Secure File Transfer

When you run surveys or you analyze the data from surveys, you really do appreciate when your colleagues or vendors provide process and technical information. I treasure those manuals and they have saved me quite a bit of frustration over the years.

You can't rely on them 100%, which means you do need to communicate well with the rest of the project team.

The manuals are often written in a particular language, which provides the technical details for people who aren't from a technical background.

One of my favourite bits is something like the following:

The files will be transferred to you by a secure transfer protocol.

This suggests to me that someone has a binder with a list of steps to transfer the files. Which seems a lot more interesting than saying they will use SFTP.

I can only assume there is a bit of a game of telephone between the people who set up the technology and the authors of the document (or their bosses). It's not wrong exactly, but it definitely feels a bit off.

And I have discovered that instead of SFTP they sometimes mean regular FTP over SSH. I didn't know that was actually a thing until recently.

Anyway, I am glad they put the secure in there as the idea that you would use FTP to move survey data always worries me. Just like sending that stuff via email, but that's another story.

Posted on October 26, 2025; last updated on October 26, 2025.