BitTorrent Sync Beta Released

Nerval's Lobster writes "BitTorrent Sync has reached its Beta milestone. The tool, which allows for secure file-syncing between devices, has been under development for quite some time: BitTorrent released a limited pre-Alpha program in January, planning to use any feedback to refine the software before release. Key features include the use of peer-to-peer technology for direct synchronization, rather than storing files in the cloud—a key differentiator from similar storage services on the market. 'It fits into our overall goal of making a better Internet using P2P,' BitTorrent Inc. told TorrentFreak when that pre-Alpha rolled out. In the intervening months, of course, former federal contractor Edward Snowden leaked a variety of top-secret documents about NSA surveillance to The Guardian, kicking off several weeks' worth of discussions and handwringing over government snooping. Several of those documents suggested that an NSA program codenamed PRISM siphoned user data from nine major technology companies, including Google and Microsoft; the named companies have stridently denied any involvement. Those revelations about the NSA—even if totally unsurprising to the paranoid—could kick off renewed interest in software tools capable of securing data against prying eyes. In other words, this could be just the moment for something like BitTorrent Sync to hit the market. 'Sync is a response to what we see as real, fundamental challenges to personal data movement: the limitations on speed, size, space, privacy, and security that come with cloud dependency,' read a July 17 note on the BitTorrent Blog."

Comments

Open source it.

[stewsters]

The BTSync team has been perfectly clear that they do not intend at any time to open BTSync to the public. We were told that when we were using Skype, that it was safe and encrypted. Now we learned that it wasn't. Open source Sync and we will trust you.

Re:Open source it.

[Desler]

Why would you trust a company who makes backroom deals with the MPAA and adds tons of adware in their software?

Re:Open source it.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

The BTSync team has been perfectly clear that they do not intend at any time to open BTSync to the public. We were told that when we were using Skype, that it was safe and encrypted. Now we learned that it wasn't. Open source Sync and we will trust you.

You are perfectly right; but I tend to have a bit more trust in BitTorrent than DropBox, SkyDrive, Google Docs or iCloud.

Re:Open source it.

[Richard_at_work]

Why?

Re:Open source it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats backwards. google, dropbox, skydrive, icloud etc... are after money. pure simple motives.

the folks behind the mpaa however are trying to make an example and a statement vs. those evil nasty pirates.

thats dangerous...

Re:Open source it.

[hobarrera]

Just like people used to trust Google more than Microsoft. Times change, and so do companies.

There's also the fact that open sourcing it allows implementations for ANY architecture and platform, not just those they choose.

Re:Open source it.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Open source Sync and we will trust you.

I think that opening BT Sync's code is neither sufficient neither necessary :

1. - BT Sync seems to be a protocol, which can be observed. It should be easy to check that Sync is only sending files to expected places and not the NSA, independently from the licence of its source code.
2. - Even if DropBox or Apple would release the source code of their cloud application, your files are sent to a centralized place, from where anything can happen. This does not seem to be the case with BT Sync

Re:Open source it.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

There's also the fact that open sourcing it allows implementations for ANY architecture and platform, not just those they choose.

Yes, but I would be more interested in their protocol to be published, in order to be able to implement interoperable solutions between BT Sync and other competing products (free as in free beer, free as in free speech or closed/commercial).

Re:Open source it.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

I'd be more concerned with them just breaking into my house and slurping down the contents of my HDD when I wasn't home.

Luckily, this is not scalable.

I don't care if they open their source

[intermodal]

as long as they open their standard. If I can choose an open-source implementation written by someone else, I'm much more interested and inclined to really use the service.

Paranoid?

[TechyImmigrant]

>Those revelations about the NSA—even if totally unsurprising to the paranoid

Don't those revelations imply that the people labelled as paranoid were in fact not paranoid at all?

Is there an open-source alternative?

[darkHanzz]

So it's basically a distributed, but private dropbox thingie, sounds nice.
Is there any open-source that does a similar thing ? (as in: works on linux and android, and is fairly lightweight)
Owncloud is the closest I could find, but it requires a central server, I think.

Re:Is there an open-source alternative?

[Zidel]

The only problem is git needs a bare repository to push and pull from, so you're still tied to a central server.

git can push and pull to normal repos as well (though it won't push to the checked out branch), so it works perfectly fine without a central server. You still need access to the repo you want to pull from which can be annoying for things behind NAT/firewalls etc. BT Sync can do NAT traversal so it could work better I guess. git annex sounds similar to what you want

Unlikely

[MrEricSir]

I doubt BitTorrent will open source this, as it's a for-profit company that hasn't had luck monetizing open source in the past.

Already went with owncloud

[Anonymous Coward]

As cool as using bittorrent protocol would be, at least owncloud's developers do release the source code, and there are sync clients too. It may not be distributed (it requires a regular server setup), but I'll take that over not having the code.