Building blocks for a co-operative cloud        

CoBox is an encrypted p2p file system and distributed back-up tool by Magma Collective – Jaya Klara Brekke, Dan Hassan, Mu Davarian, Gregory Peg Jones and Kieran Gibb.

Built on the DAT protocol, the protocol offers per-to-peer filestorage with no centralised servers, no data centers, and no surviellance architecture. Its just you and your peers, providing mutual backups and support.

The CoBox software creates encrypted private folders on your laptop, which seeds and synchronises across a distributed network. A CoBox folder is a private area accessible across multiple devices – a device can be owned by another person, or it can be another computer you own. Each folder contains its own filesystem, and, under the hood, comes with an append-only log which is used to send folder-specific messages.

For example:

• Declaring information about the current device to other friends (e.g. a name)
• Annotating files with custom metadata
• Sending messages to other friends within the folder, privately or publicly
• Informing other collaborators that you have invited a new peer to collaborate within the folder

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme within the framework of the LEDGER Project funded under grant agreement No. 825268, and the Bundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung through the Prototype Fund.