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Comment by d-z-m | Hacker News Reader

I looked around and couldn't find a description of the protocol by which two peers authenticate to each other/transfer files. Also, is the E2EE encryption referred to simply whatever is being used to encrypt the transport(DTLS/SRTP/etc)? or are you doing additional encryption/decryption of files?

Also I'm curious like others, does this only work if no nat traversal is required? or are you leveraging public stun/turn infrastructure?

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WebRTC it is: https://webrtc.org/

Yes only the network layer encryption. No file encryption as it will cost client browsers a lot in case of encrypting and then decrypting that at other end.

I have written more about it here: https://dikshantraj2001.medium.com/nat-stun-turn-and-ice-466...

Currently, I am using the public STUN servers only. If the IPs are not reachable, it would show an error and won't work as setting up TURN server would mean same as a third party server saving in file and serving it over network

You can use https://npmjs.com/e2ee.js (disclaimer: I am the author) for basic end to end encryption in the browser (uses the webcrypto api). It supports encrypting and decrypting a web stream as well which you could use.

Ideally I would not have to trust the signalling server to ensure I'm transferring files to who I think I am[0]. Not as much of a knock against your project as a knock against webRTC in general.

[0]: https://webrtchacks.com/webrtc-and-man-in-the-middle-attacks...

Has anyone considered a passphrase that splits into three words, where the middle server can decrypt one word and deliver a word and get a response then provide the whole phrase three words to prove it is the messenger that Bob sent?

Or something like that?

It's webrtc, no?

yes it is using webRTC. will open source the repo soon. BTW there are all information about it in different threads

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