I am building an encrypted end-to-end file/folder sharing service with zero trust server architecture. Looking for feedbacks.

Posted by BasePlate_Admin@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 50 comments

I am building an encrypted end-to-end file/folder sharing service with zero trust server architecture. Looking for feedbacks.

Hello Everyone, I released an encrypted file/folder sharing service (inspired heavily by firefox send) licensed under MPL-2.0. # Main Features: * Client side encryption * Client side decryption * Optional password encryption * Backend automatic file eviction logic based on the number of downloads or the time specified. # Target: * Give the internet an open source customizable end-to-end encrypted file sharing app that can be self hosted with low end hardwares (the public instance is running in a core 2 duo system with 4 gb ram, backed by harddisk that is running a lot of [services](https://github.com/baseplate-admin/homelab)) * Give users a better version of firefox send, or it's [Tim Visée fork](https://github.com/timvisee/send) # Encryption algorithms * AES-256GCM for encrypting the file's content and the metadata * Argon2 for deriving the IKM for the password (ikm is randomly generated based on [WebCrypto.getRandomNumbers()](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Crypto/getRandomValues) # Future Plan: * Write docs (will do right after i polish the logics) * Write a CLI (the main method of using the public instance) * Write a TUI (the least priority for me right now) # More images: * ![Image 1](https://ibb.co.com/CK5126hd) * ![Image 2](https://ibb.co.com/XZpVkfJT) * ![Image 3](https://ibb.co.com/NdKhQg4K) * ![Image 4](https://ibb.co.com/G48bjNKp) Thanks for reading, happy to have any kind of feedback regarding the app i am making. Github: [https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi](https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi) Public instance: [https://chithi.dev/](https://chithi.dev/)

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Maleficent-Let-9865@reddit

love the ui

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Thank you so much

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aeiou_@reddit

Why would I use it instead of keybase?

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, thanks for commenting. You would use this over \`keybase\` because of: \* You want to self host your own \`chithi\` instance \* You want customizable upload config \* You want to share files with other users that dont have \`keybase\` \* You want to help others share file over an encrypted system. I probably can give more reasons, but these are on top of my head.

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aeiou_@reddit

\> You want to self host your own \`chithi\` instance ok \> You want customizable upload config Not sure what that means \> You want to share files with other users that dont have \`keybase\` As opposed to not wanting to share files with people that don't have chithi? \> You want to help others share file over an encrypted system. As you can do with keybase. Am not trying to be argumentative, but keybase has had third-party security reviews, and am just trying to understand whether you've looked at alternatives, which I'm sure there are many, and why you'd recommend yours over others. Perhaps you could give an advantages/benefits comparison table over contemporary alternatives (of which keybase might not be one).

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

> You want customizable upload config Not sure what that means. This means, you want to limit users the maximum file size they can upload in one go, and the max storage your instance have access to --- > You want to share files with other users that dont have `keybase` As opposed to not wanting to share files with people that don't have chithi? Chithi is just a webapp, you can share your link with anyone and they can download it. They just need a browser. Non-tech persons dont care about privacy or encrypted system. They just want something that they can click and download. Chithi was made with that in mind. --- > You want to help others share file over an encrypted system. As you can do with keybase. Ya, but 1. I cannot self host it. This makes it impossible to use in situation(like mine inside a country's army infrastructure). 2. The server is not open source. I cannot audit it. 3. Files i am sharing are with non-tech people, the kind of people that would much prefer getting their files from google drive. > Am not trying to be argumentative, but keybase has had third-party security reviews, and am just trying to understand whether you've looked at alternatives Yep, i used to personally host a firefox send instance before i wrote chithi(you can see the similarities). I wanted a customizable version of firefox send that can be 1. Configured from admin panel 2. Work without redeployment > Perhaps you could give an advantages/benefits comparison table over contemporary alternatives (of which keybase might not be one). I agree, i will have a comparison table soon --- Thank you for your kind advice.

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BaconCatBug@reddit

Standards.xkcdcomic

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Except it's built on existing standard? firefox send, wormhole all uses this exact mechanism?

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lmm7425@reddit

I'm always nervous of new apps that are based around encryption. How much of this was written by AI? What background do you have with encryption-focused apps?

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, all the encryption algorithm was 1. Taken directly from send 2. Replaced by my knowledge (argon2 part) 3. Personally talked with my University professors who have higher degree in Cryptography. > How much of this was written by AI? Nearly zero percent. I wanted to do a hobby project. So i thought to make a cryptography focused side project. The project was made to brush up my skill in svelte for an upcoming project.

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TU4AR@reddit

Nearly but not all , what was?

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Animations that are on the page.

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TU4AR@reddit

Well at least your upfront about it, I don't mind

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Thank you.

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stormdelta@reddit

You _should_ be concerned about that. Especially since security is one of the things AI tools are worst at when it comes to coding, and there's already a lot of other good open source tools for this.

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, the approach is the same used by firefox send, with more hardening. For example firefox send does not use Argon2 to hash the password(chithi does). I actually talked with my teachers in my University who took a look at the codes and did not find any flaws with the approach. If anyone points any major flaw with any of the protocol/cryptography implementation, i will bite my bullet and delete this project.

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outsbe@reddit

Well I hope you don't give up so easily 😅

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Thank you. It means a lot.

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

what's the difference to [Lufi](https://github.com/ldidry/lufi)? what makes it better?

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

why did you delete your answer? tbh it was good. I know that Lufi is using old tech, that's why I asked :) But tbh again I forgot a question\^\^

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi u/Super-Duke-Nukem, please check DM, i have sent you the answers :)

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

got it thanks, hope it's OK if I reply tomorrow (or later, idk yet). But thanks for the answers so for! appreciate it!

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Its okay, feel free to reply anytime. Have a good day

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Uh did i delete my answer? I think the answer is in the [comment below](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1qpljbs/comment/o2bz7gc/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)?

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

says: >\[deleted\] > >Comment has been removed

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Wait what, i didn't delete no comment -\_-, was it done by an admin?

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

Thanks for the pic, idk why I can't see it. It reddit removes it, you neither see it afair. Maybe it happened because you have edited it? and my question: why is it a zip file in the end? is it a zip on the server too? (is it for needing less space?) how does the cleanup work? (how does it log the downloads, just a ticker going up?) thanks for your time :)

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

\> one thing about your docker setup, either use 127.0.0.1:xxxx or don't expose the ports you only need internally in a/the docker network. If someone copies your compose files, he exposes redis and co over the network. Well i have firewall rules exposing only 80 and 443 port, you cannot access any other port in my IP :)

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

It's just proper best practice :) and it's mostly for others. Just think that someone will use that setup on a VPS. With standard docker iptables, redis is open to the www.

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Sigh, God knows what is wrong with reddit today. Oh ya, i do plan on having a proper docs soon :) Just looking for small feedback before i release the v1 thank you so much for your comments :) You made my day.

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Super-Duke-Nukem@reddit

Happy to help. I like your project :) but you still haven't answered all my questions tbh\^\^ and my question: why is it a zip file in the end? is it a zip on the server too? (is it for needing less space?) how does the cleanup work? (how does it log the downloads, just a ticker going up?)

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

I did answer, Let me copy paste, --- Thank you for your questions. > why is it a zip file in the end? it helps me wrap my mental model around dealing with one file.You can upload multiple files in chithi? If you upload multiple files in chithi, it automatically converts them to zip and uploads them to server. > Why did i specifically pick `zip`? Zip files are the most common file format, almost everyone i come across (including non programmers, non tech persons) knows how to unzip a zip archive. That's the reason. > how does the cleanup work? There's a task queue(celery) and a scheduler(beat) running in the background. The scheduler checks it checks if there's expired files and schedules a deletion on a task queue. The task queue then sees that there's a file to be deleted and actually does the deletion part. The task queue also erases the database entry on file deletion (so that even the person who is hosting the backend instance does not have any logs) > how does it log the downloads, just a ticker going up? On every download request, an increment is added to the field `download_count`, if it reaches `expire_after_n_download` the file is considered expired (and the deletion is scheduled). --- I can probably explain this better. But i am feeling tired right now, let me know if you want a bit more clarification. Have a good day

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

> looking forward to test it and host my own instance :) Please let me know if you run into any issues :)

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, i haven’t studied the repository fully. But over the top of the head, * Chithi is SPA first. Compared to Lufi(which is jQuery based) * there's no public instance monitoring, i dont know which instances are up and which instances are down. * the backend server removes the file entry for chithi (I dont see any periodical task runner for Lufi) * Lufi doesnt use browser based encryption, they have their own crypto implementation using the [`Stanford Crypto Library`](http://bitwiseshiftleft.github.com/sjcl/) * Lufi sends file type metadata, where as chithi sends only the Binary data.(even the server Doesn't know if the stream is a file, it just sees binary 0/1) Overall, Lufi seems to be a good base implementation. If i had a bit more expertise in perl i might've been able to improve the Lufi implementation. Thanks for reading.

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chocopudding17@reddit

1. What makes this better than Firefox Send/its fork? 2. This seems pretty dang AI-made. Why should anyone trust that this is high quality software that will remain high quality over time? 3. This probably doesn't belong on /r/Linux. It's got no direct relevance, beyond being software that can run on Linux.

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Least_Amount_8438@reddit

Genuinely curious, what makes you think it’s AI? Is it the post, or the code?

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chocopudding17@reddit

The post was definitely a starting point. Also the number, frequency, and size of commits in a project that's only ~1 month old. I'm not certain, and this is vibes based. Based on their participation in their comments, I would much rather take OP at their word that this is not AI. The code base also isn't as massive as lots of vibe-coded projects are. But it is still a lot of code, with a lot of boilerplate (Django, tons of fine-grained Svelte components with consistently managed names and directory layouts) in a short time. And many of those rapid commits are quite beefy. Take the initial implementation of `src/frontend/src/lib/functions/streams.ts` in `9c7f9ff` (called "feat: Fix download"--that alone is 326 new lines of commented code in a +785/-123 commit that was made a mere two hours after another commit. Maybe I'm just too crappy a coder to think that that's plausible. But imo it's another argument for this being LLM-made (or at least -assisted).

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Least_Amount_8438@reddit

I’m still a student, who is very much against AI since I feel like I learn nothing from it, but I still search for solutions to problems that some times end up copy pasted while modifying them, and general boilerplate templates. I sometimes have commits that look similar, but on the flip side I’m sure my code also containd various design flaws or security/performance issues lol

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, i am also a student. Life is tough when i have to maintain grades and invest time into opensource. I dont like taking shortcut so doing works in semester break.

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Let me shed some light on this, \> The post was definitely a starting point. Also the number, frequency, and size of commits in a project that's only \~1 month old. That's because this is how i work, once i start something, i wont stop til i finish it. I stop eating, sleeping and having fun. My mind is set on one thing and that is to finish what i start (because i get a few months every year to code). \> And many of those rapid commits are quite beefy I spent nearly 8 hours fixing that damn broken \`feat: Fix Download\` thing. The commits \[before\](https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi/commit/88dd19e5e736359e9d74398080c994db908fbfda) and \[after\](https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi/commit/d6f1402143807fbe6a8f6bb8e3dd9a8a4458402f) are very small. The streams.ts file was edited in another branch, and was directly merged with the branch. Many might call this anti-pattern but i am used to develop like this. Thats why some of the commits may look large, but i created those in separate branch and was iterating on it. Back when i wrote the project, most of my comments were "add", "ADDD" and so on, was not really interested in keeping the history clean. \> But it is still a lot of code, with a lot of boilerplate (Django, tons of fine-grained Svelte components with consistently managed names and directory layouts) in a short time. Most of the codes here are inspired by other projects i wrote. I have this \[\`coreproject-v3-ui\`\](https://github.com/baseplate-admin/coreproject-v3-ui),\[\`coreproject-v4-ui\`\](https://github.com/baseplate-admin/coreproject-v4-ui/) and \[\`printing-press\`\](https://github.com/zarif-ahnaf/printing-press). I landed on this layout after experimenting (and some of the code patterns are same, if you look at it). \--- Well look, i have said what i did. If you still have a strong feeling it's AI written, i cannot change your mind. I have been working on-off with this exact stack (python+svelte) for 3+ years. I couldn't have done it if it was written in a stack that is not native to me (like nest.js+react). Have a good day.

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chocopudding17@reddit

Thanks for the response. I'm sorry to have caused offense. Your response here is convincing. I believe what you say, and retract my statement. I can also get very fixated on things, and my commit history can look unconvincing too. I'm sorry you had to bear the brunt of my skepticism here. It's an unfortunately side effect of the world getting flooded by slop.

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Its okay, no offense taken mate, Cheers!

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chocopudding17@reddit

Cheers for doing things by hand!

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Alles_@reddit

Is the encryption client side faster than send? it takes a long while to upload a file to send because the encryption algo is slow, i can average just 10mb/s on a ryzen 5800

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

> Is the encryption client side faster than send? YES, I am really glad that someone noticed it. --- Background: While the send uses 1 thread (render thread) to encrypt the file's content, chithi uses [Workers](https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi/tree/main/src/frontend/src/lib/workers) to use multiple CPU cores. [The concurrency algorithm is `max(1, cpu_count*2||4)`](https://github.com/chithi-dev/chithi/blob/3a614f74e198359855e31d08e3853c2c11dd986f/src/frontend/src/lib/functions/streams.ts#L24). Each file is split into chunks and the code assigns one worker per chunk. After work is done, the chunks are reassembled in memory(think of it like primitive multiprocessing). I am tweaking the algorithms to use more CPU --- Thank you for commenting. If you have any questions regarding this, i would be happy to answer.

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Alles_@reddit

I still have to try it actually 😅 file encryption being slow was my biggest gripe with send that's why I asked. Will try your solution soon, thanks

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Please do note that, my instance is running on old hardware(as i currently lack the funds to rent/buy a new server). So upload speed might be a bit slow

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MarzipanEven7336@reddit

IPFS

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BasePlate_Admin@reddit (OP)

Hi, the project is not meant to compete with IPFS. * IPFS is peer to peer, while the project is client-server. * IPFS has no Metadata privacy, (who is requesting what can be inferred), chithi has Metadata privacy built in. --- Let's say you are someone who wants to share something with someone, but don't want them to know your IP, thats where you use this service. --- Happy to answer any more questions you have regarding this :)

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jthill@reddit

So, it's better than hyphanet? How exactly?

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