If you’re familiar with Usenet, you’ll be well aware that the newsreading platform is, well, not longer about newsreading. In fact, most Usenet providers are, by necessity, experienced data storage providers. That being said, Golden Frog has just announced DumpTruck, a WebDAV file-sharing resource that, in the wrong hands, could end up a SOPA target.
The service lets you store data in the cloud. It’s free for holders of “Diamond” Giganews Usenet accounts and costs $99 for a full terabyte of monthly storage. DumpTruck promises anonymous, worry-free storage with, interestingly, no data reduplication. This means DumpTruck won’t compare your files with other files and save only one copy. Your folder is your folder, no matter how full.
The service also offers full 256-bit encryption and single provider storage, a must if you’re, well, serious about security?
This is an interesting move for Golden Frog, for obvious reasons. Although Usenet is still a popular news service, the real value is what not a lot of people talk about: the file sharing system built into the protocol. Usenet providers could, in the future, face a fairly big backlash and they need to be ready, which leads them to the prospect of secure, inexpensive storage based on servers they already own.
The service is live now and you get 5GB free with any Giganews account.
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