Unique Web-Based File Systems

What do you think of when you heard the term "Web-Based File Systems"? Do simple web services like Xdrive pop into my head? Xdrive is a secure web based file systems, but it isn't free.

There is where the world of hacking meets the world of need. You need to store your files online, but you don't own an internet connected server and you don't want everyone in the world to read them. So what do you do? Check out these unique options.

Gmail Drive for Windows - creates a virtual file system on top of your Google Gmail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on your Gmail account directly from inside Windows Explorer.

Gmail drive type programs based on the same idea exist for both Linux and Mac OS X as well.

Encrypting the data before it is stored online increases the security, of course. Why not use free open sources tools for the encryption step as well?

GPG has always been my program of choice on Linux. It is installed by default on most Linux distros, so getting it up and working is almost painless. In Windows, you will have to install GnuPG from binaries to get the same features, but it isn't too hard either. There appears to even be a Mac OS X release of GnuPG.

This Gmail trick isn't anything new however. For total uniqueness, check out TinyDisk.

TinyDisk stores AES encrypted data in TinyURL.com's database! It basically takes your file, encrypts it using 128-bit AES, cuts the file into parts and then submits those parts as URLs (base64 encoded) to TinyUrl. TinyDisk stores the returned hashes from TinyURL along with the AES encryption key in a metafile.

Pretty cool eh? Right now, TinyURL doesn't verify if the submitted data is a valid URL link and it doesn't limit the amount of data submitted. That could be a huge problem for TinyURL. Luckily, the creator of TinyDisk built in the protection for them.

Want to play with TinyDisk, but don't like the idea of filling TinyURL's database? Check out Nanourl.

I would guess that changes will be made to TinyURL in response to this program. Is it the best web-based file system? Nah. But it is the most unique I have seen. Two Cheers to the Ad-wizards that came up with this one.