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Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#471
post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article primarily comes down to this: > WHY CAN'T I USE TLS/SSL TO DELIVER THE JAVASCRIPT CRYPTO CODE? You can. It's harder than it sounds, but you can safely transmit Javascript crypto to a browser using SSL. The problem is, having established a secure channel with SSL, you no longer need Javascript cryptography; you have "real" cryptography. In our case we aren't doing crypto inception where the cryptography i…

That question seems closely tied to > WHAT'S THE "CHICKEN-EGG PROBLEM" WITH DELIVERING JAVASCRIPT CRYPTOGRAPHY? If you don't trust the network to deliver a password, or, worse, don't trust the server not to keep user secrets, you can't trust them to deliver security code. I haven't looked at the details of how Firefox Send works, but if you can download and decrypt the file with nothing more than an https:// URL, it…

> I suppose an alternative would be to generate a data: URL, but if it has to include all the crypto code, I wouldn't expect it to be nice and compact.

Sounds like a challenge for the code golfers.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#472

a bit off topic but here it goes... This is how i think Mozilla can capture more users back to Firefox. By providing "extra" services attached to the Mozilla and Firefox brand will make them a superior product to the end user. Sure it's hard to compete with Chrome but if you offer useful features and services integrated in your Browser i see that Mozilla actually has a chance to compete with Google for the browser sp…

Literally all they need to do is advertise tree style tabs. It's the reason half my office stopped using Chrome.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#476

If I've got this right, the file is encrypted using a secret key which is generated on the client and appended to the anchor in the link, like: /# " rel="nofollow">http://send.firefox.com/download/ /# Anyone who obtains the link (e.g. via email interception) gains access to the file. Since browsers don't transmit the anchor when requesting a resource [1], Firefox servers never see a copy of the key. Provided you trus…

> Anyone who obtains the link (e.g. via email interception) gains access to the file.

True, but, if a third party decides to use the intercepted link to download the file, and you have it set to a limit of 1 download, the file will self-destruct (if you trust Mozilla). This way, the recipient can know that someone has tampered with the communication, which is certainly an improvement over the status quo (email attachments).

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#477
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing your solution! Not sure what is causing it (maybe it's OpenSSL binding related), and am currently not really targeting FreeBSD yet. I wasn't fully ready with this tool for the Firefox Send release to be honest, would have loved to be able to provide better binaries and packages for more platforms, which are a work in progress. If you believe you can improve the README with your solution, be sure to…

It's a BSD world thing :). Local (i.e. non-system) executables and libraries go under /usr/local around here (i.e. libraries under /usr/local/lib, binaries under /usr/local/bin and so on, the hierarchy under /usr/local has the same structure as that under /usr).

[deleted]

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I built and successfully ran it on FreeBSD-current. The only hiccup I ran into was that it puked building due to not having /usr/local/lib in its lib search path & not being able to find libxcb. I had to manually add -L/usr/local/lib to the cc args and manually link it. Not sure if that is a FreeBSD issue w/Rust, or something in your package. At any rate, the tool works! Thanks so much.

Thanks for sharing your solution! Not sure what is causing it (maybe it's OpenSSL binding related), and am currently not really targeting FreeBSD yet. I wasn't fully ready with this tool for the Firefox Send release to be honest, would have loved to be able to provide better binaries and packages for more platforms, which are a work in progress. If you believe you can improve the README with your solution, be sure to…

Is there an autotools equivalent in Rust land?

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#480
post #472

a bit off topic but here it goes... This is how i think Mozilla can capture more users back to Firefox. By providing "extra" services attached to the Mozilla and Firefox brand will make them a superior product to the end user. Sure it's hard to compete with Chrome but if you offer useful features and services integrated in your Browser i see that Mozilla actually has a chance to compete with Google for the browser sp…

Literally all they need to do is advertise tree style tabs. It's the reason half my office stopped using Chrome.

That's an add-on right? I don't think they can advertise something that's not in Firefox's core
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