Sia

Sia is an experimental open source, distributed, fully wp:peer-to-peer system for sharing computer storage with other people in exchange for "Siacoins", and/or buying shared space in exchange for the same. Siacoin is blockchain-based virtual currency that works like wp:Bitcoin.

In other words, you can give up some of your hard drive space, in exchange for the ability to store some of your file in a redundant, distributed "cloud". It's redundant in the sense that your files will be spread among many hosts, using mathematical techniques as wp:Reed-Solomon coding, and so even if some of the hosts your data are on disappear, your data can still be fully recovered from other hosts. Of course, it's all encrypted.

TL;DR it's secure "cloud storage", which you can get for free if you give up some of your local storage.

Installing Sia is pretty simple:

• get the command-line interface for your type of system, or the somewhat experimental graphical interface if you prefer (instructions that follow are be for the command line on Linux)
• start "./siad &", the daemon that runs in the background; give it some time to set itself up and connect to peers
• see if you are connected to any peers, by running "./siac gateway" (do you see a bunch of IP addresses? if not, wait!)
• now import the signature of a file that was uploaded specifically for the outcasts! you need to type the following long command (the random-looking data are a specification of the file to download; make sure to copy the whole line, it extends beyond the screen!):

./siac renter loadascii U2lhIFNoYXJlZCBGaWxlAwAAAAAAAAAwLjQBAAAAAAAAAB-LCAAACW6IAv_iZoCA5NKS1PLEIr2qzIKZqjeYQEJ_9vk4LY8Q3hkqdY1zmkaiy7M1aVnTFBTWf-j9E6DO26H05L89WOsSRogRBT__84FoNqiRPFA6KDU1RTc4Pyc_Nz-PCSrGAaXZoXTgob1TZmpXa8x5HcjzMoXNaYt0ywPRmq7yaAX9V8Jip0QFoeqM9IyMTPUMgdjCyMrS0sIIZhkrlGZmwA4Q4g5gkhFDvAFMMmGIH0DhI5kPNoIF03ywuFkX1INyKWbBeRuWaqzcEa8vzp-jetSGUfMB30n9kBl-6ifz9gpDdVkY6hkZG-gZmprrGZoZYPUaOw6vsePwGjsOr7Hj8Bo7Dq-x4_Daiw1th-vXNkmq2ny-7JxheyfnGpPV80OiT-UVth7Qcw1WF4DqsjQBek0P6C8jY6z-4sThL04c_uLE4S9OHP7ixOEvThz-WvbghO8H5ca5onpLNHimdVZJNDEXZ6u1MWlm3rlRm81dLwRLiyZ6hgZAbwG9Z2SC1WeEAarPGHD4jAGHzxhw-IwBzWemUJ-lGv-v9p4RU_axqWb5mbtrbqkUuaklxchdXhB948upM3dURKC6DC0N9IwMjfWMTCyBqdEQq9_YcPiIDYff2HD4jQ2H39hw-I0NR6wZBtgF7VJx0n95SIJ9xsejqs9nvNbyas8X7lo6b0tZrfQPWKwZGgD9BMRGIIzVZ4w4fMaIw2eMOHzGiMNnjDh8xogj1vjNtfc2PG9hNlGu53U0YZKeqdH3QN9CzoBbsuZ_WdDnNFjZaG6hZ2hprGdmoGduhtVjLDg8xoLDYyw4PMaCw2MsODzGgiPKAAEAAP__bBEjNXwG

• at this point you can download the file using "./siac renter download cutewar.zip cutewar.zip"
• now wait! You can check your download status using "./siac renter queue" in another terminal

Further information

• Frequently asked but so far unanswered questions
• every transaction (sending of coins to a different address manually) has a fixed fee of 10 coins
• every payment for storage has a fee of 4% of the coins sent
• you can get some free coins at the faucet, but please give back if you continue using thisT