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Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

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Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#141

Post by jamesgeck0 »

matt-snider wrote: post #26
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?

What about https://syncthing.net/ ? EDIT: I know you said without going through the internet. Syncthing can be configured to only transfer over specific networks (e.g. home LAN/WI-FI)

Syncthing is in dire need of an iOS client. There's an unofficial one, but it was unmaintained and didn't sync with recent versions of Syncthing last I checked.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#142

Post by gdulli »

dTal wrote: post #112
TulliusCicero wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure people who know more than me will give me a list of great reasons why it's not straightforward to implement... Nah, Android phones have done this forever, it's not technical difficulties stopping it from working. It's The Apple Way . They don't want you using your phone that way, or something.

Android phones don't do this anymore, for the technical reason that allowing a computer to mount a filesystem directly requires that the phone unmount it. Mass storage expects a block device, so there's no wrapper that one could provide that would make this work with the native filesystems of the phone. What could be done is to dedicate a file on the phone as block storage, and expose that as a mass storage device. T…

> allowing a computer to mount a filesystem directly requires that the phone unmount it

I don't think that's true. My S8 storage is mounted and accessible from my computer right now while at the same time playing music from the same storage. I can still take pictures/write to the storage.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#143

Post by _bxg1 »

tyingq wrote: post #116
_bxg1 wrote: post #100

Ah man, I literally came up with (and prototyped) this exact thing in 2013. Minus the end to end encryption. I dropped it mostly because I wasn't sure how to prevent illegal use and didn't want to be liable. Edit: mine was actually (partially) better because it assigned a short PIN instead of a full link, which meant you could just look at it and remember it for typing-in, instead of requiring a separate channel to "…

The end to end encryption necessitates a hard to remember uri anyway, so I don't think you can have both "secure" and "memorable".

Yeah; ID length was definitely another challenge. Time-expiration helped, but. I was going with 6 digits as a middle ground but it wasn't super secure, even if an upload expired after a few minutes. And of course there was no way for the user to know for sure that I couldn't keep around a copy without the E2E.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#144

Post by TulliusCicero »

dTal wrote: post #112
TulliusCicero wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure people who know more than me will give me a list of great reasons why it's not straightforward to implement... Nah, Android phones have done this forever, it's not technical difficulties stopping it from working. It's The Apple Way . They don't want you using your phone that way, or something.

Android phones don't do this anymore, for the technical reason that allowing a computer to mount a filesystem directly requires that the phone unmount it. Mass storage expects a block device, so there's no wrapper that one could provide that would make this work with the native filesystems of the phone. What could be done is to dedicate a file on the phone as block storage, and expose that as a mass storage device. T…

> Android phones don't do this anymore

They don't? Since when? I still have a Pixel 1 but it's running Android P, so the latest major version of Android, and this still works fine.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#145

Post by skykooler »

dTal wrote: post #112
TulliusCicero wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure people who know more than me will give me a list of great reasons why it's not straightforward to implement... Nah, Android phones have done this forever, it's not technical difficulties stopping it from working. It's The Apple Way . They don't want you using your phone that way, or something.

Android phones don't do this anymore, for the technical reason that allowing a computer to mount a filesystem directly requires that the phone unmount it. Mass storage expects a block device, so there's no wrapper that one could provide that would make this work with the native filesystems of the phone. What could be done is to dedicate a file on the phone as block storage, and expose that as a mass storage device. T…

Android phones show up as MTP devices, which are basically file-level storage instead of block-level storage. Most OS's (besides MacOS) will display this with the same interface as a USB mass storage device.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#146

Post by hiccuphippo »

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?

What I'd like to see is an app that runs a webserver on my phone to share a slideshow of pictures or videos to a browser on the lan. I haven't found this and I'm thinking about writing one.

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#147

Post by dooglius »

laumars wrote: post #126
dooglius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit confused, in what sense is accessing an SSH server not going through the internet? Was the phone connected to the same LAN as the desktop via Wifi?

That was my assumption. Your comment took me a little by surprise actually because there's no actual need for the internet in SSH and in fact I probably do 90% of my SSHing on local networks. But I guess your usage differs significantly?

For desktops, yes, but my default assumption for a phone is that it's on a mobile network

Re: Firefox Send: Free encrypted file transfer service

#148

Post by sametmax »

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?

There is. It's called dukto (http://www.msec.it/blog/?page_id=11), and works on mac, linux, windows and android. It will use zeroconf to automatically find all duktos on the local network, and let you send stuff to them in a blink.

Proprietary but free as in beer.

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