With all the talk of privacy and decentralization of internet services is anyone else following the development of the MaidSafe network? I am pretty excited about this. If you haven't heard of IT i would check out http://maidsafe.net/ and the devs youtube page https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdGH40oUVDY I'd like to hear your thoughts.
**** Wikipedia Description but the network can do more like host content to the web and do computation ****
MaidSafe (Massive Array of Internet Disks - Secure Access For Everyone) is an open-source program that enables a decentralized internet platform. Instead of specialized servers, data is stored and distributed by a network of internet-connected computers. MaidSafe handles the allocation of hard disk space and communication between the computers (ensuring redundancy in case a computer goes offline). Data stored on the network is either encrypted or cryptographically signed by MaidSafe-connected applications (clients); the network itself cannot decrypt any of the data.
Users providing storage space to the network earn Safecoin, a digital currency that can be used to store information on the network.
File storage[edit]
When a client stores a file on the SAFE network, the file is not stored intact on any single vault. Files are shredded into chunks and each chunk is encrypted. Multiple copies of the encrypted chunks are then scattered across the network, to many different vaults. When the client wants to retrieve a file, Maidsafe gathers all of the file's chunks, decrypts them and re-assembles them into the original document. So Bob's spreadsheet would be broken up and stored across vaults provided by Alice, Cameron and Dean. Neither Alice, Cameron or Dean would have a complete copy of Bob's spreadsheet stored in their vaults.
Vaults on devices like mobile phones and laptops may come and go from the SAFE network and cannot be relied upon to be connected 100% of the time. To accommodate for the transient connectedness of these devices, MaidSafe stores many copies of each chunk. Many copies of each file are stored on the SAFE network. Additionally, MaidSafe detects when the number of copies of a chunk has dropped below a minimum threshold and will create a new copy of that chunk. This action ensures that files are always available despite the network being inherently unreliable.