Looking for Insync Encryption testers!

We are excited to announce that Insync is releasing a new feature soon: Encryption! :tada:

We want you to take complete charge of your cloud data and have peace of mind with Insync’s robust syncing and new zero-knowledge encryption.

Our team is nearing the final touches for its official release. Before we roll it out publicly, we are looking for hard-core users who can help us test this upcoming feature, share their honest feedback about it, and interact with the team when needed.

In return for your feedback, you will get a coupon code for 1 year free of Insync Encryption. :grin:

If you are interested, please send an email to support@insynchq.com. :slight_smile:

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I don’t understand what this is about. Are you placing the contents into an encrypted container for upload or does this only work for specific hosts?

Hi @philstopford!

We don’t store the encrypted data locally in some container. We encrypt the data on the fly (in-memory) just before uploading to the specific clouds (hosts) namely Google Drive, One Drive and Dropbox for now. So, only the clouds (hosts) have the encrypted data.

Happy to answer any other questions or concerns regarding this :slight_smile:

This sounds rather interesting. I have a few questions though.

  1. Would it be selective i.e. could the user select to only apply it to certain subfolders/files?
  2. Do you have any technical details on the encryption method used? For instance, is it home grown or are you using a mature third party library? Do you have comparisons to other encryption tools such as cryptomator, gocryptfs, cryfs? [ignoring platform specifics]

Thanks!

Hi @rnc :slight_smile:

Users can apply encryption selectively to only the top-level folders under My Drive. Encrypting sub-folders and individual files independently is not supported yet. We are using the standard AES-256 GCM encryption.

On comparing with Cryptomator, Gocryptfs etc.: the primary difference is that those tools encrypt the data on the local filesystem. They rely on other clouds’ syncing clients to upload/sync the encrypted data to the cloud. To access the unencrypted data locally, you need to go to the virtual FS folder created by those apps.

On the other hand, Insync seamlessly integrates encryption with syncing: we encrypt/decrypt the data on the fly while syncing to/from the cloud. So when there is a local edit, Insync encrypts the data in memory and uploads the encrypted data to the cloud. On the local file system, the data remains as plaintext so it doesn’t require any change in your workflow locally.

While syncing down, Insync decrypts the data in-memory after obtaining the encrypted data chunks from the cloud and downloads the file in plaintext. Insync seamlessly allows syncing of the encrypted data with multi-machine setups as well. As it is a zero-knowledge encryption service, you would be required to enter the correct password on Insync setups on all your machines to sync the encrypted folders.

Happy to answer any other questions! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Is this GoFundMe official?

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-complete-insync-encryption

@spyke Hi! Yes it is official :slight_smile:

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Is there any ETA on the encryption release to the general public?

Thanks