Plug In Programming Challenge

[Maconvert]

Hello,

OK, I have a challenge for all of you programming guru’s out there.

I have a friend who lives in a country with Draconian copy-protection laws.
He’s totally (and justifiably) freaked out about getting sued.
My country on the other hand is ranked up there with China in terms of relaxed copy protection legislation.
That may change in the future, but, for now, I don’t worry about it too much.

Currently I am running Deluge as my torrent download application on an Ubuntu Linux box. I have configured an auto load folder on my system that Deluge constantly monitors to see if a torrent file has arrived. When a torrent file get’s dumped into the auto load folder, Deluge immediately starts downloading the file that the torrent points to.

So, this is what I want to do for my buddy…

I am going to give him remote access to my auto load folder and my completed download folder. That way he can download torrents and paste them in the auto load folder on my network. Then, when his downloads are complete he can copy them from my PC’s completed folder to his PC. The tricky part is that he will need to encrypt the files on my end before he downloads them to his PC. He doesn’t want his ISP getting a whiff of what he’s downloading from me.

So, the challenge is this, how can my friend, with limited skills on his Windows XP PC and zero Linux skills (with no desire to acquire them) initiate a file encryption operation on the file he’s just had my PC download for him? Something as simple as pasting a text file in the “completed” download folder with the “to be encrypted” file name, the “encrypted” file name, and an “unlock” password is totally acceptable. Something more elegant is even better, but I’m only looking for the bare minimum here.

Anyway, let me know what everybody thinks.



Cheers!

[loki]

Sounds like a completely different program would be required. But theres probably a much easier way...

On your computer, just zip the files to be transferred and for even more protection you could even use a password on it. If I'm not mistaken all 'they' would see is a transfer of a compressed file, and if it's password protected theres almost virtually no way to know whats inside.

I assume he already knows how to access your computer through a network for this to be a viable option. If not that might be the biggest hurdle.

[Maconvert]

Hi,

Yeah, I thought of that already.
The problem is that this would require that I do it for him.
I want him to be able to do everything without my intervention.

Thanks.

[danii]

you could run a ssh or sftp server and your friend could use something like WinSCP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinSCP) I think it's simple enough to use by a average Windows XP user, other solution could be creating a VPN between you and your friend, but I think setting up a ssh server is easier and you're probably running one already, uploading the torrents to your machine would,also ,be quite simple

I don't see a reason for making a plugin for such a specific situation, specially if you can do what you want with tools that are already available

[Maconvert]

Hello,

Would putty work too?
I've been using that to connect to the network at my school.

So, provided I had some encryption software that can be run from the console (i.e. accepts arguments), can you give me an example of what that would look like? (I'm still pretty new to Linux).

I'm assuming that he would need to send an SSH command to connect to my PC, provide a password, run the encryption software (passing arguments like file name, encrypted filename, and password), and then copy the newly encrypted file from my PC to his. Actually, if he uses secure file copy, does he even need to encrypt the file? I mean, can the ISP detect what file is being transferred. If secure file copy is all that is required, this might be easier than I thought.

Can anybody tell me how to set this up on my Linux PC (running Ubuntu) and give me the console commands that my friend will need to use on his end to make this happen? It would be greatly appreciated!



Thanks!

P.S.
I guess I will have to set up port forwarding on my Linksys wireless router too.

[danii]

PuTTY is only a shell client, I think WinSCP is perfect for what you want, it works like every other graphic ftp client and supports both SCP and SFTP, and with this two protocols communication between you and your friend is encrypted, so all you need is a SSH or SFTP server, no need for an extra encryption program

[priegog]

Hi. Just here to provide my much less elegant (but infinitely easier) solution. Activate your remote desktop and set a password for your friend. Have him download a free vnc client, like tightVNC. Have him enter your computer using that, (i'm assuming you have solved the ip address issue and the ample bandwith issue). Then have him skype the files to himself. Skype uses all available bandwith and also encrypts file transfers end to end.
my 2 cents.

[danii]

Hi. Just here to provide my much less elegant (but infinitely easier) solution. Activate your remote desktop and set a password for your friend. Have him download a free vnc client, like tightVNC. Have him enter your computer using that, (i'm assuming you have solved the ip address issue and the ample bandwith issue). Then have him skype the files to himself. Skype uses all available bandwith and also encrypts file transfers end to end.
my 2 cents.

well that's another solution... but I don't think it's easier than using WinSCP, also only some VNC servers/clients support protocol encryption (Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software), and in my opinion I don't think Skype is the best alternative to file transfers (Skype#Security_concerns) and by the way SCP also uses the available bandwidth, and in WinSCP you can slow down the download/upload speed if you want