4.0 KiB
translating---geekpi
OnionShare - Share Files Anonymously
In this Digital World, we share our media, documents, important files via the Internet using different cloud storage like Dropbox, Mega, Google Drive and many more. But every cloud storage comes with two major problems, one is the Size and the other Security. After getting used to Bit Torrent the size is not a matter anymore, but the security is.
Even though you send your files through the secure cloud services they will be noted by the company, if the files are confidential, even the government can have them. So to overcome these problems we use OnionShare, as per the name it uses the Onion internet i.e Tor to share files Anonymously to anyone.
How to Use OnionShare?
- First Download the [OnionShare][1] and [Tor Browser][2]. After downloading install both of them.
[![install onionshare and tor browser][3]][3]
- Now open OnionShare from the start menu
[![onionshare share files anonymously][4]][4]
- Click on Add and add a File/Folder to share.
- Click start sharing. It produces a .onion URL, you could share the URL with your recipient.
[![share file with onionshare anonymously][5]][5]
- To Download file from the URL, copy the URL and open Tor Browser and paste it. Open the URL and download the Files/Folder.
[![receive file with onionshare anonymously][6]][6]
Start of OnionShare
A few years back when Glenn Greenwald found that some of the NSA documents which he received from Edward Snowden had been corrupted. But he needed the documents and decided to get the files by using a USB. It was not successful.
After reading the book written by Greenwald, Micah Lee crypto expert at The Intercept, released the OnionShare - simple, free software to share files anonymously and securely. He created the program to share big data dumps via a direct channel encrypted and protected by the anonymity software Tor, making it hard to get the files for the eavesdroppers.
How Does OnionShare Work?
OnionShare starts a web server at 127.0.0.1 for sharing the file on a random port. It chooses any of two words from the wordlist of 6800-wordlist called slug. It makes the server available as Tor onion service to send the file. The final URL looks like:
http://qx2d7lctsnqwfdxh.onion/subside-durable
The OnionShare shuts down after downloading. There is an option to allow the files to be downloaded multiple times. This makes the file not available on the internet anymore.
Advantages of using OnionShare
Other Websites or Applications have access to your files: The file the sender shares using OnionShare is not stored on any server. It is directly hosted on the sender's system.
No one can spy on the shared files: As the connection between the users is encrypted by the Onion service and Tor Browser. This makes the connection secure and hard to eavesdroppers to get the files.
Both users are Anonymous: OnionShare and Tor Browser make both sender and recipient anonymous.
Conclusion
In this article, I have explained how to share your documents, files anonymously. I also explained how it works. Hope you have understood how OnionShare works, and if you still have a doubt regarding anything, just drop in a comment.
via: https://www.theitstuff.com/onionshare-share-files-anonymously-2
作者：Anirudh Rayapeddi 译者：译者ID 校对：校对者ID
[1]https://onionshare.org/ [2]https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en [3]http://www.theitstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Icons.png [4]http://www.theitstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Onion-Share.png [5]http://www.theitstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/With-Link.png [6]http://www.theitstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Tor.png
