I am curious as to why download sites dont offer encryption. People are worried about their hardware being bugged. In my opinion it is more likely they would bug the software more than the hardware. Especially since there isnt any form of encryption end to end. I think it is a must, because how easy would it be to bug a piece of software for the government? or a third party? Would they go to the length of spoofing the entire site, or a single download? I am not sure if cnet offers any, but I wouldnt go there in a million years. With all the bloat and pup added to their downloads is ridiculous. I use filehippo more than anything, for its non-intrusiveness and it extremely light weight update manager. Anyways, are you guys as curious as I am in creating a encrypted site based on the filehippo database? Or something similar, it would offer those companies a mirror that is secure. Base it on teksyndicate. Call it the TekVault? Terk (Tek+Ark)
All you have to do is encrypt your files yourself and then every upload site has perfect security end to end and can't give up your keys or even have them stolen.
You mean use a VPN. I am not talking about myself only. I am referring to the masses that dont understand jack shit about SSL, VPNs, SFTP, etc. I want to provide a service for them.
It isn't just the government you dope. Hackers can do this to, as it has been mentioned for any non https site. The governments still would do so, regardless of you being a terrorist or not. If I recall in an episode of the tek it was discussed that the NSA (via snowden leaks) was keeping track of peoples porn habbits for blackmail/discrediting purposes. Anti/reformation government activists could be bugged just for the sake of giving the government bad press. I am a conspiracy theorist, but this shit has happened. For all you naysayers, what did Nixon do for his second presidency? At that time, there weren't freaking personal computer, there wasn't the internet as it is today, there wasn't open and libre office. There was the word of the government and we had to trust they were trustworthy. With the Snowden revelations, you can now be damn sure that our government(s) aren't trustworthy. The government is following non terror suspects just as much (it appears) as terror suspects. The one porn document even stated they weren't terror suspects. You tell me sir, that an end to end encrypted download host isn't necessary in todays age. If you are a suspected pirate, you can be damn sure hollywood/other big business would try to bug your computer. Didn't you know, a large portion of pirated content on mega upload was actually uploaded by the content creators themselves. Then they sue people who download it. That is corporate entrapment my friend, which in the eyes of the law is apparently not illegal. It is however illegal for the government to do so. But they still do it. Go ahead and not care, but you should. Just as much as you probably do about net neutrality.
No I don't mean use a VPN. I mean encrypt files before you upload them. A VPN will only encrypt your traffic between your client and the VPN server. Between the VPN and the file hosting service, there is no encryption (unless they use HTTPS). Even worse, the files will still be unencrypted when stored on their servers. Sites that store the files encrypted on their servers still decrypt sending back and forth, and they have the keys to decrypt the files and so can be either compelled or hacked to give up those keys. The only secure solution is to encrypt your files with a program like GNU Privacy Guard or 7Zip before they ever leave your computer. That way, only you have the keys, only you can decrypt the files, and only you ever see the files decrypted.
By the way, this isn't exactly a novel idea. It's how tarsnap works. Mega apparently does it as well. The reason you don't see more download sites with end to end encryption is because the client must do this encryption/decryption in a plugin or separate program outside of the browser, otherwise the encryption is meaningless. HTTPS, SSL, VPN, SFTP, etc have no effect outside of the transmission to and from the server. Now I see that the encryption you were talking about to begin with was SSL, rather than actually secure encrypted file hosting services. So as for why more sites don't use HTTPS? Good question; I imagine it boils down to price/performance. Mega does it. But general mass distribution sites might not care about security because it's not in their business model.
You cant encrypt files that are uploaded by other people though.
Well if you make a flash or java plugin as the upload form, then you can. Or have the service only accessible through a program, not a browser.