[Freedombox-discuss] Secure data backup and non-local storage

[Anthony Papillion]

So I've been playing around with a system that would enable the secure
and automatic archival and storage of personal user data in a
peer-centric network. Of course, the tools are already all there but I
wanted to share with what I've come up with and get some feedback on it
and how it might relate to the Freedom Box project (if it does at all).

Tools Needed:

- GnuPG (encryption)
- SCP (to transfer files between peers)
- gzip (to create the archive of data)
- Python (to glue everything together and provide a user interface)

How it would Function

1. The user would create or import their GPG keys using the standard GPG
interface. Alternately, this could be integrated into the Python based UI.

2. The user would run the Python UI, designed in either Qt or Tk, and
set up things like how often data is archived and uploaded, which
directories or filetypes are included in the backup, etc. The user would
also need to specify the IP addresses or dyndns domain names of 5 peers
to which their data will be uploaded. Alternately, this could be
auto-discovered.

3. The user would then set and forget it.

Now, based on the schedule and parameters set in step 2, the system
would automatically create a .gz archive, encrypt it to the users own
PGP key, and then upload a copy using SCP to the 5 peers specified.

For space consideration, each user can also set the amount of space they
will allocate on THEIR hard drive for other users data AND the number of
users they will allow to backup data to their systems.

Each system will maintain a local SQL Lite database of updated files,
where they come from, etc.

This is just a very early proposal and may be something already
implemented somewhere. Either way, I'd like your thoughts on it.

Thanks,
Anthony