Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#11

Post by Proven » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

If they're committed to users' privacy how come there are so many FF "privacy tuning" scripts?

Nice service but how is that better than posting encrypted files on one of established web drives (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Keybase, etc?)? I can't imagine it's better and privacy-wise it's likely about the same.

Important fact: google is probably best at monetizing this crap, so FF likely can't squeeze more dollars out of the same amount of data, which is why I think this service will ultimately not become popular.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#12

Post by mFixman » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

I can't believe that there isn't a simple service to transfer data between my cellphone and my computer without going through the internet. iTunes is terribly bloated, MTP is a mess, and Bluetooth is slow and frustrating.

Back in my hacker day I used to have an SSH server open on my cellphone and use it to transfer files back and forth with my computer. Why isn't there a mainstream service like that?

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#13

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

Neat!

How do they handle abuse though? Like, people using it to host, say, pirated TV shows? Maybe a max download limit that makes it impractical for that use case?

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#14

Post by fxfan » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:33 PM UTC

There's also a command line interface somewhere

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#15

Post by emddudley » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

I've used this before to send sensitive documents to my attorney, who would have otherwise just wanted email attachments. It worked great.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#16

Post by sigmonsays » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

this doesn't seem that impressive technology wise, but maybe i'll remember to use it.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#17

Post by sccxy » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

icemelt8 wrote: post #3

I wonder which cloud service they are using to store the files.

Google Cloud Platform

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#18

Post by kop316 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

mFixman wrote: post #12

I can't believe that there isn't a simple service to transfer data between my cellphone and my computer without going through the internet. iTunes is terribly bloated, MTP is a mess, and Bluetooth is slow and frustrating. Back in my hacker day I used to have an SSH server open on my cellphone and use it to transfer files back and forth with my computer. Why isn't there a mainstream service like that?

I seem to remember that there was an app on android that allowed you to access your files via a webserver you could turn off and on. I used that a lot before I got nextcloud.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#19

Post by mont » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #13

Neat! How do they handle abuse though? Like, people using it to host, say, pirated TV shows? Maybe a max download limit that makes it impractical for that use case?

2.5GB file limit is a bit small for good quality TV shows (and especially movies).

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#20

Post by mehrdadn » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #5

I wonder if they're running some malware scanners plus do they have to comply with DMCA takedowns? Based on what I see, the files are hosted on their servers, so they kind of have to, no?

There is end-to-end encryption, so unless they have homomorphic virus scanners I don't see how they would do this...