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OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

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Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#171

Post by godzillabrennus »

slovenlyrobot wrote: post #159
bborud wrote: post #142

God, I wish people would stop using Python for these sorts of things. It is an okay language, but after tracking down why it doesn't build and considering messing around in my system and making either installing older versions of libraries or messing around with symlinks I stopped and asked myself "really? I want to spend my time fixing this?" and just deleted the entire clone of the git repos. Python is a nice langu…

- Click link, blown away by impossible feat of reverse engineering proprietary system done by apparently a lone hero contributor - Realize nothing I work on really has so much impact as this one lone hero is likely to have already achieved by releasing this code - Open HN thread with a sense of wonderment - Read top comment, engulfed by a wave of revulsion, remember why we can't have nice things

My sentiments mirrored almost exactly.

Except to add that Python has issues but is clearly winning hearts and minds for a reason. It’s wonderful that an open source language has become so powerful, versatile, and widely adopted.

I’d take this era of computing over the days of ActiveX and Flash being the ubiquitous approach to releasing software.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#172

Post by xmichael999 »

bborud wrote: post #142

God, I wish people would stop using Python for these sorts of things. It is an okay language, but after tracking down why it doesn't build and considering messing around in my system and making either installing older versions of libraries or messing around with symlinks I stopped and asked myself "really? I want to spend my time fixing this?" and just deleted the entire clone of the git repos. Python is a nice langu…

I agree, it really is to bad there isn't a better way of distributing Python. I've not had much of an issue with it running for console based pure linux stuff mind you, it tends to in my experience fall apart when you add gui elements and/or go outside of linux.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#174

Post by nitrogen »

bborud wrote: post #142

God, I wish people would stop using Python for these sorts of things. It is an okay language, but after tracking down why it doesn't build and considering messing around in my system and making either installing older versions of libraries or messing around with symlinks I stopped and asked myself "really? I want to spend my time fixing this?" and just deleted the entire clone of the git repos. Python is a nice langu…

Does Python have something analogous to RVM or Gemsets, or Bundler (Bundler can exclude incompatible dependencies at runtime)?

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#175

Post by rolltiide »

bborud wrote: post #142

God, I wish people would stop using Python for these sorts of things. It is an okay language, but after tracking down why it doesn't build and considering messing around in my system and making either installing older versions of libraries or messing around with symlinks I stopped and asked myself "really? I want to spend my time fixing this?" and just deleted the entire clone of the git repos. Python is a nice langu…

People use Anaconda to avoid this and get a pretty seamless experience. Lets you use multiple python configs on the same system and manages that for you.

I learned this when taking a computational finance class specifically to figure out why that and the quant/ai/ml community gravitated around python.

Python's advantages here came from about 12 years ago, when the syntax was friendly but other similar syntax friendly languages had a lot of overhead and other compromises. But these differentiators are mostly non-existent today, and Python is the only one with basically two different programming languages (py 2.x, py 3.x) operating under a single "Python" brand.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#177

Post by mackrevinack »

mxuribe wrote: post #81

It is 2019, and it is quite surprising - and disappointing - that we STILL haven't universally solved the means to easily, securely, and (yes, I'll use this term again) universally share files. I wish we could share files in a peer-to-peer fashion securely without hindrance of mobile platform, nor blockage of network MiTM, etc.

the safe network is making good progress lately.you might be waiting another year or two though

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#178

Post by tinus_hn »

toxik wrote: post #60
Fnoord wrote: post #35

Interestingly the article on the bottom links to a Usenix 2019 (held Aug 14 - 16) paper with the title "A Billion Open Interfaces for Eve and Mallory: MitM, DoS, and Tracking Attacks on iOS and macOS Through Apple Wireless Direct Link" Abstract: "Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) is a key protocol in Apple's ecosystem used by over one billion iOS and macOS devices for device-to-device communications. AWDL is a propri…

I can’t hep but think that these seemingly numerous security flaws are a product of proprietary software development. There is the old “many eyes” idea for software bugs, but even on a standards level. Did Apple not send out an RFC? Isn’t this type of architectural level screw up exactly what you want to avoid with an RFC? I’m glad Apple are taking the privacy issue to heart, but for every inch we’ve won in privacy,…

If you allow anyone to send you files over the air without authenticating you or them, there is no way to prevent the files from being modified in transit.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#179

Post by big_chungus »

cyphar wrote: post #134
mxuribe wrote: post #81

It is 2019, and it is quite surprising - and disappointing - that we STILL haven't universally solved the means to easily, securely, and (yes, I'll use this term again) universally share files. I wish we could share files in a peer-to-peer fashion securely without hindrance of mobile platform, nor blockage of network MiTM, etc.

Have you taken a look at magic-wormhole[1]? I've started using it recently and it's insanely easy to use. It does have a centralised signalling server for key exchange between peers, but it does attempt to do peer-to-peer data transfer (only falling back to a TURN-style relay if both clients are behind NATs and aren't on the same local network). An explanation of the cryptography and design was given at PyCon 2016[2]…

Magic wormhole is good, and I've used it before, but it's never as fast as it could be. Something like piping to netcat is always faster. I know it's possible (albeit with a lot of work) to do this over HTTP, but google drive is probably the only site that can mostly saturate a connection. Can any one link more info on how exactly they achieve this? The only trick I know of is a better TCP congestion control algorithm.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#180

Post by _underfl0w_ »

badumtss wrote: post #99
staticvoidmaine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than the google solution suggested by a sibling comment, I’d suggest a look at send.firefox.com.

I just wish they'd hurry up and make the android app useable. I signed up for the beta and was pretty disappointed as my uploads were cancelled if my screen locked or, horribly enough, rotated ...

Willing to bet their devs came from iOS. That would explain the android-specific quirks.
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