to decrypt a file. If you can't access the metadata (which noone besides the original owner can if RSA is implemented correctly) you can only say for sure who owns which file, if you can decrypt the metadata - which is the case if you can access a file in Wuala too.

However, this is how I would implement something like that, not neccessarily how it's done in Wuala - I'll try to bug the devs on that issue a bit more! ;-) – Bugreport, on October 09, 2008 11:44

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Deathbob replied on October 09, 2008 04:27 to the question "Roadmap and future plans of Wuala?" in Wuala:

They are currently working on things on a week by week basis. Ironing out many bugs and fixing up some of the more annoying/lacking aspects of the GUI.

Of what I can comment on, there have been some issues lately with the client not reporting the correct amount of space to the user. There is some work being done with hope of fixing it within the next few weeks.

A comment on the idea "Complete Privacy; feature request" in Wuala:

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

Determinant started following the idea "UDP hole punching - no longer router config!!!" in Wuala.

Determinant started following the question "Storage plans are too expensive!!!!!!" in Wuala.

rtfm started following the question "Storage plans are too expensive!!!!!!" in Wuala.

Lalelu started following the idea "Sync Framework For Automated File Backup/Centralization" in Wuala.

Lalelu asked a question in Wuala on October 08, 2008 09:16:

Storage plans are too expensive!!!!!!

Hello...

Just a suggestion - the prices of the storage plans are way too expensive...

For e.g. you get at idrive, mozy, hp etc. 150 GB for 50US$... ok, wua.la have more feature (exept backup), but I think for 100GB - 100EUR is way too expensive...

I would buy directly storage, but this is for me way to much....

LaLeLu

Lalelu replied on October 08, 2008 09:02 to the question "Roadmap and future plans of Wuala?" in Wuala:

oh.... :-)
I would really appreciate if there will be a roadmap soon - then is it like christmas all the dates when new features coming out... :-)

Lalelu replied on October 08, 2008 09:00 to the idea "UDP hole punching - no longer router config!!!" in Wuala:

Yeah - but this is a personal firewall... I meant security appliances which works in universities and companies... for this, you have to improve wua.la with UDP hole punching... e.g. Skype works with this...

nickname replied on October 07, 2008 22:24 to the idea "UDP hole punching - no longer router config!!!" in Wuala:

you have to allow the java or the wuala.exe process to accept inbound/outbound connections ofcourse.

norton crap is configurable, but its still crap.