I’ve been learning about MaidSafe and read its white paper and really like the idea of a decentralized cloud storage system as opposed to centralized and vulnerable cloud storage services we see today.
However, I’m struggling to see how the safe network would truly lack a “single point of failure,” as argued in its white paper. If a file owner’s hard drive corrupts/fails and the owner loses his keys, then doesn’t he lose complete access to all of his files stored on the safe network?
Also, if the owner buys a new computer, does he need to continue to use his old computer’s hard drive to access his keys? Or can they be transferred to his new computer’s hard drive?
No, the keys aren’t stored on the local machine but in the network itself, obfuscated and symetrically encrypted by the user’s credentials. Look for ‘self-authentication’ for more info. As long as you remember your credentials and don’t leak them, they are safe and secure.
The Vault is non-persistent, so after you shut down your Vault the data is gone. When you start up again, your Vault get’s filled with Chunks again. Each Chunk is always stored at 4 different places on the network. If one Vault shuts down, the network will find out quite fast and creates another copy to get back to 4 Chunks again. If a Chunk is requested from your Vault (that’s called a GET) you might be rewarded with some Safecoin. That way you can make money as a “Farmer”.