Forensic Analysis and Remote Evidence Recovery from Syncthing: An Open Source Decentralised File Synchronisation Utility

Commercial and home Internet users are becoming increasingly concerned with data protection and privacy. Questions have been raised regarding the privacy afforded by popular cloud-based file synchronisation services such as Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive. A number of these services have recently been reported as sharing information with governmental security agencies without the need for warrants to be granted. As a result, many users are opting for decentralised (cloudless) file synchronisation alternatives to the aforementioned cloud solutions. This paper outlines the forensic analysis and applies remote evidence recovery techniques for one such decentralised service, Syncthing