Solved How safe is file sharing from the cloud?

Haydon said:

Well, you care only about one aspect of info security, you might as well put the link up on a website instead of on OneDrive.

Others may care about who can access their info, e.g. photos of a family vacation with teenage daughters at the beach, for family eyes only.

That's a different aspect of info security, and that's where passwords come in handy on OneDrive (and even that is not really secure, depending on how recipients handle the password)

It is for this and other reasons that I put in the word 'safe' in the thread title, it is a very BIG topic as one poster said, but the thread ran its course without really doing justice to the word.

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What on earth are you talking about? "Well, you care only about one aspect of info security". Please explain to me, what you mean with that.

Let's see the OP's question once again:

Haydon said:

What do you do to safely share a file from the cloud (OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox, etc.) ?

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In my example (see my earlier post), I showed that using OneDrive, you can share files safely. No risk for me, no risk for the user using the shared link. Absolutely, most profoundly, no need to use passwords or encryption algorhitms.

Using OneDrive, file sharing is safe both for the person sharing a file, and for the person receiving it.

Kari

Well, you DO share your computer info without any restrictions with everyone. And that's fine, but you fail to see the following.

Others DO NOT want to share their delicate info with everyone. And that's where passwords that you can set on OneDrive (and on ALL other cloud services) can help keep the delicate info 'safe'

I am afraid I can't explain it any further, though, we would have to agree to disagree.

Haydon said:

Well, you DO share your computer info without any restrictions with everyone. And that's fine, but you fail to see the following.

Others DO NOT want to share their delicate info with everyone. And that's where passwords that you can set on OneDrive (and on ALL other cloud services) can help keep the delicate info 'safe'

I am afraid I can't explain it any further, though, we would have to agree to disagree.

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If I remember correctly, the link is only available to those you share it with.

Haydon said:

Well, you DO share your computer info without any restrictions with everyone. And that's fine, but you fail to see the following.

Others DO NOT want to share their delicate info with everyone. And that's where passwords that you can set on OneDrive (and on ALL other cloud services) can help keep the delicate info 'safe'

I am afraid I can't explain it any further, though, we would have to agree to disagree.

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This is getting silly and clearly crossed wires!

@Kari is right that onedrive is secure i.e. people can only download what is on a shared link and nothing else.

You are also right i.e. you want control over who you share it with - you can do that as well by setting restrictions on the share link.

In the end, it is up to user sharing what restriction you put in place - see below.

I am pretty sure all major cloud services are the same.

So there is nothing to disagree. Don't assume all users have the same need.

Anyway, here is an fun link for all users (the adverts at the end are a hoot. A colour tv then was £360 or over £5,000 in today's money. One ad shows a guy with cigarette etc. PS the newspaper story is pretty good as well!)

@cereberus Sure, I expressly said that what @Kari does with sharing his computer files without passwords is fine.

Then I got blasted for saying that there are other file sharing needs that do require passwords!

But see below ...

@Winuser Yeah, sure, but links can be shared, and so can any slapped on passwords for that matter. Among proud family members, access control via the cloud is problematic, perhaps a little better than posting on Facebook, but not by much.

Things are better in biz because of mutual vested interests, but it is still not as good as 'handshake' biz.

Haydon said:

@cereberus Sure, I expressly said that what @Kari does with sharing his computer files without passwords is fine.

Then I got blasted for saying that there are other file sharing needs that do require passwords!

But see below ...

@Winuser Yeah, sure, but links can be shared, and so can any slapped on passwords for that matter. Among proud family members, access control via the cloud is problematic, perhaps a little better than posting on Facebook, but not by much.

Things are better in biz because of mutual vested interests, but it is still not as good as 'handshake' biz.

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I never blasted - just pointed out you can do both ways.

You must not forget not all persons here are native english speakers and sometimes the way they express things can seem harsher than intended.

Actually, the blast came from somewhere else, LOL and the blast was exactly because I said there are two ways, with and without passwords, not just one way, without passwords. Anyway, water under the bridge.

I'm not a native English speaker, BTW

Haydon said:

@cereberus Sure, I expressly said that what @Kari does with sharing his computer files without passwords is fine.

Then I got blasted for saying that there are other file sharing needs that do require passwords!

But see below ...

@Winuser Yeah, sure, but links can be shared, and so can any slapped on passwords for that matter. Among proud family members, access control via the cloud is problematic, perhaps a little better than posting on Facebook, but not by much.

Things are better in biz because of mutual vested interests, but it is still not as good as 'handshake' biz.

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What's to stop someone from sharing the files you shared with them? For example, you share some family photos that you only want the ones you sent it to, to see. What's stopping them from sharing the photos with other people? Once they have the files they can do what they want with them. To be somewhat safe, you can only shale files with people you trust or not share them at all.

That's what I said.

There are services you can use that will automatically delete emails. If it was me and I felt that strongly about not wanting others to share my files I wouldn't share them.

The problem isn't with data stored on the cloud (assuming reasonable services -- i.e The usual culprits : Ms, Google). That remains of course protected and secure.

The main problem of course is when you allow a user to download a file -- although I'd imagine there's some sort of data encryption on the transfer, What happens on the users computer and what their security systems are is normally outside your control so you should only share stuff that doesn't contain valuable personal data and if others get hold of it -- who cares.
Again much paranoia over Cloud services -- these days they are reliable, cheap and secure for reasonable amounts of data.

Over non cloud networks e.g LAN's / remote servers etc consider using SSH and the sftp protocol. Filezilla is a good gui client that works both on Windows and Linux with an identical interface for seamless quite fast file transfer (encrypted) between these types of systems.

Cheers
jimbo