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

Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 363 posts

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#261

Post by dheera »

I used to do the HTTP server approach when I was a student at MIT and had a static IPv4 and symmetric gigabit in my dorm room and therefore the recipient could download at usually their full downlink speed.

Now I live in the heart of Silicon Valley, a couple km from Google's Headquarters, and have a crappy 15 mbps uplink with no other options available to me, so I typically throw the file on Amazon S3, Google Drive, or Dropbox before sending a link to the other person so that they don't have to put up with a 15 mbps download.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#262

Post by ta95846893 »

ta95846893 wrote: post #260
parliament32 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a new tool? How is this better than gpg symmetric encryption, considering gpg is installed/available effectively everywhere? Encrypt: gpg --symmetric file.dat (enter a password) Decrypt: gpg --decrypt file.dat.gpg > file.dat (enter the password)

gpg symmetric encryption just derives a key from the password so theres no forward secrecy. Using bittorrent in particular opens you up to the risk of third parties getting ahold of your encrypted file and without forward secrecy the can attack the password offline which is typically much smaller that 256 bits. Using Magic Wormhole would seem to be far more secure than gpg and bittorrent since it has less risk of thi…

One reason age is beneficial is that it will generate a sufficiently long password for you when encrypting a file, This is a good idea if you're using a transmission protocol without a handshake. I don't think gpg has this as an option?

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#263

Post by Sean-Der »

mc10 wrote: post #163
3s wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WebTorrent [1] can be used to run BitTorrent on the web. It's actually integrated into the Brave browser which is a nice feature. Other browsers might catch on soon. [1] https://webtorrent.io/

WebTorrent is pretty limited though: > ... a browser-based WebTorrent client or "web peer" can only connect to other clients that support WebTorrent/WebRTC. (from https://webtorrent.io/faq ) This essentially splinters the world into the bittorrent and webtorrent halves, which makes it far less useful.

If you want a CLI/Desktop WebTorrent client https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent works great.

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#264

Post by ta95846893 »

esaym wrote: post #72
RealStickman_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any compression would ruin that. Though it should be possible to do what you described with 16MP pictures and upload them to google drive. Those won't be compressed according to someone under that LTT video where they abuse 5 business accounts for their backup.

>Any compression would ruin that. Well not really. You could have an entire frame as a solid color red to represent a '1' and a solid white frame to represent a '0'. At 24 fps, that is 3 bytes per second and would certainly survive compression. Just keep drilling down, half a frame that is red and another half that is white would represent a '10' pair, now you've doubled your throughput. You could keep cutting these…

Sounds like you'll end up with a couple of qr codes per frame in the end, which would probably survive compression

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#265

Post by Sean-Der »

https://webwormhole.io/ has web and native clients. You can build for Windows/Mac/Linux/FreeBSD/Mobile. It uses WebRTC so if you are in the same network it will establish the best path possible.

I see a lot of people mentioning magic-wormhole and NAT traversal. I can't find any docs that confirm this. I think it always runs through a relay server?

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#266

Post by danbmil99 »

Worth noting that there's an expensive but very popular product from IBM called Aspera

I've never used it myself but I've heard but it's actually quite impressive but the business model makes it inaccessible to individuals

Apparently they do some sort of complicated Trace routing and open a ton of simultaneous routes. Probably also uses something other than TCP 4 correction.

Seems like a good place for some disruption

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#268

Post by cascom »

terramex wrote: post #131
geocrasher wrote: post #57

5GB on my local network: Windows File Share, Rsync, or HTTP depending on source/destination 5GB on Internet: Upload to my OVH VPS and HTTP or Rsync it to its destination 10TB, local or Internet: Physical Hard Drive. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes! https://www.tidbitsfortechs.com/2013/09/never-underestimate-... And since you now buy 1TB micro SD cards, so perhaps I'd split th…

10TB, local or Internet: Physical Hard Drive. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of backup tapes! In Poland there is an option to send package via train for 8$. Just go to station and give package to conductor/train guard, few hours later receiver can get it at destination station. Sending HDDs full of raw video footage this way is very popular among video editors here.

Many of the airlines in the us allow this as well - but more expensive - you can basically send something on a specific flight for like ~$100

https://www.unitedcargo.com/shipping/productsAndShipping.jsp...

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#269

Post by csdreamer7 »

jivank wrote: post #256
brink wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use Syncthing or Resilio Sync for LAN parties?

I have considered it. The one thing about Syncthing is that there is no true readonly way to sync. For example, someone may accidentally extract an archive in the Syncthing folder and it will sync everywhere. If Syncthing gets this feature I think I would be 100% onboard with it for LAN parties. Resilio I believe supports it but I would prefer an opensource alternative. https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/6…

You can use the send only feature in Syncthing to make your folder read only.

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/foldertypes.html#folder-sen...

Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite method of sending large files?

#270

Post by [deleted] »

livueta wrote: post #86

Bittorrent. No, really. Lots of nice behaviors when transferring large amounts of data between arbitrary endpoints. Transferring the torrent metadata is pretty trivial and can be done via a wide range of methods, and having that flexibility can be nice. Unlike HTTP, you get reasonable retry behavior on network hiccups. Also, more robust data integrity guarantees, though a manual hash test is probably a good idea eith…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN