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  1. - Top - End - #31
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Wait a sec. Just use email anyways. Encrypted archive, there's super simple (ok there was, I haven't needed to do this in 20 years) software to break into 8mb chunks & reassemble the archive at the other end. Takes a bunch of emails but if you're really worried don't send them in sequential order and include a dummy package or twenty. Instructions on order of assembly are passed by phone call.

    Should be able to be handled by any decent archive software (probably built in still) and the rigamarole makes people feel they're doing special fancy secret message passing.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    This is exactly what does exist right now. There's nothing preventing you from hooking up computers at two different points, attaching both to an ISP, and then communicating directly between them. But yeah, instead of connecting a modem or fax at each end, you just install some software that allows for secure login and file transfer directly from one to the other. This pretty much requires, however, that at least one person install a linux OS on a computer and use it as a server (you can actually do this with windows, but yuck!). It's not that difficult to do. Finding your IP address isn't that difficult either, but unless you pay for some sort of colocation service, or enterprise level ISP service, your address will change periodically (and may still change even with an "enterprise" service, depending on the specifics). Some of this depends on how your ISP is set up though.

    Assuming you do obtain a routable IP address, the rest is just installing the OS, and setting up ssh/scp/sftp services on it (which is often as easy as "turning it on"). Then setting up accounts and creating passwords and then handing them to your friends. The problems with this is that if you want this to be relatively unhackable (I said "relatively"), you really want some sort of firm firewall rules to block addresses other than your friends from accessing your system (no system is fully defended if it's sitting out there "bare naked" on the internet for any length of time). Which of course is a problem since their addresses will change frequently as well. But this is no different than your "hook up my fax/modem to the phone line" solution. Anyone who has your phone number can connect, right? Same deal. Basic process hasn't actually changed much at all.

    And yeah, the other problem is that if you want to actually have any other computers at your home, attached to the same ISP connection, you must use a switch/router, which puts all the devices behind a private network, which isn't routable anymore (including the server you just set up). Which now gets into more complicated work of setting the server up "in front" of your switch/router, and using it as a gateway system. Which, yeah, gets into some more complex networking skills that 99.9% of folks out there just aren't going to grok at all.

    Or you can just use a third party service. Or stick to using email attachments, and accept a 10MB filesize limitation. But yeah, if you want to do this, and you really really don't want to risk some third party seeing your precious data (you can always encrypt the files btw), then you need to crack open some books and start learning. There's a ton of sites on the interwebs that can tell you how to set this sort of stuff up, but some of the advice is terrible, and some is just poorly written, and all of it requires quite a bit of learning curve.
    My point is that there doesn't seem to be an app for it, either on the Google Play Store or on F-Droid, and the way you deacribe it it sounds like it still requires an extra device other than the sender, the receiver, and the ISP.

    What I'm imagining at the moment - and there's certainly better ways to do this, but just for the sake of example - is that this would replace your phone app - you wouldn't be able to answer the phone anymore because it would interfere - and the way it would work is that when you wanted to send a file it would convert it to modem noise and dial the person who you wanted to receive it. Then the copy of the app on their end would answer the phone automatically, convert the modem noise back into a file, and automatically save it to their downloads folder, no servers or password cloak-and-dagger required

    EDIT:
    Similarly, I would replace voicemail with a program that automatically picks up after 3 or 4 rings, plays a locally saved prompt, and then saves the message to your phone as an mp3. As stated above though, there doesn't appear to be any app that can do that.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-03-08 at 04:00 AM.
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  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    I really don't like the idea that anybody with a smart phone connection could put arbitrary files onto your phone. There's enough of that sort of thing already, but this is just another security hole. I would insist on authorizing any incoming transfer before it starts.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Hmmm... I guess maybe it would have to be two apps, and the reciever app would be blocked from making outgoing calls
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  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    My point is that there doesn't seem to be an app for it, either on the Google Play Store or on F-Droid, and the way you deacribe it it sounds like it still requires an extra device other than the sender, the receiver, and the ISP.
    This took literally 5 seconds on google to find:
    https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...US&gl=US&pli=1

    Or is that not what you are looking for (no clue. Haven't used this app, don't know how it works). I was talking about how to transfer files from one device to another.

    There are dozens of similar tools you can use. But yeah, you are trusting that the app creator, and or transfer methodology isn't doing something along the way. That's not something you can eliminate though. Not unless you more or less "roll your own".

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Similarly, I would replace voicemail with a program that automatically picks up after 3 or 4 rings, plays a locally saved prompt, and then saves the message to your phone as an mp3. As stated above though, there doesn't appear to be any app that can do that.
    Why do you want to do this (and btw, this is not about file transfers, but I get it)? The only difference is where the recording is stored. The advantage of voicemail is that it's stored on a server, so you can access it from any device, and it doesn't go "poof" if you drop your phone in the toilet or something. Also, it works even if your phone is off, ran out of power, is out of service area, etc. It's kinda the whole point of doing it that way.

    Literally the only reason to even care about this is if you are so concerned that someone might say something on your voicemail that will get you into some sort of legal trouble or something. But again, if we're just talking about having some means to communicate without being listened in to, there's a very simple method: Use a code. Send text messages, use a code. Done. Ask your local drug dealer how they do this. It's not that hard (I'm by no means advocating for illegal activity here btw).

    I have issues with cloud based storage for a lot of things and a lot of reasons. Voicemaili is somewhere very near the absolute bottom of that list though.

    Oh. BTW. This is *exactly* how email works too. When you configure your email client, you point it at an smtp server, right? That server actually stores your incoming email for you (you know, just like a voicemail box). When you connect with your client, you download a copy of that email to your local device to read it. It's still on the server. You can use commands to clear email from the server if you want, but the point is that it's always first sitting on that server. Back in the day, we called this a "mail spool" (it actually sits in a directory called "spool", and why linux systems have a /var/spool/mail directory, among others). Those mail files used to be just plain text files. Anyone who had root on the actual mail server could read them. It was not uncommon for those files to become corrupted, and the filter tools would not work, and users could not recieve mail. A common fix was for some admin (like me) to log into the mail server, find the text file containing the email, and edit it (with like vi). Usually there was some set of garbage characters, or a malformed message at the top of the file (you got pretty good at seeing the pattern of characters that indicated start and stop points of each individual message within the text file).

    My point is that pretty much every communication you do over any sort of network results in various copies of what you are communicating sitting around at various points along the way. Some of these represent actual security risks. Most are just trivial and unimportant (or you just accept it as a cost of doing what you are doing).

    Worrying about voicemail? Why? There are vastly bigger fish to fry here.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidSh View Post
    I really don't like the idea that anybody with a smart phone connection could put arbitrary files onto your phone. There's enough of that sort of thing already, but this is just another security hole. I would insist on authorizing any incoming transfer before it starts.
    Preferably with a spam filter so that when your contact information invariably gets onto a mailing list you don't have to manually refuse hundreds of obviously malicious files.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    Oh. BTW. This is *exactly* how email works too. When you configure your email client, you point it at an smtp server, right? That server actually stores your incoming email for you (you know, just like a voicemail box). When you connect with your client, you download a copy of that email to your local device to read it. It's still on the server. You can use commands to clear email from the server if you want, but the point is that it's always first sitting on that server. Back in the day, we called this a "mail spool" (it actually sits in a directory called "spool", and why linux systems have a /var/spool/mail directory, among others). Those mail files used to be just plain text files. Anyone who had root on the actual mail server could read them. It was not uncommon for those files to become corrupted, and the filter tools would not work, and users could not recieve mail. A common fix was for some admin (like me) to log into the mail server, find the text file containing the email, and edit it (with like vi). Usually there was some set of garbage characters, or a malformed message at the top of the file (you got pretty good at seeing the pattern of characters that indicated start and stop points of each individual message within the text file).

    My point is that pretty much every communication you do over any sort of network results in various copies of what you are communicating sitting around at various points along the way.
    That's the whole point of this discussion. All of these systems are needlessly rube-goldbergian

    Quote Originally Posted by HeraldOfExius View Post
    Preferably with a spam filter so that when your contact information invariably gets onto a mailing list you don't have to manually refuse hundreds of obviously malicious files.
    Perfect. That would entirely eliminate of my original proposal's two flaws. (And I'm sure the plaw of it taking up the actual phone could be eliminated by routing it through some other system or, worst case scenario, by simply adding a second line

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    The advantage of voicemail is that it's stored on a server, so you can access it from any device
    You mean that hackers, jealous significant others, meddling patents, your service provider, the NSA, and the KGB (or whatever they're called now) can access it from any device
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-03-09 at 03:11 PM.
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    The standard way is a hardline between two terminals and nothing else.

    If by internet, you mean "over the worldwide web", rather than just TCP/IP protocol , you are doing some heavy abuse on the word "directly".

    Beyond this, the reason for lack of a standard way is because "secure" is often at odds with "usable". The natural trend is towards multiple different standards depending on how much crap end users are willing to tolerate and which kind of security risks they actually face.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    The standard way is a hardline between two terminals and nothing else.

    If by internet, you mean "over the worldwide web", rather than just TCP/IP protocol , you are doing some heavy abuse on the word "directly".

    Beyond this, the reason for lack of a standard way is because "secure" is often at odds with "usable". The natural trend is towards multiple different standards depending on how much crap end users are willing to tolerate and which kind of security risks they actually face.
    Why would I mean "over the worldwide web" when I said "Internet?" By "over the Internet" I mean between two computing devices which are connected to the Internet, each of which can be anywhere in the world an unfiltered Internet connection is possible.

    By "secure" I meant "using strong end-to-end encryption."
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Why would I mean "over the worldwide web" when I said "Internet?" By "over the Internet" I mean between two computing devices which are connected to the Internet, each of which can be anywhere in the world an unfiltered Internet connection is possible.

    By "secure" I meant "using strong end-to-end encryption."
    The strongest end-to-end encryption is a pile of random bits the same length as your file to securely transfer. The sender does some reversible math (probably an xor, but I am sure there are other options) between the pile of bits and the file to be sent, the receiver does the inverse. For slightly less strong encryption, use fewer truly random bits. It doesn't have to be random bits, but it does need to be secret between the two of you. If you decide to do something bizarre like combining the data with the text of an 1812 version of the bible in Latvian (complete with a weird forward about how the monks in Finland will rue the day), it is unlikely that anyone will be able to parse out what either your secret key or your data is, but if it gets out then everyone will know. The random bits just need to be truly random, not just pseudorandom like most of the "random" numbers computers use.
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    That's the whole point of this discussion. All of these systems are needlessly rube-goldbergian
    Explain "needlessly". How exactly would you allow someone to send email to someone else (or anything similar)? I mean, sure, your "solution" of having some sort of hard connection via phone lines or something, and using modems can work. But it's not terribly portable or usable. And is just as susceptible to interception as modern email systems (moreso really). Your own lack of understanding of how telecommunications systems actually work doesn't make "wishfull thinking" a valid alternative here.

    And the whole "stuff gets copied" is how electronic files work. Period. It's not like a physical letter that is carried from point to point. You are transmitting data across a wire. There's nothing "physical" involved here. It's the same for anything that is "transmitted". Think how radio works. The DJ at the station puts a record on the player. It's hooked up to a transmitter. He's not transmitting the physical vinyl record, right? He's transmitting a "copy" of it (in this case patterns of RF, that are picked up by antennas and converted back into sounds). In that case, anyone with an antenna tuned to the correct frequency/amplitude will pick it up and hear a "copy" of the music being played by the DJ.

    Computer networks transmit across wires instead of through the air, but it's the same concept. You create patterns of signal, and send it down some sort of wire. It must be routed, which requires specific protocols for that, and it must be picked up at each point, copied, and then sent on to the next (eh, I'm super oversimplifying packet handing methodologies here). You also must have some way to determine where the endpoints actually are, and how to get the signal to go between them. And deal with error correction (what happens when the signal gets garbled, which happens all the time).

    The point is that unless your "network" more or less consists of a single wire, strung directly from your house to your friends house, with nothing in between, there's no way to avoid this. And absolutely none of it is "unnecessary".


    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    You mean that hackers, jealous significant others, meddling patents, your service provider, the NSA, and the KGB (or whatever they're called now) can access it from any device
    And what exactly is your alternative proposal? Again, once you get more complex than "two tin cans with a string", you're going to have these issues.

    You don't honestly think that even old school phone lines were any different, do you? You do understand that before they had computer managed switching systems, they had literal people running switchboards, right? You'd tell them which number you wanted to connect with, and they'd connect physical wires do to this. And they had earpieces and were listening in, pretty much the whole time. It was trivial to record people's conversations back then, if someone nefarious wanted to.

    There really is no "good old days" when it comes to telecommunications technology. There are methods to actually do things today that are much more secure than ever before, but it requires that folks at both ends of the conversation have some savvy (and honestly, just some easy to use encryption tools).

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Why would I mean "over the worldwide web" when I said "Internet?" By "over the Internet" I mean between two computing devices which are connected to the Internet, each of which can be anywhere in the world an unfiltered Internet connection is possible.
    Those are often used as synonymous terms though. Well. Technically "web" often refers to http based content, but at the end of the day, that's just one type of "thing" that could be at the other end of a IP based connection.

    And btw. There is no such thing as an "unfiltered internet connection". Does not exist. Again, unless you are just directly connecting wires between your own computers, you are *always* going through someone else's network to get from point A to point B. I mean, you could be talking about higher level software usability tools (like web browsers), but even using other tools, you're still traversing the exact same connections, using the same routing protocols, and the same naming/addressing protocols to get there.

    How do you think "the internet" actually works? Even "the dark web (duh duh duh!)" uses the same protocols. The only difference is that they use unadvertised name servers and routing hosts to bounce packets around. They still go through the same switches, and the same backbone conduits, and use the same packet methods (sorta) as everything else. And are exactly as susceptible to being picked up along the way if someone is really trying to do so. It's honestly not terribly hard to noodle out when specific message forms are being sent across a network to a non-adverstised system, what that system is doing and acting as. Anyone with a computer terminal on a network segment can simply "listen in" to all traffic on the segment. Takes no special ability or access to do this (well, except having something plugged in right there).

    Unless I'm really not understanding what you mean by "unfiltered". Maybe clarify that? If you mean "not going through someone else's system and being processed" then you're in for a rude awakening.

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    By "secure" I meant "using strong end-to-end encryption."
    Which is perfectly valid. Again though, the actual transmission methodology is the same one being used for everything else. Encrypting the contents of a file is a very good idea. But it does not do anything about all the other layers involved in a communication "across the internet" that absolutely allows the entire thing you just sent to be copied by any number of people. You're just relying on them not wanting to spend the time/effort/cost to decrypt your message out of all the other messages out there.

    If you really don't want someone to hear what you are saying, then don't transmit it in any way at all. Period. Anything transmitted is capable of being copied. Always. Unless you physically own and control/secure every foot of wire between the endpoints of the communcation, this is always the case.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    And the whole "stuff gets copied" is how electronic files work.
    There's a difference between something being immediately retransmitted by a router or a repeater and it being needlessly saved in some secondary location

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post
    And what exactly is your alternative proposal? Again, once you get more complex than "two tin cans with a string", you're going to have these issues.
    Save the pbone message directky to the phone instead of storing it on a voicemail server. We've been through this.


    EDIT:
    Anoher thing I've noticed that seems needlessly rube-goldbergian, why do so many screen casting devices need access to your local wi-fi? Your phone has a transmitter and a receiver and so does the casting device, and they're in the same room of the same building, so why the heck can't they communicate directly? (edit: I've seen several that claim to be able to do this, but so far none of the ones I've bought have worked; all of them asked to connect to my local wi-fi and wouldn;t function without doing so)
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-03-09 at 09:34 PM.
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    That's the whole point of this discussion. All of these systems are needlessly rube-goldbergian
    A huge portion of the technologies and basic conveniences that make up modern life are based on somebody's hacked together poorly optimized proof-of-concept demo, which they assumed that once they got serious money in it and could get somebody interested in developing it they'd remake it to be better or the initial approach would only be used until somebody thought of a better way to do it.

    .. and then the proof of concept becomes the standard, warts and all, and everybody adopts it, and by the time it is widely known that it's kind of a terrible horrible no good way to do the thing -everybody is doing it- and changing off of it would require coordinating millions of people to shift to something new and cost billions of dollars to implement.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gbaji View Post




    And btw. There is no such thing as an "unfiltered internet connection". Does not exist. Again, unless you are just directly connecting wires between your own computers, you are *always* going through someone else's network to get from point A to point B. I mean, you could be talking about higher level software usability tools (like web browsers), but even using other tools, you're still traversing the exact same connections, using the same routing protocols, and the same naming/addressing protocols to get there.
    Sorry. "unfiltered internet connection" was shorthand meant to avoid details that would probably be against the forum rules.

    Suffice to say, I meant an internet connection that allows most normal traffic. One that isn't subject to [REDACTED POLITICAL REASONS] filtering of the sort that most of us here probably don't have to live with.

    I didn't mean the sorts of filtering that most, say, Usonians and Canadians experience daily with their Internet connections.

    If you have a better shorthand for that then please, suggest it and let us use it in this thread henceforth.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    There's a difference between something being immediately retransmitted by a router or a repeater and it being needlessly saved in some secondary location
    There is no difference that the sender or receiver can detect, the router saving itself a copy would be completely invisible at both ends. I don't know how many routers the typical internet connection goes through, could be 5, could be 50, probably isn't 5 million, any one of those could in theory make a copy, and none of the rest would know.
    Last edited by halfeye; 2023-03-10 at 08:31 AM.
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    There is no difference that the sender or receiver can detect, the router saving itself a copy would be completely invisible at both ends. I don't know how many routers the typical internet connection goes through, could be 5, could be 50, probably isn't 5 million, any one of those could in theory make a copy, and none of the rest would know.
    There is a philosophical difference between it maybe but probably not being saved by a middleman, who might not even get to see every packet of the overall transfer, and it definitely being saved by some cloud provider.

    Also, an actual factual practical concern is that the possible file size WILL be limited by the amount of storage space allowed by a cloud storage provider at whatever subscription tier is used. However, the practical limits on direct transfer are time, transfer speed, and patience. Even if you're only "getting close" to using up the storage limit of a cloud provider, that adds the extra step of having to manage the cloud storage carefully so as not to overload it.

    Sure, this is just pushing tradeoffs around, but there are lots of technologies where different approaches with different tradeoffs are available for various applications and preferences.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    There is no difference that the sender or receiver can detect, the router saving itself a copy would be completely invisible at both ends. I don't know how many routers the typical internet connection goes through, could be 5, could be 50, probably isn't 5 million, any one of those could in theory make a copy, and none of the rest would know.
    I'm not talking about routers making a copy, I'm talking about the needless extra step of it being held in cloud storage instead of being sent directly* to the recipient's phone.

    *directly as in [i]without stopping[i] at any intermediate point, Going through however many routers and however many repeaters but without ever stopping to be deliberately, and as part of the protocol, held on some intermediate drive that the recipient must actively contact.

    At the absolute most it only need be held only long enough for a connection to the recipient to be established, but even this is not strictly becessary if you're willing to re-send the file

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Also, an actual factual practical concern is that the possible file size WILL be limited by the amount of storage space allowed by a cloud storage provider at whatever subscription tier is used.
    Not to mention the fact that you generalky have to pay for their stupid middleman in the first place in order to make any non-trivial use of it. That in itself is a dealbreaker.

    Additionally, things stored on a cloud server may have to abide by terms of service. That's a dealbreaker as well. And some providers snoop through people's private files to make sure they're abiding by the TOS (and/or as part of some bogus pecksniffian crusade against one or more of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse to make themselves look good), and that's definitely a dealbreaker
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-03-10 at 03:07 PM.
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  18. - Top - End - #48
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    Why would I mean "over the worldwide web" when I said "Internet?" By "over the Internet" I mean between two computing devices which are connected to the Internet, each of which can be anywhere in the world an unfiltered Internet connection is possible.
    Because when you are talking about global connected network, you are talking of the world-wide web. That's not direct. Not even close. Anything that's not two terminals connected by a line involves going through routers and quite likely your message being transformed from hardline to wireless signal several times over, and each such point is one where the signal can be intercepted.

    Quote Originally Posted by gomipile View Post
    By "secure" I meant "using strong end-to-end encryption."
    I was not contesting your use of the word "secure". I was contesting your use of "direct". The entire point of strong encryption is that you can pass your message through an indirect channel like the internet and be reasonably sure the contents remain safe even if your signal gets intercepted.

    The actual answer to your question remains the same.

  19. - Top - End - #49
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Because when you are talking about global connected network, you are talking of the world-wide web.
    I guess the original definition of the world-wide web as the globally distributed hypertext document, using HTTP, and including many implicit or procedurally generated pages, is dead. This originated some years after the Internet was first created, as the large network using the Internet Protocol (IP). Just like "literally" as anything other than a vague intensifier is dead.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidSh View Post
    Just like "literally" as anything other than a vague intensifier is dead.
    And also "very" and "really" which also mean "literally"
    "If you want to understand biology don't think about vibrant throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology" -Richard Dawkins

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  21. - Top - End - #51
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    Because when you are talking about global connected network, you are talking of the world-wide web. That's not direct. Not even close. Anything that's not two terminals connected by a line involves going through routers and quite likely your message being transformed from hardline to wireless signal several times over, and each such point is one where the signal can be intercepted.
    I use the internet in ways that don't involve a browser, even a hidden one where the browser engine is used as a back-end way of retrieving and possibly displaying content. From your earlier post:

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    If by internet, you mean "over the worldwide web", rather than just TCP/IP protocol , you are doing some heavy abuse on the word "directly".
    It seemed like you were using a more or less normal definition of the World Wide Web. I guess that may not be the case?

    Colloquially, most techies I talk to associate the World Wide Web with the worldwide accessible collection of documents that can be accessed with HTTP in a browser. Technically, I know that current technical usage includes many document types and means of access, though AFAIK, always involves documents accesses with something like a browser.

    A direct transfer of a file that doesn't make that file available as part of the World Wide Web wouldn't be "over" the World Wide Web, I would think.
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    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    The real point is that it makes a difference whether you're talking of a specific messaging protocol versus the infrastructure.

    In a technical sense, if you're talking about just a protocol, you can send a file without using the world-wide web. You'll still be sending that file over the physical world-wide web.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    You'll still be sending that file over the physical world-wide web.
    If it's sent in a way that it's never addressable except locally inside the filesystems at each end, then it's never part of the World Wide Web.

    Say I'm sending it, then if I transfer it in a way that gives it a public address the recipient can use to access and then download it, then there might be an argument that it is part of the World Wide Web at that time. But, if I use an application that negotiates the transfer in some other way, say by the receiver agreeing to accept a connection and allocate the required storage, and then the application pushes a bunch of packets to the receiver without the file ever being addressable to pull from any filesystem, then the file is never "on" the World Wide Web by any useful definition I've seen.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    You are adamant to ignore the actual point in favor of pedantry, aren't you? The physical world-wide web is not the messaging protocol, it's the infrastructure that relays your message. Because this process is not direct, there are multiple points and multiple ways to intercept your message. That's what it physically means to transfer anything over the internet. Whether your message gets put on the internet in the sense of being accessible via a
    browser (etc.) is immaterial.

    Encryption as a form of security exist because the way of sending the message piggybacks on other people's machinery and there's no easy way to tell who might be eavesdropping or how many copies of your message are left in the system as it passes. This thing (f.ex.) Bohandas wishes for, a way for a signal to pass through the entire system without ever stopping, ever being held on an intermediate drive, so on and so forth? There are technological and infrastructural reasons why this doesn't, and likely can't, happen over the physical world-wide web. You want that, you have to build your own physical network, either via hardlines or some kind of directed energy impulse. Which messaging protocol your network uses, at that point, is a curiosity.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    You are adamant to ignore the actual point in favor of pedantry, aren't you? The physical world-wide web is not the messaging protocol, it's the infrastructure that relays your message. Because this process is not direct, there are multiple points and multiple ways to intercept your message. That's what it physically means to transfer anything over the internet. Whether your message gets put on the internet in the sense of being accessible via a
    browser (etc.) is immaterial.
    What you described above is the internet:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

    This article is about the worldwide computer network. For the global system of pages accessed via URLs, see World Wide Web.

    ...

    The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

    ...

    The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the late 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers.[2] The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s to enable resource sharing.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

    The Web was invented by English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN. He conceived it as an information management system using several concepts and technologies, the most fundamental of which was the connections that existed between information.[8][9][10] The first proposal was written in 1989,
    This may be ancient history that you don't want to know about, but some of us lived it, and it's not something we're going to forget just because you don't care.
    The end of what Son? The story? There is no end. There's just the point where the storytellers stop talking.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Additionally, things stored on a cloud server may have to abide by terms of service. That's a dealbreaker as well. And some providers snoop through people's private files to make sure they're abiding by the TOS (and/or as part of some bogus pecksniffian crusade against one or more of the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse to make themselves look good), and that's definitely a dealbreaker
    While I generally agree with wanting such services to not look through their clients' files, the unfortunate truth is that they may be liable for the content of said files depending on current local laws (which can be different for the client's, service provider's, and server location's various "locals") and whether or not the judge deciding the case when something happens is feeling agreeable. Unless we get a definitive, global law, I don't think this issue will go away. It probably won't go away even if we could get such a law, but at least for now I can see why some service providers would want that in their TOS. We just have to not use them.

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    You are simply restating information in a way that does not move the discussion forward in any manner. I already explained what the point was multiple times. Let's do it once more for clarity: if you want to talk about the specific messaging protocols used, then "the internet" is machines using TCP/IP and WWW is HTTP (etc.). But if you want to instead talk about the physical system of interconnected machines, then "global" is "world-wide" and "network" is"web".

    Notice that I'm using "physical" instead of "literal" because you pedants had to pre-emptively ruin that for me. If you'd not, the entire point could be collapsed to "in addition to the technical definition of world-wide web, there is a literal world-wide web of machines to run it".

    And I maintain that the answer to the title question is based on physical realities of that world-wide web.

  28. - Top - End - #58
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    If I'm talking about pets, I could use the word "cat" to mean "furry four-footed animal", so long as I'm careful to define my terms. But even if I'm careful to define my terms, using the word "cat" to mean "furry four-footed animal" will only cause confusion, because that's not what everyone else uses the word to mean. And so I don't use that word that way.

    Similarly, you can patiently explain that you're using the word "World Wide Web" to mean "the Internet", but even if you explain that, it's still needlessly confusing, because that's not what everyone else uses the word to mean. And there's already a perfectly good word for "the Internet", so there's not even any benefit to using the word "World Wide Web" instead.
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  29. - Top - End - #59
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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
    You are adamant to ignore the actual point in favor of pedantry, aren't you?
    It's not just pedantry. Whether a method is on the WWW or not is a useful distinction, and your wrong definition makes that distinction impossible to discuss with you until you check yourself and correct yourself.

    If a document/file does not have a URL, it isn't on, part of, or anything about the World Wide Web. Files, documents, other data, traffic, connections, etc. on our over the Internet that don't have URLs are not on the Web.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Why isn't there a standard way to securely transfer files directly over the Inter

    Quote Originally Posted by Chronos View Post
    Similarly, you can patiently explain that you're using the word "World Wide Web" to mean "the Internet", but even if you explain that, it's still needlessly confusing, because that's not what everyone else uses the word to mean.
    Actually in common speech they are interchangable, even if in technical parlance they are apparently not

    Quote Originally Posted by HeraldOfExius View Post
    While I generally agree with wanting such services to not look through their clients' files, the unfortunate truth is that they may be liable for the content of said files depending on current local laws (which can be different for the client's, service provider's, and server location's various "locals") and whether or not the judge deciding the case when something happens is feeling agreeable. Unless we get a definitive, global law, I don't think this issue will go away. It probably won't go away even if we could get such a law, but at least for now I can see why some service providers would want that in their TOS. We just have to not use them.
    Which further just drives my point home more that you shouldn't trust cloud servers. Even if the company wants to be trustworthy and decent there may be a law that says they can't be, and that they have to snoop like a bunch of creeps.
    Last edited by Bohandas; 2023-03-12 at 01:52 PM.
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