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Magic Wormhole: get things from one computer to another, safely

(github.com)
816 points tosh | 2 comments | 17 Aug 24 16:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.455s | source
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netsec_burn ◴[17 Aug 24 18:01 UTC] No.41276529[source]▶
I've used wormhole once to move a 70 GB file. Couldn't possibly do that before. And yes, I know I used the bandwidth of the relay server, I donated to Debian immediately afterwards (they run the relay for the version in the apt package).
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teruakohatu ◴[17 Aug 24 18:28 UTC] No.41276736[source]▶
The wormhole transit protocol will attempt to arrange a direct connection and avoid transferring data through the relay.
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1. bredren ◴[17 Aug 24 21:29 UTC] No.41278133[source]▶
Is there a switch to fail rather than fall back on relay?
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2. lotharrr ◴[17 Aug 24 22:44 UTC] No.41278629[source]▶
Not really.. the closest approximation would be if both sides set their `--transit-helper` to an unusable port like `tcp:localhost:9`. That would effectively remove the relay helpers from the negotiation list, leaving just the direct connection hints.

But you can't currently force that from one side: if you do that, but the other side doesn't override it too, then you'll both include their relay hint in the list.

Note that using the relay doesn't affect the security of the transfer: there's nothing the relay can do to violate your confidentiality (learn what you're sending) or integrity (cause you to receive something other than what the sender intended). The worst the relay can do is to prevent your transfer from happening entirely, or make it go slowly.