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Storing Very Large Files On Amazon's Unlimited Cloud Photo Storage

Posted by timothy on from the computers-don't-feel-cognitive-dissonance dept.

AmiMoJo writes: Last year Amazon started offering unlimited cloud storage for photos to customers who subscribed to its "Prime" service. Japanese user YDKK has developed a tool to store arbitrary data inside a .bmp file, which can then be uploaded to Amazon's service. A 1.44GB test image containing an executable file uploaded at over 250Mb/sec, far faster than typical cloud storage services that are rate limited and don't allow extremely large files.

23 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. This is why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is why we can't have nice things.

    1. Re:This is why by hawguy · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is why we can't have nice things.

      This is why Marketing shouldn't promise things that they can't deliver. They should know that "unlimited" has a specific meaning and if they don't mean it, they shouldn't promise it.

    2. Re:This is why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Unlimited" does have a very specific meaning, and in this case it means unlimited photos, not unlimited steganography.

    3. Re:This is why by hawguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Unlimited" does have a very specific meaning, and in this case it means unlimited photos, not unlimited steganography.

      I happen to have a very extensive collection of photographs of static from my TV and I need someplace to store them.

    4. Re: This is why by LordKronos · · Score: 3

      Even an old analog TV could give you a 1.44gb photo, when you consider slight variations in subpixel noise (remember...he said photo, not screenshot).

      Now, on the other hand...the camera that takes 1.44gb photos is something that I might actually be interested in.

    5. Re:This is why by ImprovOmega · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are absolutely ways to stash file data in lossy compressed JPG files. You just have to have some knowledge of the file structure to know what bits are less significant and will mess up the file less. I personally wrote a steganography tool for JPEG-2000 files for a graduate school project - it just stored data in the least damaging sections of the file. The resultant files were still perfectly legal image files, lossy compressed, and minimally visually damaged.

      Now if Amazon were to *transcode* every submission then you would be boned. But that would eat up a fair amount of overhead in processing time.

    6. Re: This is why by WarJolt · · Score: 4, Informative

      "Unlimited" does have a very specific meaning, and in this case it means unlimited pornography, not unlimited steganography.

      Fixed it for ya.

    7. Re: This is why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They offered storage for photos. Data disguised as a .bmp file is not a photo. That's abuse.

    8. Re:This is why by bloodhawk · · Score: 3

      I don't like Amazon, BUT they didn't say unlimited data. They said unlimited Photos. This is the type of abuse that basically ends up hitting legitimate users where limits being imposed will be the end result.

    9. Re:This is why by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Isn't it kind of a form of Net Neutrality for people to come up with ways to make sure that service providers can't sort and differentiate pricing for different sorts of content?

    10. Re: This is why by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

      the camera that takes 1.44gb photos is something that I might actually be interested in.

      Here it is.

    11. Re: This is why by tburkhol · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't think this would be too hard to implement. If they compress the images before storing, they can just reject any "image" that fails to compress beyond some threshold. They wouldn't even necessarily need to do any screening: use a slightly lossy compression algorithm, images wouldn't look any different, but data would be useless.

    12. Re:This is why by Aaden42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you read the full Cloud Drive Terms of Service, you'll find nothing in it that associates the word "unlimited" with "photos".

      The Service provides storage, retrieval, management and access features and functionality for your photos, videos, and other files ("Your Files").
      -- CloudDrive ToS

      Everything they've put in writing makes it clear that you're permitted to use unlimited storage to store whatever files you like, so long as you don't resell access, use it as the backing store for another cloud service, etc. Personal use == A-OK.

    13. Re:This is why by Aaden42 · · Score: 3, Informative

      And having now read TFS, I sheepishly rescind my previous post... This is the Prime photos thing, not the actual Cloud Drive storage thing. Previous post applies to Cloud Drive Unlimited. Yes, storing unlimited data for the photos only service is being a dick. Shell out the $60/year.

      (And if you do, pushing ZFS backups into it is a thing I'm working on... zfs-acd-backup)

  2. YDKK by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Funny

    almost a Japanese Zipper: YKK

  3. Timothy's Revenge by Nethead · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First the article with the luser asking help desk question and now this with the link in Japaneses.

    I think that with the new overlords Timothy has gone full honey badger on us.

    --
    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
    1. Re: Timothy's Revenge by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      timothy has been trolling you guys hard for years. You feed him every. single. time. and sell ad impressions for him while doing so. No wonder the new boss decided to keep him on - his click rate must be fabulous by now with highly refined trolling techniques.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  4. I wrote about this possibility last year by bsmuir · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here is my research...

    Steganography & Amazon Cloud Drive:

    http://bsmuir.kinja.com/stegan...

  5. Too complicated by mariushm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Seems quite complicated.

    If Amazon doesn't convert the images, he could just upload a PNG file with a lot of information stored in ancillary chunks... the png specification even allows creating custom/developer chunks which should be ignored by any parser that doesn't understand them (for compatibility with future versions of the standard)

    For example, just abuse the hell out of iTXt or zTXt chunks in the format : http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/...

    For private chunks, see this bit : http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/...

  6. same data 1 year later? by pz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Back in the day, when I worked as a dev at a social networking site, we would resample old photos that hadn't been accessed in over some threshold (let's say it was 1 year, for the sake of argument). Anything older than the threshold would get re-encoded in JPEG to a poorer representation in order to save storage space.

    So what stops Amazon from doing the same thing? Do their TOS say they won't?

    Non-image data under those circumstances become pretty much useless, even if packaged so that they appear to be an image of off-station TV reception. Once you include a lossy recompression, your data are no longer data, but noise for real.

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
  7. Re:Another new low for Slashot by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

    I don't read Japanese, I just look at the cartoon drawings of school girls being super-friendly with the tentacle monsters.

  8. Unlimited files for $60/yr by pz · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you take the trouble to read through Amazon's TOS, and click to their actual rates, you can buy unlimited storage for photos, videos, AND ARBITRARY FILES for only $60 per year. Not only that, but Prime gets you 5 GB of videos and non-photo files for free.

    Going through all the hassle of specially encoding your data files so that they masquerade as photos seems like a heapload of time better spent earning $60 so that you don't have the long-term headaches and potential for being banned from Amazon's service that such abuses flirt with. You want a real backup service? Buy it, it isn't expensive.

    Backblaze, a darling of Slashdot, is only $50 per year. It isn't worth the hassle or time to beat the system for such low prices. Amazon Glacier is $0.007/GB/month. Both systems offer encrypted storage. Why work hard when someone else has done the figuring out for you?

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    1. Re: Unlimited files for $60/yr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yup, I have over 650 gigs (and growing) of 3d 1080p home videos. If my house catches fire or I'm robbed I won't lose them.

      I don't get that kind if throughout though. Uploading 50 gigs of videos takes overnight and a lot of that time is a mysterious delay between the video uploads themselves. I'm guessing the glacier service can't save them fast enough and I have to wait for them to save entirely before I can move to the next video.