About Bin
Bin is a free service for sharing data, specifically text and/or files, securely and privately with others online. The service is provided by the Raven Technologies Group, a team focused on building digital infrastructure that keeps users in control.
How Does it Work?
The service uses BINv3 - our in-house client-side encrypted protocol with zero-knowledge storage. It sounds complex, but it's quite simple to understand:
- You select data to upload: You can either write/paste raw text, or drag-and-drop a file of any type. The type of data doesn't matter.
- The data is encrypted: Before being uploaded to our servers, the data is encrypted client-side, meaning it happens entirely in your web browser. For the more tech savvy users, you can actually inspect the JavaScript in the Bin webpage that handles this. This allows you to verify how your data is handled instead of relying solely on trust. You make the data unreadable before even sending it to us.
- The data is uploaded: After the data is encrypted, it gets uploaded to our storage servers. The data is only kept on our servers for the time period you set, which can go up to 12 hours. This data cannot be read by us because we never have access to the decryption key. If we were compelled by law to provide the data, the most we can provide is encrypted data without the key, which is not readable.
- You get a sharable link: Once uploaded, you get a link to share with others so they can view the data. The decryption key is stored in the link, after a #. Anything in a URL after a # does not get shared with the server, meaning the encryption key stays with you and whoever you share the link with, and we never see it. This decryption key is necessary to read the data you uploaded.
What Are The Limits?
You can upload up to 5GB of data. This includes the text field and the file upload field combined.
You can have 3 active Bin uploads at a time. For example, if you upload 3 different files set for 12 hours each, you will need to wait until one of them expires before you can upload another. This limit is set to prevent abuse, and may be increased in the future.
Our current storage servers can hold up to 5TB of data, and will be expanded in the future as necessary.
During very high usage periods, the API may be busy, causing uploads to not work. If you try to upload a file and it doesn't work after two or three tries, then wait a few minutes and try again. Some browsers, particularly Firefox, may have limitations with large uploads. If you are still having issues, contact us.
How is Bin Funded?
Bin is free and always will be. The infrastructure and maintenance of Bin is funded through Raven's other initiatives, paid services, and donations. If you wish to learn more, or donate to us, select "Main Website" at the top-right. The information is available there.
Using Bin For My Company
If you wish to use Bin for your business, we offer Bin for Business, which includes an isolated, dedicated, configurable deployment of Bin, with full API access, audit logging, and priority support. Visit our Business page for more information.