This is a post I made the night the new Sia software was released. https://steemit.com/sia/@java1959/sia-coin-cloud-storage-releases-version-1-0-0-rent-your-unused-hard-drive-space
In regards to what content people choose to store, I have no control over that. Just like a company that rents storage for homeowners has no idea what gets put into those rental spaces.
In the case of a service like Sia, the files are chopped up into many pieces and stored on drives all over the world and encrypted. So in this case it would be very difficult for anyone to prove that you are storing anything illegal since all you have are encrypted shards of "some" tiny piece of a file.
I don't think illegal content should be a concern to the service provider since they have no control over the network. For that matter your hard drive could be in use now by some hacker to store some kiddie porn without your knowledge without Sia even being installed on your PC. These types will find a way to break the law with or without Sia.
People that use any medium for storage of illegal content will eventually screw-up somewhere and law enforcement will find out about them if they are doing their job.
Me not using Sia because of fear that it might store illegal content may as well apply to Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon servers. Any of those could also be used to store illegal content.
Sia has more positive aspects than negative ones for most people. Just like Bitcoin has more positive than negative aspects. Not using encrypted technology in this day and age to me is giving unnecessary access to our private information to those who wish to profit and exploit our personal data.
And finally, Cloud Storage is one of the most up and coming markets. Sia in my opinion is poised to be a great investment to capture a large slice of this pie, if the devs continue on their current trajectory. It also has the potential for hardware manufacturers to use the network for cloud storage of their services. So when the marketing kicks in at some point, again in MY opinion, this is a good company to invest in and a good network to join.
The software still has a few bugs, but the next revision should take care of most of them. You can download your copy here and make sure to join their Slack channel for the most up to date information:
Awesome reply!
Thanks for the link I wish I would've seen that when I was having issues installing it.. BUT I reached out to them on twitter and they literally responded quickly with every question I had to get me up and running :D