A decade ago, if you wanted to distribute some files to your acquaintances and friends, how would you do it? What I did was to copy the files to a disc or a flash drive (USB) and bring it to my friends. However, thanks to the rapid growth of the internet for the past several years, we do not have to do it anymore. Instead, we can stay home and share files online through web storage such as Google Drive and Dropbox. For example, if you want to share a big file like a 3GB movie with your friends, you cannot send it as an attachment in your email, but you can put it up on Dropbox and give your friends permission to download from your account. Therefore, sharing files on cloud has become a new trend of sharing things on the Internet.
Although file sharing brings a lot of benefits to Internet users such as cost and time flexibility, there's a big concern to file sharing services coming along with it - Security. According to CNET, even a big service like Dropbox confirmed that it got hacked. Cloud security is in its early phase of development and still requires lots of work. Thus, on-cloud data information has been the main target for hackers. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that widespread data breaches from almost 100 organizations are available on peer-to-peer networks. In the modern world where network systems might not be secured all the time from all risks, we as Internet users should always be aware of what kind of things we are putting up on the net.
In conclusion, file-sharing services and companies might or might not care if user information is leaked to the third party because they still make profits. For example, Google has leaked a lot of user information, but they still make a lot of money from the services they provide. We, Internet users, are always the victims of information leak because of fraud or identity theft. Hence, you should be very careful of what you can and what you cannot share on the Internet.
Hey Duc! Nice job on the topic of file sharing. I think you did a good job discussing free file sharing programs that are well known rather than pirating. I think it is a gross misconception that file sharing is something that's to be seen as something dangerous and scary, when in reality its a great alternate method of file sharing and its uses shouldn't be overshadowed by piracy. Great blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Duc. A nice and simple description of pros and cons of using cloud for storing data. It is really very important that users understand the risk of storing data containing their personal information in the cloud. One way to minimize the risk is to store encrypted files in cloud. This will certainly increase the required work to obtain information from encrypted files. There are many websites and softwares that can help you encrypt your files before storing them in cloud.
ReplyDeleteOverall nice blog. You possibly could have made your blog title more interesting as you have content related to possible downside of using cloud.
File sharing is a way of making files available to others to modify and download. There’re many different types of file sharing out there. I really like how you described Dropbox. File sharing is not only used through computer but also through mobile phone. File sharing makes the job easy for people working in a group to share and modify the same file. However, we need to be careful regarding its legality. If people distribute material with permission of the creator, it’s not illegal. However, when they distribute material without permission of the creator, they violate copyright law and thus subject to penalties under the law.
ReplyDeleteGood post! I like how you also cover the security aspect of it. It is really is awesome to be able to share files online and in so many ways that enable us to be more productive but we do need to be careful as to where we are storing our documents and how we are using these mediums. We shouldn't just relay in the use of one service and always have backups in case the service was to be down. Overall I enjoyed reading your post I think you did a good job covering the subject as well as giving your personal view.
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