Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tomaskafka 1311 days ago
+1 here. Nextcloud is a pile of PHP scripts, while Seafile splits and diffs individual file blocks, and absolutely flies at 'whatever the lower of of your network and drive speed is', handling any file sizes you can throw at it.

On the other hand, Seafile is also a binary distributed by Chinese team, and if I was a Chinese secret service, I'd build in all the backdoors I can, which I guess already happened.
3 comments
JadoJodo 1311 days ago
> On the other hand, Seafile is also a binary distributed by Chinese team, and if I was a Chinese secret service, I'd build in all the backdoors I can

This was the reason I tried and subsequently passed on Seafile. It’s one thing if it’s just my stuff, but I was setting it up as a syncing server for friends and family. I just wasn’t comfortable with this prospect and being responsible for others’ files, as well.

link
stareatgoats 1311 days ago
Their documentation says they can provide end2end encryption, but the docs also seems to contain a number of caveats that a security professional might find problematic - or not (IANASP): https://manual.seafile.com/security/security_features/#how-d...
link
krageon 1310 days ago
It's not weak as such, but there are gotchas in this faq (mostly related to metadata and key file caching) that effectively mean a casual user won't have end to end encryption. That said, I do not know of a cloud provider that does this well. You could just as easily build on top of this service with rclone (and the crypt backend) as any other. Then it is probably fine, but then you are already not a casual user.

I will say that in the west it is probably better to have your personal life invaded (which for a casual user is the reality you must face. It will happen) by China than the US (broadly your choices due to prism), as they are less likely to have an impact on your day-to-day functioning.

link
kelnos 1309 days ago
> Seafile is also a binary distributed by Chinese team

Web search for Seafile turned up a GitHub repository, so seems like it's open source? That doesn't rule out the possibility of a carefully-hidden back door that no one has found yet, of course. But I think it should increase confidence over a closed-source binary distribution.

Regardless, this level of xenophobia is getting a little tiresome. If you have evidence that this project is run by or sponsored by the Chinese government, then sure, I'd find that a showstopper as well. But a group of people, who just happen to be Chinese, building something shouldn't immediately be grounds for dismissal. China is a very big place, with a truly staggering number of people, and the Chinese government -- contrary to popular belief -- doesn't have its hands in everything its citizens do.

link