Generalize the "public" folder for the public mirror

[iamtrask]

Description

Very stoked about this syftbox rebuild! Leaving an issue here from previous backlogs.

In a subtle way, syftbox currently has two permission systems. In one system, if you put a file in the "public" folder, it will automatically advertise it at syftbox.openmined.org/datasites. in another permission system, if you configure your syft.pub.yaml files in a particular way, it will become public on the syftbox network (but not at syftbox.openmined.org/datasites)

I feel we should consolidate these two permission systems into one.

• When accessing syftbox.openmined.org/datasites as a guest (i.e.... just hitting the URL), all files and folders should show up if they have a global READ permission.
• One should also be able to access syftbox.openmined.org/datasites with a appropriate piece of cryptographic evidence as to identify one as a user on the network. And based on that evidence, all files should be available to be viewed if that user has READ permission.
• by default, the creation of a syftbox account should include a public folder which has a global READ permission by default.

Are you interested in working on this improvement yourself?

• Yes, I am — but it's unlikely I'd be able to prioritize it above overthings :(

[yashgorana]

Ah interesting! I do honor syft.pub.yaml perms in the explorer through these lines:
https://github.com/OpenMined/syftbox/blob/main/internal/server/explorer/explorer.go#L176-L184

Re public-only turns out I starte doing global read, but for parity i made it scan only public dirs. If we remove the following lines you should see global public reads.
https://github.com/OpenMined/syftbox/blob/main/internal/server/explorer/explorer.go#L102-L104

[yashgorana]

cc: @madhavajay

[madhavajay]

@iamtrask yes I agree, that was always the intention but were going to need to get crypto into the browser and the HTTP api finished so that you can browse a datasite path as an authed entity. The HTTP part is mostly there, subdomains are incoming, and we are starting to discuss the crypto part.

[Mahaboobunnisa123]

Hi! @iamtrask @madhavajay I went through this issue and the related explorer code. From what I understand, the aim is to unify visibility so files depend only on READ permissions instead of special handling for the public/ folder. I’d like to work on this incrementally (starting by treating public/ as default global READ and relying on permission checks).
If this direction looks correct, could I be assigned to work on the first step?