mich800 wrote:
rwbradley wrote:
I have not used the My Cloud service on my WD My Cloud in a while and I forget what options there are, I will fire it up and take a look. Being in Network Security I am always wearing my "insanely paranoid hat" so storing things in someone else's cloud is not on the top of my to do list.
However just thinking outside the box, there is one other option that may not be exactly what you want, but if you want to keep all the files where you can control them, take a look at Bittorrent Sync. NOTE this is not the same thing as Bittorrent, which is used to download (and sometimes pirate) movies, music etc. Bittorrent Sync is based on the underlying technology used for the P2P file sharing that the company Bittorrent created, the similarities end there. Bittorrent Sync is a good way to share files between people without using an intermediary cloud service, it is secure, encrypted, private and involves no middle man. You simply install Bittorrent Sync on a PC, Mac, phone, tablet etc where you have your media stored (this can include a PC that had a drive mapped to a WD My Cloud drive). You than create a share ie your pictures directory, choose if it is read or read/write and share by email to another person. They install Bittorrent Sync, accept your invitation, than you confirm and presto they can see everything in the share you made and they can use whatever photo viewing tool they choose. It is worth noting that it is best to do at home on a high speed internet connection and it is a good idea to share smaller folders (not your entire picture library), as the sync process will make a copy of all the files on the other person's computer, doing this on a MIFI while on the road could easily blow your monthly bandwidth.
But for those without that background; would you recommend using a cloud based option to store non critical documents like pictures to share or have them local and run the risk of your entire home network?
I will admit, cloud services like Onedrive, Google drive, Dropbox and Box are solutions that anyone can easily share files. Despite frequent news about sites getting hacked or passwords stolen they are still reasonably secure. I do in fact use them from time to time but have a few rules of thumb:
1) use them for short term storage
2) do not store anything sensitive on them
3) make sure you have a strong password that you do not use for other services
4) consider setting up 2 factor authentication. This means that whenever you log into your account on a new device the first time, you will get a text on your phone with a PIN number that you have to enter after the login and password, thus you must know the password and have your phone in your possession to login.
