rapidshare "security" useless?

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by dcrhythm, Jun 25, 2009.

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  1. dcrhythm

    dcrhythm Registered Member

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    A question to those familiar with Rapidshare:

    Rapidshare's web site says their links are secure essentially because they're hard to guess (file link includes a random number plus file name), although the links are otherwise wide open. This doesn't sound reassuring. I want to share some proprietary business information with select people.

    I don't know enough about crawlers to know if and when a rapidshare link would show up in a rapidshare search engine, but I assume it would be crawled sooner rather than later. Is this correct?
     
  2. ThunderZ

    ThunderZ Registered Member

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    You are basically correct, to the best of my knowledge.

    But, you would need to know the exact name of the file as it is normally part of the address. Without knowing the exact name it should be all but impossible to stumble\crawl upon the download link.

    My suggestions are to rar or zip the file(s), password protect them, and give it a totally random\non-sensical name. Then of course only share the link and password with those intended to receive it.

    There may be better ways. I am sure they will be suggested as more members read this thread.
     
  3. markoman

    markoman Registered Member

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    It is not wise to publish proprietary information. rapidshare is thought for sharing information with quite a wide audience, and this is not what you mean to do I guess.
    My advice, if you can't share such information with the intended person in any other way, is to encrypt all the data before publishing it on rapidshare, and share the key through a secure channel. You can use some opensource software for the encryption phase, such as Truecrypt or Axcrypt.
     
  4. benton4

    benton4 Registered Member

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    Another vote for Truecrypt- there has been many good things said about tis product.
     
  5. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    I was just going to mention TrueCrypt. I have tried uploading a truecrypt file to rapidshare and it works. I even split a file, uploaded them, downloaded them and re-joined them. Worked like a charm.
     
  6. CaixFang

    CaixFang Registered Member

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    NEVER SHARE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION VIA PUBLIC MEANS....EVER....EVER.

    I dont care if it is in a TC container or not. This is what FTP is for, and almost every company has an FTP site. Although by default most FTP servers transmit unsecurely, they can be set to transmit in a secure method, and you can always add encryption or other protection schemes on top of the files. Setup and FTP site, or request access to theirs. You can setup an FTP site in about 5 minutes under windows (even XP) and you have your solution.

    I wouldnt upload ANYTHING to rapidshare that i didnt want the entire world to see.
     
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