Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

GmailFS - The Google File System

Posted by timothy on Sun Aug 29, 2004 06:22 AM
from the never-meant-to-be dept.
Scott Granneman writes "Looking to use that new Gmail account for something really innovative? How about combining it with a brand new filesystem for Linux? Then GmailFS might be the answer: 'GmailFS provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. ... GmailFS supports most file operations such as read, write, open, close, stat, symlink, link, unlink, truncate and rename.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • They've already made it plain they don't want third-party email account checkers; now you're going to subject them to transient file storage addons?

    They're supporters of Linux. Somehow, it doesn't seem like a very "on the spoke" maneuver to aggravate them.

    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by kaleco (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @06:55AM
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by alphan (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:04AM
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by perler (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:29AM
    • by LostCluster (625375) * on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:37AM (#10101809)
      Black hat hacking is clearly causing white hat hackers to lose toys these days...

      Take the XM-PCR case as an example. XM clearly went out of their way to provide an easy-to-hack-with-a-computer model of their devices. However, they provided that model with the unspoken proviso that it must be used ethically.

      Along comes a programmer with script-kiddie level skills who makes an automatic MP3 maker program that uses that device. That alone would have been fine by XM. However, that programmer decides to try to make a quick buck out of his work by selling it for $20 a copy. Furthermore, once media attention discovers his program, he raises the price.

      That's the kind of thing that awakens the sleeping RIAA, and the RIAA orders XM to send the programmer a legal nastygram in order to show that he is approching the limits of an untested area of law. Of course, Slashdot groupthink blames XM for the letter and calls for a boycott.

      Please people... RTFM before you start hacking anything. Especially, follow what the device makers tell you not to do, and don't try to seek direct obvious profits from your hacking.

      We're seeing far to many cases of one black hat who comes up with the "forbiden hack" that causes a company that puts out a hack-friendly device to wish they never had and want to take the hacking tools they gave the world back. Can't we be nice to the suppliers of such devices so that such devices keep coming out?
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:00AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • by azaris (699901) on Sunday August 29 2004, @09:17AM (#10102152)
        (Last Journal: Friday August 20 2004, @04:37PM)

        We're seeing far to many cases of one black hat who comes up with the "forbiden hack" that causes a company that puts out a hack-friendly device to wish they never had and want to take the hacking tools they gave the world back. Can't we be nice to the suppliers of such devices so that such devices keep coming out?

        I wouldn't call a piece of software that permits legal fair use to be "black hat". It's also strange that normally corporations who stomp on hackers trying to leverage their devices or services for relatively moderate ends get lambasted on /. but when that corporation happens to be Apple or Google, a lot of slashdotters put on the white knight armor and ride to the resque of an entity that surely has enough lawyers to fend off for themselves.

        Realistically though, GmailFS is and always will be a quirk. They can of course break it any time they want but since 1 gigabyte in storage space costs, what, a handful of glass beads nowadays, do you really think enough people will bother with this to cause serious scalability problems for a search engine company that handles a hundred million hits per day?

        To sum it up: wake up, Gmail isn't going to be cancelled just because somebody made a cute hack to use it as a filesystem. You can still pretend to be part of a special in-crowd of Google lovers because you managed to beg an invite off of someone.

        [ Parent ]
      • by nolife (233813) on Sunday August 29 2004, @09:38AM (#10102226)
        (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 01 2002, @10:02PM)
        We're seeing far to many cases of one black hat who comes up with the "forbiden hack" that causes a company that puts out a hack-friendly device to wish they never had and want to take the hacking tools they gave the world back.

        You give companies too much credit. If a company wanted something to really be hack friendly, there would be no complaints when it was hacked. They are not hack friendly if they complain about hacks. Your script kiddy comment is pretty lame. If the company made a product that someone with no skillz can hack it then the company got what they deserved. They choose to cut corners on security/development/testing or choose the wrong method to deliver the product to the users, either way it was a specific decision made by the company to maximize profits and they got burned. Any company can develop an encryption system in about 5 minutes and sell it for $50 a user. Imagine the profit that company can make until some script kiddy realizes it is only ROT15 and hacks it. It happens all the time with software and hardware. It is not always hacker friendly on purpose, it is cost cutting and/or a questionable business model. Remeber the CueCat?

        Wireless phone companies and makers (Cellular and cordless phones) started with and to some extent still use this exact business model. They were using analog signal totally unencrypted for anyone with a radio scanner to hear, cellular in the 860mhz region and cordless in the 49mhz and 900mhz region. These devices started to catch on and get a foothold. Suddenly the consumers started to wake up and realize anyone with a scanner or a UHF TV tuner could pick up these signals. Yes, on purpose, they chose to use something very unsecure, made no real attempt to make it known it was unsecure [1]. How did they fix it? Went to congress. Congress eventually gave them what they wanted and banned the cellular region from new scanner radios and made it illegal for people to knowingly listen to cellular and cordless freqs. The phone making companies knew all along these transmissions were open to anyone with a radio that picked up those bands, they chose to ignore it, not develop anything or use readily available technology at the time to encode or encrypt it because it would have cost them more money. They were not hacker friendly, just trying to make more money. To this day, analog cordless and wireless phone signals are still able to be picked up by anyone in plain form, although it illegal to do it (yeah, that is the only thing preventing it). Luckily for the most part, analog has been replaced on the cordless side with digital and digital spread spectrum and wireless has gone almost all digital with various methods of encryption and encoding. With that, it takes more then a consumer radio to eavesdrop now.

        Can't we be nice to the suppliers of such devices so that such devices keep coming out?
        The only reason companies make and sell products is to make money. If they think it will sell, they will produce it.

        [1] I have never seen an analog cordless phone that mentions that it is easy to eavesdrop on. Many claim 65000 codes, extra privacy or security features, prevention of unauthorized use etc.. but they are all refering to the code needed to get a dialtone from the base station, not to hear the actual conversation in progress. It appears to be on purspoe that these security descriptions are very vague.
        [ Parent ]
        • by Noksagt (69097) on Sunday August 29 2004, @11:43AM (#10102795)
          (http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/F/OSS)
          You give companies too much credit. If a company wanted something to really be hack friendly, there would be no complaints when it was hacked. They are not hack friendly if they complain about hacks. Your script kiddy comment is pretty lame. If the company made a product that someone with no skillz can hack it then the company got what they deserved.
          I disagree entirely. It is a Very Good thing to make an API that is both open and easy to use. It benefits the company who creates and releases it because their programmers could easily add new features & their product will be more popular because of features that others are able to add. Problems happen when people start writing functions in this grey area, often violating the license of the use of the original product or API. This isn't the original company's fault at all--they didn't disregard "security/development/testing," and instead opted for transparency. It is the fault of the "script kiddies"--rather than contributing positive enhancements back to the community (which they could write because of the great API), they choose to write things that may break the license or even the law. Hence the grandparent's comment to RTFM.

          One explicit example is TiVo. They have allowed people to add larger hard drives, write software to post TiVo contents online, etc. They don't want people to distribute TiVoed content on the net or to steal TiVo subscription service. Both are very possible, but neither is widely exploited. If someone was to start selling software to do either, TiVo should get upset! Not because they didn't know of the possibility, but because they trusted their user base. And that is bad for all of us--the next API won't be transparent.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by nolife (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @12:49PM
            • Playing different regions games on your Xbox, PS2 or a DVD movie, hell, the whole chipping concept, using your Xbox joystick on your computer and visa versa, ripping DVD's, coping cd's, using a CueCat to scan your own barcodes, using a standalone email device with a different internet provider bypassing the monthly fee, ink jet refill kits, taking apart and reusing a disposible digital camera, pringles can for an antennea, using your wireless card as an access point, using GMail storage as a filesystem, changing hard coded default passwords, overclocking your MB or processor, removing resistor R232 from your cd burner to make it a 16x model instead of an 8x, flashing bios to get extra functionality of the next model, soldering a jumper to enable an extra feature. People will always attempt to bypass, modify, or extend the functionality of something. All it takes is one smart person to figure it out and let others know. I look at things from a different prespective. I do not view it as a company "letting" you do something with your hardware, ...

              [emphasis added --RGA]

              But, of course, when you use GMail storage for something that Google does not intend, you are not doing something with your hardware. You are doing something with someone else's hardware (and that is what makes it unlike all of the other cases that you cited).

              [ Parent ]
          • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by sjames (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @09:45AM
        • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by peteforsyth (Score:1) Monday August 30 2004, @12:52AM
        • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by sjames (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @09:38AM
      • by lombre (789526) on Sunday August 29 2004, @09:54AM (#10102289)
        This is not an abuse of Google. Google only offers 1 G which is only 1% of the typical hard drive today, or just a little more than a CD. Performance will be abismal.

        Except for offline backup (which you could already manually use GMail for) this is not very useful. Even for that it isn't really useful since Google could cancel you account if they don't like how you use it.

        This is really just expression of "I could do it".

        Even so, if they used the gimick of 1 G of email for marketing but expected nobody to use it, tough, they don't get to completely control how you use their product.

        As far as the XM-PCR, this is just the like a VCR for XM radio. How is this an abuse? The recording is analog, all the program does is allow a time shift. These are all things that anybody could do manually for a long time. Should we take away VCRs and Tivo just because broadcasters would prefer we had to watch TV under their rules?

        You already have the capacity but not the right to sell or distribute most of the content that XM transmits.

        They did not go "out of their way". They did it to sell more subscriptions.

        This program actually makes XM radio more marketable.

        When you create a product, you do not get to regulate every thing your customers do with it. Soon we will have Kellogs telling us that we cannot make our own rice krispie bars (i.e. we have to buy their Rice Krispie Treats) with the box of cereal we bought as this violates the "license".

        [ Parent ]
      • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by Alsee (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:08AM
      • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by Jozer99 (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:42AM
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by nwbvt (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:39AM
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:58AM (#10101862)
      It has to be about Google to be newsworthy, hasn't it? GMX, a German webmail provider, offers free 1GB mail accounts which are accessible by web, POP3 and WebDAV. You can also share your files with other GMX users. Transfer volume is limited to twice the storage amount per month.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by Kell_pt (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:23AM
    • Right... by Jon.Laslow (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:31AM
    • where's the evidence? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by puck01 (207782) * on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:40AM (#10102016)
      They've already made it plain they don't want third-party email account checkers

      Could someone please show me where Google made it clear they specifically don't want 3rd party email account checkers? Did they announce this and I've missed it? Certainly a slashdot story yesterday claimed Google doesn't want them. Except for the person who submited the story, I have not seen any other proof to back this claim up.

      First, I saw no other accounts of this happening to other people in any of the threads. I did read quite a few threads that said they had no such problem. GTray continues to work for me.

      Second, assume this does happen, maybe its not intended to specifically block 3rd party apps. Perhaps its a side effect of them checking too frequently. It is known that the word verification check comes up after entering the wrong password about 5 times. Are these people using the wrong password?

      Perhaps, Google doesn't like the way the 3rd party apps are interfacing with their system. Obviously, gmail's beta check has its own method to get email, it is likely more effcient than pulling down the html with each check. If this is the case, it may just be a matter of time before they give the specs on how they would prefer it done.

      Anyway, my point is just because a word verification scheme is popping up for some users doesn't mean it is an attack on 3rd party apps like slashdot seems to say it is. There are many other possiblitites. Ever since Google announced it was going public, it's almost like people expect google to start going bad.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:where's the evidence? by follower-fillet (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:01AM
      • Re:where's the evidence? (Score:5, Informative)

        by yuting (222615) on Sunday August 29 2004, @11:08AM (#10102597)
        Google's Terms of Use:

        http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/terms_of_use.ht ml [google.com]

        "You also agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automated device, or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Service"

        On GMail-User newsgroup there have been reports of Google temporarily disabling accounts who use software to check GMail. Having said that, Google's own mail checker checks mail every 2 minutes. And most people who use third-party software to access GMail don't seem to have problems. Google's reaction to the breach of their ToS seems to be as random as the way they give out GMail invites...
        [ Parent ]
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by AllNicksWereTaken (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:35AM
    • Re:This seems horribly abusive of Google. by 2TecTom (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @02:59PM
    • Re:On the spoke. . . (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tim C (15259) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:36AM (#10101660)
      That doesn't matter. What you might well be doing is sucking up more bandwidth than they'd like you to, and as they're their servers, it's their bandwidth and it's their service, if they don't want you to do it, tough on you.

      Hell, for that matter, if they just don't want you to do this because they just don't want you to, tough on you; they don't need any reason at all.
      [ Parent ]
    • ...Which brings up another point by Mulletproof (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:38AM
    • Re:This seems horribly ANAL of Google. by qopax (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:30AM
    • Re:Downloading? by Red Alastor (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @03:51PM
    • Re:This seems horribly ANAL of Google. by josh crawley (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @04:38PM
    • 5 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Competing Search Service ! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr Europe (657225) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:25AM (#10101624)
    Ond now we'll put up a competing internet search service using GMail disk space !
  • Nice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Orgazmus (761208) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:26AM (#10101627)
    This is really nice, but as i see it, there are two options:
    1) He gets his ass sued to hell
    2) He gets a nice job at google ;)
    • Re:Nice (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LostCluster (625375) * on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:39AM (#10101817)
      3) Google installs a filter that detects people using GMail in that way and closes such accounts with out warning, since such people have violated the TOS that has been clearly posted since the start. Affected people go crying to Google wanting un-backed-up data back, but Google declares that was "your problem".
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Nice (Score:5, Funny)

        Affected people go crying to Google wanting un-backed-up data back, but Google declares that was "your problem".

        Affected people start running RAID-1 on a bunch of Gmail accounts :-)
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Nice (Score:4, Funny)

          by LostCluster (625375) * on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:43AM (#10102029)
          I know of no RAID system that can recover from the sudden loss of all disks involved in the same moment without data loss.
          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Nice by Leebert (Score:3) Sunday August 29 2004, @10:21AM
          • Re:Nice by uncl_bob (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:09AM
        • Re:Nice by complete loony (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @06:37PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Nice by Thomas Shaddack (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @03:24AM
        • Re:Nice by LostCluster (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @11:30AM
          • Re:Nice by Thomas Shaddack (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @11:44AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Nice by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @10:14AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Portable partition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kaleco (801384) <greig.marshall2@bt i n t ernet.com> on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:28AM (#10101632)
    This could compliment a knoppix (or any liveCD) CD perfectly.
  • If it can be done... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KitFox (712780) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:28AM (#10101633)
    Somebody will do it... Doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. But still, does it accomodate the recent change in the login proceedure [slashdot.org] and possible future changes well?
  • GoogleOS (Score:4, Funny)

    by ols22 (553332) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:29AM (#10101638)
    They're obviously setting themselves up to enter the OS/desktop market.
    • Re:GoogleOS by nuggetman (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @06:43AM
      • Re:GoogleOS by ols22 (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @06:59AM
        • Re:GoogleOS by Gherald (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:34AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Desktop Market by logic hack (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:03AM
    • Re:GoogleOS (Score:5, Interesting)

      Though it might seem funny it almost isn't.

      Think of your gmail account as your home folder or My Documents for the Windows users. That is just the start. Google has the ability to provide you with a drive that goes forever and search abilities to find anything in a snap.

      Netscape founder, Marc Andressen, once said "An OS is nothing but a bag of APIs we write to."

      Once you have a working kernel you can do anything. The fear that Microsoft had was that their kernel would be the only thing that mattered and their API's would become irrelevant after Netscape and portable plug-ins and Java apps took over.

      Look at version 4.0 [netscape.com]. It's features rivaled that of slow/homebrewed OS startups.
      * Navigator
      * Messenger
      * Composer
      * Netscape AOL Instant Messenger
      * Conference
      * Netcaster
      * Collabra
      * Calendar
      * AutoAdmin
      * IBM Host On-Demand ("Integrated, Java-based 3270 application for IBM host access")
      Microsoft started to see that the Internet was the new platform. It's true, I'm in my browser 99.9% of the time I'm on the PC. The OS doesn't matter.

      Microsoft isn't known for their superb kernel, it's the whole user-land. Now that most people hit the browser after boot/login the kernel is the only thing that does matter. That is why people dual-boot with linux. It's stable and they can do most things. Occasionally they need to do something special so they reboot. Windows has become a mere application that loads your games.

      Computer users don't usually care what type of file system it is or any of that mumbo-jumbo. They want to be able to work. If Google explodes into a Yahoo! type portal and provides portable (Java?) interfaces then they can become the "OS" of choice.

      Look at this from Wikipedia:

      Hardware <-> Kernel <-> Shell <-> Applications

      Those are the four parts of your system. If the shell is replaced by the browser then the Internet as a whole is the application. That is what scared Microsoft into killing Netscape. (if you want to put it that way)

      [ Parent ]
      • Re:GoogleOS by PhoenixFlare (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:57AM
        • Re:GoogleOS by ImaLamer (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @12:15PM
          • Re:GoogleOS by PhoenixFlare (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @01:03PM
  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yeechang Lee (3429) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:30AM (#10101645)
    (http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/)
    Thanks to GmailFS, I can now look forward to seeing the following files when I log into my computer:
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 ylee ylee 2384 Aug 28 04:25 BUY V1AGRA N0W.pdf
    -rw------- 1 ylee ylee 3723 Aug 28 04:39 RE: Stupid weomn cheating.xls
    -rw------- 1 ylee ylee 2342 Aug 28 05:05 URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED.doc
    Thanks, GmailFS!
    • Re:Great! by MrNonchalant (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:34AM
    • Re:Great! by Alsee (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:24AM
  • It won't eventuate (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Quick Reply (688867) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:32AM (#10101651)
    Gmail can allow up to 1GB storage based on the fact that not all email accounts are going to get anywhere near the limit, if GmailFS becomes real, Gmail would become unsustainable (and where is the Ad revenue?) and in summery Google will get very angry and pull the plug in a mean way. On another note, I'm surprised that having direct access to the root folders of a gmail account (like it's a pop/imap account) is even possible.
  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by linuxci (3530) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:33AM (#10101654)
    (http://jfctravelclub.com/travelblog/)
    Of course this is interesting, and shows the talents and ideas that can occur in the world of free/open software.

    But Google is a business and they do need to make money and this would be a surefire way for them to lose money (a load of their storage used up, no way to show their adverts, etc) so if anyone seriously used this I can imagine their account disabled.

    What I want is google officially creating (or officially blessing the ones that already exist) a gmail notifier app for Mozilla. Technically, using the 3rd party ones that the Mozilla community develop are against their terms of service. They already do an official notifier but it's Windows only - a Mozilla based one would be cross platform.
  • Interesting Hack (Score:1, Redundant)

    by protektor (63514) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:38AM (#10101662)
    Interesting hack but I suspect it is soon to become just one thing in a long list of things that Google bans or doesn't allow.
  • Just because you can... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eSims (723865) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:41AM (#10101666)
    (http://www.google.com/)
    Doesn't mean you should.

    An old adage that applies quite well even to the Internet age.

    Gmail generates ad revenue, but abusing the account in this way both deprives Google of ad revenue as well and costs them network traffic and will likely increase their disk usage.

    This is like that cool neighboor of yours that says you can borrow his tools and then you go over take everything you can find as well as set up a sign in your front lawn for others to join "the fun".

    Goolgle won't leave this intact long and I don't blame them a bit.

  • Innovation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by digitaltraveller (167469) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:41AM (#10101667)
    (http://www.eff.org/)
    This is great. If google's smart (and they are) they will encourage this and work out a way of benefitting from it.

    Question for the kernel hackers: What is the status of FUSE or LUFS? Is there plans on standardising on one of these API's?

    The status quo of not having a standardised userspace filesystem interface in the kernel is creating problems. (eg. the incompatible VFS/IOSLAVE hacks that should never have happened)
    • Re:Innovation by gl4ss (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:08AM
    • Re:Innovation by sulimma (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:42AM
    • Re:Innovation by AlXtreme (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:16AM
    • Re:Innovation by Ibag (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:02AM
  • Dont care if Google dont like it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:44AM (#10101672)
    Now this is hacking. An off the wall idea and dare I say it, something uniqu, turned inot reality.

    Kids, look at this as an example of what sideways thinking can do. I love it - more because the true spirit of hacking is proven alive, rather than what it does.

    Although, that's pretty cool too.
  • Possibilities for the future... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LoadWB (592248) * on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:44AM (#10101673)
    (http://df0.info/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 10, @02:11AM)
    I am pretty sure this is the type of outside use that Google is against. Even so, it may be a useful technology to incorporate INTO Google, as a future Google service, or even to be provided by other services.

    Imagine if Google was to provide some sort of remote filesystem storage for ANY OS, perhaps accessible via FTP or other protocol-over-HTTP. A searchable public filestore: not just what people keep in their websites, but the files that they keep... Intentionally made public, of course. The "technology" to do this exists in some forms already.

    Yeesh, but then the various corporate execs would have fits because people were storing their favorite MP3s, DVD rips, TV shows, or whatever in their Google Public Share.

    If it was not so abusive to FTP servers, I have thought more than once that an FTP search would be pretty cool. Let us say that you are looking for a specific filename that someone has in their anonymous FTP account. Punch it into Google, and blammo!

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see what developes from this over the course of the next few years.

  • This could be useful (Score:5, Interesting)

    by base3 (539820) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:44AM (#10101675)
    with some nice integrated encryption (saving a manual gpg step) for backup of small, important files.
  • I would try this . . . (Score:4, Funny)

    by acceleriter (231439) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:47AM (#10101677)
    . . . but I have a feelng that fsck would take a long time were Gmail to die during a write :).
  • Booting (Score:5, Funny)

    by arose (644256) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:47AM (#10101679)
    Can I boot my computer from my GMail account now?
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Booting from gmailfs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hal XP (807364) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:49AM (#10101683)
    (Last Journal: Sunday February 13 2005, @07:46PM)
    The geek factor aside, I can't see the point of the exercise. I can see the value of PCs which can boot from a network-mounted disk image. Look ma, no hard disk! This clearly can't be done with gmailfs. You need another filesystem (containing, say, your web browser) to access gmailfs. And that makes it no different from having a backup of your ~home or your precious porn collection stored on removable media like a CDR or a USB thumb drive.

    And I can already do that by emailing to myself the zip file of my day's work.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:50AM (#10101685)
    1. 10% of gmail users use linux.
    2.Most linux users use firefox or mozilla
    3.Many users use adblock extension on mozilla(i doubt this)
    4.google ads dont reach users anyways(who clicks anyway)
    5.Most ppl wont use GmailFs.(I have 80GB hd...why another slow 1 GB)
    6.GmailFS is used by 0.1% of gmail users
    7.Google doesnt care
    8.Profit.................oops
    DO no evil google , u will get geek support
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Hmm Weird.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Piranhaa (672441) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:51AM (#10101687)
    (http://www.piranhaa.net/)
    Well it's nothing big really, but I noticed something with the screenshot of the Gmail account and teminal shell. Now, when you're logged into GMail, your space shows up as 1000MB, not 1 *true* gigabyte. However, in the terminal for the Google Filesystem, it shows up as 1024000 MB (1 *true* Gigabyte). Thought that I'd just point this out, as I said, nothing really that big but I noticed it...
    • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:15AM
      • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Shinobi (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:31AM
      • Re:Hmm Weird.. by mikael_j (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:46AM
      • Re:Hmm Weird.. by user32.ExitWindowsEx (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:38AM
    • Re:Hmm Weird.. by mewphobia (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:18AM
      • Re:Hmm Weird.. by surprise_audit (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:58AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Shinobi (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:25AM
    • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Hes Nikke (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:31AM
      • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Hes Nikke (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:33AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Hmm Weird.. by Donny Smith (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @10:27AM
    • not *true* by roman_mir (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @12:13PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • by Daniel Ellard (799842) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:56AM (#10101703)
    This is a cute hack, but practical? No.

    If you want google to paw through all your files and risk having your account yanked for violating the user agreement, feel free to use it... (heck, maybe google won't yank your account in return for the opportunity to index your files...)

    Mail-based file systems are nothing new [geocities.com], nor are http-based file systems [usenix.org] (or WebDAV, for that matter).

  • Why gMail? (Score:2)

    by Sancho (17056) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:57AM (#10101705)
    (http://127.0.0.1/)
    Sure, it's got 1GB of storage, but so do a whole slew of other services now. Why not hammer Hotmail or Yahoo's servers and leave Google's alone? :)
  • Backups (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tpwch (748980) * <slashdot@tpwch.com> on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:58AM (#10101707)
    (http://www.tpwch.com/)
    I'm going to try to use this thing for backups of my config files. Its the perfect solution for that, can be automated in cron to do daily backups for example (unlike most web-based storage things)
    • Re:Backups by snake_dad (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:53AM
      • Re:Backups by tpwch (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:47AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Backups by surprise_audit (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:03AM
      • Re:Backups by wwwojtek (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:23AM
        • Re:Backups by surprise_audit (Score:3) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:28AM
      • Re:Backups by Prior Restraint (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:48PM
        • Re:Backups by surprise_audit (Score:2) Monday August 30 2004, @08:42AM
    • Re:Backups by vivekg (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @10:07AM
    • Re:Backups by follower-fillet (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:18AM
  • Pah.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:01AM (#10101713)
    gmx.de offers one Gigabyte of storage for your mail and files. You can access it with konqueror via webdavs://mediacenter.gmx.de/ and you have your encrypted connection to your remote files. An all for free! For a few bucks you get a whole 10 GB of storage. Wohoo!
    • Re:Pah.. by br0ck (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @09:15AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Useless. Use GMX.net instead (Score:5, Informative)

    by killbill! (154539) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:04AM (#10101719)
    (http://www.killbill.org/)
    GMX [gmx.net] has been offering 1 GB of storage for email and files for free for some time now.
    Expand this to 5 GB for 3 EUR / month or 10 GB for 5 EUR / month.

    You can also share your uploaded files with other GMX members, and mount your GMX account as a network drive using a WebDAV client (they provide a pre-configured Windows client but you may use another one) .

    By the way, their e-mail features totally 0wn any other e-mail service: automated e-mail retrieval from all your other POP-enabled mailboxes, custom filters for automatic redirection, SMS/MMS alerts, up to 15 aliases...

    I knew all that time spent learning German at school would come in handy some day! ;p
  • Already Blocked? (Score:1)

    by tpwch (748980) * <slashdot@tpwch.com> on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:07AM (#10101726)
    (http://www.tpwch.com/)
    Is this already blocked? I tried it out, this is what I got: File "/usr/lib/python2.3/urllib2.py", line 412, in http_error_default raise HTTPError(req.get_full_url(), code, msg, hdrs, fp) urllib2.HTTPError: HTTP Error 502: Bad Gateway
  • Google FS (Score:1, Informative)

    by Barryke (772876) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:08AM (#10101729)
    (http://www.barrystaes.nl/)
    There is a Google FS:

    http://www.cs.rochester.edu/sosp2003/papers/p125 -g hemawat.pdf

    • Re:Google FS by Barryke (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:26AM
  • In Other News (Score:1)

    by p0 (740290) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:08AM (#10101731)
    (http://www.primary0.com/)
    RIA raids Google's storage room...
    • phew by aussie_a (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:49AM
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:09AM (#10101734)
    The author of the notifier story (who didn't bother to actually link to any real software or provide any evidence) claims that gmail requires "catchas" for login now. Well, I can login to gmail just fine without a captcha. Gmail only seems to show catchas when something appears to be "attacking" their login system.

    Big systems need ways to limit abuse, otherwise a single user with a broken perl (or python) script will take down the entire service.

    Gmailfs works by sending an email EVERY TIME a file is updated! (from my understanding at least) I predict that users of gmailfs will soon start bitching about their accounts getting shut down after they send a few thousand emails.

    How dare google do this! I was just compiling the linux kernel on gmailfs and suddenly my account stopped working! Google sold out to microsoft!
  • Linux ? BeOS !! (Score:1)

    by mmu_man (107529) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:15AM (#10101753)
    That kind of thing would be much better as a live-query-enabled fs for BeOS/Zeta.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Just a suggestion... (Score:2, Informative)

    by MichaelSmith (789609) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:30AM (#10101786)
    (http://netapps.com.au/)
    Don't mount it setuid
  • nice but ... (Score:2)

    by xlyz (695304) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:33AM (#10101797)
    (Last Journal: Saturday May 29 2004, @03:16PM)
    with so many free ftp account available, apart from the Gcoolness why should you use it instead?

  • by KitFox (712780) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:37AM (#10101812)
    I'm halfway wondering if there is a good way to combine this with floating data storage [slashdot.org] in such a way that we could claim 3 GB of data on the GMFS. The main downside that I can see if the likelihood of severe delays in getting the data back when you want it. But hey, we have FDS (Floating Data System), and GMFS (GMail File System)... Why Not FDGMFS (Um, yeah)? Like I said before, it probably COULD be done. Doesn't mean that it SHOULD be done. But it won't stop somebody from trying. (Heads off to try.)
  • crosscrypt container file (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ironhide (803) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:46AM (#10101830)
    (Last Journal: Tuesday December 03 2002, @03:02PM)
    One can create a crosscrypt container file so one can have transparent encryption.
  • by intnsred (199771) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:54AM (#10101853)
    (http://www.debianhelp.org/)
    Cool! Now Google can sell ads based on the contents of my files! :-(

    Is it just me, or is the GMail cheerleading by normally-privacy-concerned /.ers highly strange? Where are the rants about GMail's privacy issues [epic.org] -- especially when there are other free services [epic.org] which offer as much or more disk space and which don't have any privacy issues?!
  • hmm... RAID? (Score:4, Funny)

    by maverick215 (713433) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:08AM (#10101889)
    If I had 2 accts can I have RAID-0 for faster access? :)
  • Still In Beta ? (Score:2)

    by polyp2000 (444682) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:49AM (#10102048)
    (http://www.polyprecords.com/ | Last Journal: Friday October 03 2003, @02:20PM)
    Technically Speaking GMail is still in Beta anyone who uses GMail is therefore a Beta tester. Whether or not Google decide to allow or reject this as abuse remains to be seen. Whatever the case this guy is providing google with valuable beta-test feedback. Something they may have overlooked that needs to be fixed, or something they overlooked that needs to be improved.

    Either way it just depends which way you look at it...

  • This is NOT FAIR (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pan T. Hose (707794) on Sunday August 29 2004, @09:53AM (#10102287)
    (http://plato.stanford.edu/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 15 2005, @10:46AM)
    As much as I am usually against frivolous lawsuits, this time I hope Google will sue and win. Why? Because this so called "file system" is a classical example of parasite which can only hurt Google giving absolutely nothing in exchange whatsoever. And for what? So its "developers" could have their project posted on Slashdot frontpage? So they could say "look, mom, how 'leet' I am"? I ask you, people, what if one day someone writes a "file system" stealing storage from Slashdot, saving its files in the form of gigabyte first posts filled with goat.se links and literally tons of uuencoded pornography? This is exactly the same, only much worse, because Google has much less intrusive advertisements and no corporate agenda. From every greedy US corporation, Google is unquestionably the closest to being absolutely perfect. And how do we say "thank you"? By stealing their property? By advertising this pathetic thief "file system" on the front page of the most popular website on the north hemisphere? I just wanted to protest and clearly state that I am strongly against it. I hope someone will start a paypal fund to help Google in court. We cannot tolerate such a behaviour. Please keep in mind that Google is not another Microsoft or Caldera. Google is trying to do what is best for us. They deserve our gratefulness and, what is even more important, respect. The existence of script kiddies shamefully exploiting Google's superior services for their own miserable advantage is a precedence not only insulting to our intelligence but a one actually harmful for us in the long run, because that could possibly mean the end of fantastic projects from Google, when they eventually stop to think and inevitably say: "Hey, why give them so much if they just want to steal from us? Maybe that popup pornography ads and paid search results placement weren't such a bad idea, after all?" I know I certainly would.
    • Re:This is NOT FAIR by /dev/trash (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @12:50PM
    • Thanks by Pan T. Hose (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:05PM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • by KingPunk (800195) on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:20AM (#10102369)
    gmailfs, will it ever end :/
    google this, google that, google here, google there..
    google google everywhere!

    ..i think im going to devlop a script that will pull names from gmail databanks via google.com to come up with the names of my future child(ren)
    now THAT is truely adopting google..
    /end rant
  • Comming Soon... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:24AM (#10102388)
    WikiFS the new filing system for linux.

    Uses a redundant array of wikies found on the internet using internet searches for 'wiki'.

    The available storage is limited only by the number of wikis found on the internet.

    Thee filing system gards against deletion by redundantly storing data accross multiple wiki sites.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • People do it. Scripts exist....
  • Its not the storage. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Silverlancer (786390) on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:43AM (#10102490)
    It isn't storage--its the massive number of data transfers a second. If you use Gmail as a file system, you're interacting with Gmail as you would with a hard drive. And that means you're using not just bandwidth, but server power. And if a few ten thousand /.ers did this, Google would have to add hundreds of extra servers--yet they would earn nothing off ads to pay for what normally would support millions of email users.
  • loopback crypto (Score:4, Informative)

    by hey (83763) on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:44AM (#10102491)
    (Last Journal: Thursday December 08 2005, @04:33PM)
    If you want crypt you can use a loopback crypt
    on your GmailFS parition.

    http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Loopback-Encrypted-Fil es ystem-HOWTO.html#toc3
  • Innovation? (Score:1)

    by evil dave (62283) on Sunday August 29 2004, @03:15PM (#10104148)
    (http://www.evildave.net/)
    Wow, that is amazingly innovative. At least, it was when it shipped in Exchange 2000.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • backup files (Score:1)

    by Paralizer (792155) on Sunday August 29 2004, @03:39PM (#10104275)
    If you wanted to use GmailFS to backup small files, (as a few users above have suggested) why not just email those files to yourself? Sure you cannot automate it, and retrieving the files isn't as convenient as 'cp', but it's within the Gmail TOS and it does exactly what you want, stores a backup of your file on a remote machine. Why abuse Gmail when they already offer this?
  • by Phoenixhunter (588958) on Sunday August 29 2004, @04:05PM (#10104446)
    I can definitely see universally accessible data being a big part of the internet in the future (5 to 10 years out), especially if quantum storage solutions are developed. Ultimately users will be able to take any computer and have access to all of their data, programs, and the rest.
  • by heinz57 (809282) on Sunday August 29 2004, @04:15PM (#10104500)
    Looks like everybody but Microsoft is getting out alpha releases of WinFS [microsoft.com] these days... .
  • by CaptainTux (658655) on Monday August 30 2004, @12:06AM (#10106702)
    (http://www.openemrhq.com/ | Last Journal: Monday March 01 2004, @10:58AM)
    If you want a rock solid FS without the chance of losing your data why not create a Usenet FS that functions similar to this? If all of the files were encrypted, UU Encoded then encrypted again using strong encryption it should be safe enough for your data to be out in the wild. Think this could work?
  • nice (Score:1)

    by MasTRE (588396) on Monday August 30 2004, @10:51AM (#10109200)
    Nice concept, but I think it's so useless for anything practial (because of the high potential for account=data loss) that the author would have wasted less time writing a paper rather than implementing it. But that would not have made /. - ah, the things we do for fame.
  • Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tongo (644233) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:26AM (#10101626)
    Why do men climb mountains, why do they explore new lands, why do they explore space or the depths of the oceans. Mankind does it because it's there (or can be done).
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:why? by dJOEK (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @06:29AM
      • Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)

        I imagine this could work like the anonymous writeable /incoming ftp directories used to for pirates -- get an account, load it up, and distribute the login name and password.

        Not a usage that Google or the GmailFS designer had in mind for the service, I'll bet, but it wouldn't surprise me if somebody started doing this if the technique for using Google as free network storage became popular.

        It's quite unlikely Google will embrace GmailFS because they're probably not counting on having a significant chunk of their users maxing out their 1GB storage. It's a neat hack, though.

        [ Parent ]
        • Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:04AM (#10101722)
          When you reach more than 100MB of 'your' storage space, Gmail contacts you and asks to remove some data, even if (in our case) it were legitimate hi-res surface-scans of metal structures, entirely educational.

          I confess that I assumed they would do something like that. 1GB per quasi-anonymous, non-profit user is too ridiculous for them to keep it up.
          [ Parent ]
          • hi Bender ! (Score:5, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:08AM (#10101732)
            "it were legitimate hi-res surface-scans of metal structures, entirely educational."

            That's a nice way to describe robot pr0n, Bender. Way to go!
            [ Parent ]
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:why? by 404 Clue Not Found (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:53AM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:why? by igrp (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @01:48PM
    • Re:why? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @08:28AM
    • Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by letxa2000 (215841) on Sunday August 29 2004, @12:00PM (#10102875)
      Those who misuse a technology will force that technology to no longer exist. Gmail is providing a 1GB *MAIL* account. It's not a free backup server. If people start using it as such you're going to see Gmail placing bandwidth restrictions on accounts, maybe even lowering the 1GB quota to something much smaller.

      The GmailFS is a cute little technological achievement, but it's not what Gmail is for and I'm afraid that if any significant number of people use GmailFS that Gmail is going to suffer TOS adjustments that will affect everyone.

      [ Parent ]
      • Re:why? by Kethinov (Score:3) Sunday August 29 2004, @01:50PM
        • Re:why? by letxa2000 (Score:3) Monday August 30 2004, @12:10AM
          • Re:why? by Thomas Shaddack (Score:3) Monday August 30 2004, @09:15AM
    • Re:why? by CableModemSniper (Score:3) Sunday August 29 2004, @07:17AM
    • Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nolife (233813) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:28AM (#10101982)
      (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday November 01 2002, @10:02PM)
      there's something wrong with the Windows and/or Linux filesystems.

      What exactly are you refering to with Linux filesystems? Linux has many different choices of file systems to choose from and each has advantages and disadvantages.

      As far as I know, none of the existing filesystems for Linux can mount your Gmail storage space so I'd say you missed the entire point of the story headline and the article itself.
      Or maybe I did..
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:why? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday August 29 2004, @10:43AM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Eric604 (798298) on Sunday August 29 2004, @06:35AM (#10101656)
    my first thought was "this is stupid" but maybe it's handy when sharing semi-private files.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:3rd party software (Score:5, Informative)

    If you bothered to read that thread, or actually used gmail yourself, you'd know that they aren't cracking down on third party addons (although they'd be in the rights to do so) - they're just adding captcha style logons in situations where an incorrect password has been entered too many times. It's simply to stop programs brute forcing gmail accounts.

    [ Parent ]
  • Re:IE is the only working browser. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by whowho (706277) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:40AM (#10101821)
    (i guess i should have selected "plain old text")
    no, IE is probably the buggy one. it compensates for IDIOTIC web designer mistakes, like a double in the html page which creates the huge row. this is your culprit:
    <TR HEIGHT="676" CELLPADDING="0" ALIGN="TOP" WIDTH="820">

    and not mozilla.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:IE is the only working browser. (Score:2, Informative)

    by natd (723818) on Sunday August 29 2004, @07:44AM (#10101824)
    Mate, I don't even *HAVE* IE and I use GMail. Firefox and Safari (depending on which machine I'm at) and I haven't had a problem yet...even before they officially supported Safari.

    IE only is the *last* think Google would do.

    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by l3v1 (787564) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:02AM (#10101869)
    Internet Explorer is the standard for all web protocols

    Now it's obvious you don't know what you are talking about, so why bother boring us with your "ideas" ?

    As of GmailFS... who cares what new stuff they introduce as long as Gmail is barely accessible ? Brb...

    [ Parent ]
  • by fwitness (195565) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:03AM (#10101873)
    Hopefully someday this will be a slashdot header.

    AskSlashdot: Why can we not fix the friggin linux NTFS support?

    Keep bringing it up, maybe someone will notice.

    Offtopic? Not when people are using email for damn storage.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:why? (Score:1, Interesting)

    Because then, if your o/s fucks up, you can blame a email provider!....

    Wait no....

    I KNOW! Because, then you can basicly MOVE you machine from one place to another (especially easy if your hardware is exactly the same).

    This reminds me of that ask slashdot, where some guy mentioned that we would no longer have our own PC O/S on our pc, but have it all hosted somewhere, meaning we could "log on" any pc and use our files, our set ups etc etc.

    Nice idea but first its got to work!.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Gmail (Score:2)

    by Tyreth (523822) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:22AM (#10101952)
    Seems like all of us with a gmail account were given 6 invites within the last 24 hours or so.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:IE is the only working browser. (Score:2, Informative)

    by officepotato (723274) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:26AM (#10101976)
    (http://www.econ.vt.edu/computing/)
    Take a look at the HTML - There's a table, with the first row having height 676, then ... the beginning of ANOTHER row, not the contents of that row like there should be. Everything BESIDES IE is correctly rendering the empty 676px tall row. A quick run through a HTML validator might benifit the page's author.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Too Much? (Score:2)

    by CaptainTux (658655) on Sunday August 29 2004, @08:47AM (#10102043)
    (http://www.openemrhq.com/ | Last Journal: Monday March 01 2004, @10:58AM)
    I don't think that GFS is a Google creation (unless the author works with Google and I am not aware of that). It looks like an independent project that targets GMail since it has all of the nice storage. But still, I see your point.

    My question is: Why GMail? Why not target one of the other large space providers? Surely this is as easy with them (perhaps more so) as it is with GMail.

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Too Much? by follower-fillet (Score:2) Sunday August 29 2004, @11:24AM
  • Re:begging for it... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Eunuchswear (210685) on Sunday August 29 2004, @09:01AM (#10102093)
    (Last Journal: Wednesday January 04 2006, @11:45AM)
    What clown modded that "insightful"?

    How the fuck would they use the DMCA?

    Why the fuck would they use the DMCA?

    [ Parent ]
  • Re:GMail Swap (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bluefoxlucid (723572) on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:04AM (#10102312)
    (Last Journal: Monday October 09 2006, @07:35PM)
    Because that's too dangerous.

    If you put swap on gmail, what do you think's going to happen? Your root password will be in swap (grep through /dev/mem for it) at some point, if there's any stupid userspace programs; sensitive data could be swapped; etc.
    [ Parent ]
  • i just invented SLASHDOT_FS (Score:5, Funny)

    by goombah99 (560566) on Sunday August 29 2004, @10:39AM (#10102460)
    Hi I'm working on a flie system called SLASHDOT_FS. it treats the slashdot message posting system as an unlimited write-once file storage system. Data is written to a comments and then changes are updated as diffs in the replys.

    comments are encrypted and written using dictionary words to avoid the lameness filter.

    I implemented the prototype of this system many years ago using an encoding system called First-Post. I simply use different permuations of the words first-post (FP!, Frist psot!, etc...) along with various dummy account names to encode 1 Kilobyte of information. I run the whole thing off ny Newton.

    [ Parent ]
  • Re:All set up... (Score:1, Informative)

    sorry...hehehe...http://schmoo.me.uk/images/Screen shot.jpg [schmoo.me.uk]
    [ Parent ]
  • 23 replies beneath your current threshold.