I’ve been trying to move away from online services that allow easy mass surveillance. For example, I started in 2012, when I moved off of Gmail. It’s not been easy, I think in part because services that are popular are typically ad-supported – viewing your data is how they sell ads to you – this implies a lack of end-to-end encryption, and security in general. I’ve been tolerating Dropbox because it’s so damm convenient, but the kernel extension was the last straw, so I asked for alternatives.
The solution that appealed to me the most was BitTorrent Sync. It’s closed source (boo) but on its face, offers a good compromise between security and convenience. I decided to give it a try, and in the process I ran into confusing documentation and tutorials that would make me less secure than using Dropbox. It really sucks that in order to securely do something as commonplace as syncing files, you have to be pretty tech savvy. While I’m continuing to evaluate it for a sync solution (I’m not yet ready to commit to BitTorrent Sync), I’m hoping this post will be a resource for anyone who wants to use BitTorrent Sync securely.
Great guide. I’ve been trying to find a personal use case for BitTorrent Sync.