Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

send.firefox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 285 posts

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#121

Post by sametmax »

sarabande wrote: post #55
sametmax wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key is in the hash. Check 0bin.net. We use the same trick to encrypt the pastebin content. The sources are available so you can see the gist of it. It's a very simple code.

Curious why in your FAQ at 0bin.net you say: But JavaScript encryption is not secure! Is there something inherently insecure about the JS crypto library you're using ( https://github.com/bitwiseshiftleft/sjcl )?

Js crypto make the client trust the server. As i host 0bin, i can inject code whenever i want in the page if i change my mind.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#122

Post by 6a68 »

programmarchy wrote: post #61
soapdog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When thinking about a Mozilla offering, it is healthy to think beyond "money and product" as this type of analysis will usually leave you with a conclusion of "this doesn't make business sense". Mozilla is in the game of keeping the internet healthy. Part of it involves products, such as Firefox and its quest to recover userbase. Parts of it involves money, such as MOSS awarding grants or prizes for FOSS stuff they u…

Not sure how true that is anymore. They seem to by trying hard to squander their reputation. First their MITI officially signaled they now consider themselves a political force, then the whole Cliqz debacle following shortly after showed their willingness to sacrifice their principles.

I dunno about all that :-)

MITI is Mozilla trying to keep the internet credible as a source of news and information. This is in keeping with Mozilla's core principles. Give the blog post a careful read, as it might change your mind: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/08/08/mozilla-information...

Re: Cliqz, working with a search-oriented company might be a way that Mozilla can help avoid monopolies in search. The goal is to find new ways to keep the web open, so that new challengers have a level playing field vs. dominant companies.

Andreas wrote a good blog post about the worrying monopolistic trends in search a couple years ago: https://andreasgal.com/2015/03/30/data-is-at-the-heart-of-se...

Edited to add: Cliqz is a very privacy-conscious company, and I think that respect for the user was a major factor in Mozilla partnering with Cliqz. This is just to say that, AIUI, the partnership was evaluated, again, in keeping with Mozilla's principles.

Also, here's the Mozilla manifesto, which documents those guiding principles: https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#123

Post by jhasse »

madeofpalk wrote: post #60
snvzz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#yyyyy would be the encryption key. The webserver end never sees it. It can, however, easily be read via javascript, so mozilla needs to be trusted in any case.

at least you can check that its not going back to the server.

How?

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#124

Post by stephenboyd »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #5

It really is a shame that there still isn't a easy way (A person whose computer knowledge extends to using facebook), that I know of, of sending arbitrarily large files that isn't tethered to a specific cloud service and is also reliable (can tolerate connection dropping). It seems that bitorrent protocols are pretty close, but I don't think there is a seamless client that allows for "magical" point to point transact…

This was once a common use of AOL Instant Messenger.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#125

Post by hardwaresofton »

tjoff wrote: post #120
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #5

It really is a shame that there still isn't a easy way (A person whose computer knowledge extends to using facebook), that I know of, of sending arbitrarily large files that isn't tethered to a specific cloud service and is also reliable (can tolerate connection dropping). It seems that bitorrent protocols are pretty close, but I don't think there is a seamless client that allows for "magical" point to point transact…

And this isn't? (Honest question, hasn't looked at it hard enough yet) I don't disagree with you but I kind of expected a note as to why this wasn't a solution in this context.

I think he considers this as "tethered to a cloud service".

I think a solution to this problem that wasn't tethered would be something like in an IPV6 world where everyone has an IP address, if I could just put in your address, send you a file, and as long as our computers were on/connected to the world wide web, it'd get to you.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#126

Post by wodenokoto »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #5

It really is a shame that there still isn't a easy way (A person whose computer knowledge extends to using facebook), that I know of, of sending arbitrarily large files that isn't tethered to a specific cloud service and is also reliable (can tolerate connection dropping). It seems that bitorrent protocols are pretty close, but I don't think there is a seamless client that allows for "magical" point to point transact…

File.pizza is very seamless point to point transfer of arbitrary file sizes.

Doesn't work in safari though (haven't tested ie) so maybe it is not general enough for your use case.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#127

Post by api »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #5

It really is a shame that there still isn't a easy way (A person whose computer knowledge extends to using facebook), that I know of, of sending arbitrarily large files that isn't tethered to a specific cloud service and is also reliable (can tolerate connection dropping). It seems that bitorrent protocols are pretty close, but I don't think there is a seamless client that allows for "magical" point to point transact…

There are lots of them with varying trade-offs between ease of use and power.

The problem is that there are none with enough of a user base to have a network effect, and users hate installing new apps.

It's 2017 and it's still hard and somewhat dangerous to install apps.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#128

Post by sametmax »

bluejekyll wrote: post #58
sametmax wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key is in the hash. Check 0bin.net. We use the same trick to encrypt the pastebin content. The sources are available so you can see the gist of it. It's a very simple code.

Is this a common practice? It seems brilliantly simple and reproduceable.

I stole the idea from php zerobin. I know mega used to do it. Not common but not new.

Re: Firefox Send: Private, Encrypted File Sharing

#129

Post by ianbicking »

metahost wrote: post #10

So, where is the money coming from ? Who's the product here ?

Firefox Send is still an experiment at Mozilla (as noted on the site). The question now is whether it is popular and useful, and how much it actually costs to run. Those questions aren't answered yet, and there's no big schemes behind it.

If Firefox Send graduates from being an experiment, then it recoup its costs implicitly if it can increase engagement with Firefox itself (which does produce revenue), or awareness of Firefox and Mozilla. Firefox's revenue comes primarily from search companies who pay for preferred placement in the browser. In that sense, people who search using Firefox are ultimately the product.

However, Mozilla is a mission-led company, and so profit maximization isn't ultimately the answer to why Mozilla does something. I think it's accurate to say that Mozilla is trying to maximize its positive impact. Revenue certainly enables that impact. But direct impact is also worth something, and it's not necessary for everything Mozilla does to involve profit maximization.

Post reply on HN