SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage

Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by tptacek on Monday January 02, 2017 @05:17PM (#13305028)

Since you're speaking the language of product marketing, which is one I sort of speak too, can I gingerly offer you some advice?

Until you come up with some other cool-sounding term for end-to-end encrypted storage, every time your product is discussed in a forum that includes people familiar with cryptography, the discussion is going to be dominated with threads about how your product doesn't do what its name claims it does.

If it were me, I would think of this as a very suboptimal situation; sort of the worst case for what a product name can do.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by iaml on Monday January 02, 2017 @07:08PM (#13305576)

Unless your target audience is not people who read such forums.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by nickpsecurity on Monday January 02, 2017 @07:19PM (#13305628)

Exactly. The obvious counterpoint. Those people aren't buying shit from them and represent basically no market share. It's privacy-conscious users of services like DropBox they're going after. Most of them don't know crypto or a lot of terms people suggested here. Marketing wisdom dictates you call it whatever gets them to see its value & buy it. Then ignore the haters as you roll around in cash.

Business 101 if goal is max adoption & profit.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by tedunangst on Monday January 02, 2017 @10:15PM (#13306408)

Being the storage service that no cryptographer will recommend seems like a gambit that may backfire. Any day now the mainstream press will start asking experts for advice, and you'll be left out of the recommended list.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by nickpsecurity on Monday January 02, 2017 @11:17PM (#13306679)

We've had some time for that to happen. So, whose top players in online storage, whose top in secure storage, and did that match your prediction? Im betting against it.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by Ar-Curunir on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @02:38AM (#13307464)

Except when people look for third party reviews of said products, and find threads upon threads of cryptographers calling out SpiderOak for misleading advertisement. Surely that's just bad PR?

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by iaml on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @12:47PM (#13311088)

It really isn't. For the third party reading this thread only shows that some cryptographers are calling bullshit on semantics of their advertisement, which is more of a nitpick to most people, and some replies from people who say they use it and it's pretty good.

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Re:SpiderOakONE – Zero Knowledge Cloud Storage by tptacek on Monday January 02, 2017 @08:56PM (#13306069)

I get that, I do, but "zero knowledge" isn't all that compelling to begin with; this strategy just seems like it's almost all downside.

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