Back in my hacker day I used to have an SSH server open on my cellphone and use it to transfer files back and forth with my computer. Why isn't there a mainstream service like that?
1. P2P doesn’t give Google all that juicy mineable data that they get when everything you do makes round trips through their servers.
2. This would also implicitly encourage Android users to rely more on services like Google Drive/Docs for all files, which is good for them.
Edit: Apparently it is disputed that iOS has superior P2P file transfer support vs Android (see reply below), so perhaps all this is a moot point. I was assuming the truth of the parent post, and didn’t realize it was contentious; and since I’m not an Android or iOS expert, I can’t really argue that topic either way.
It's a feature of the Files app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... which has over 100M installs.
Look at the 3rd screenshot.
ENCRYPTED FILE SHARING
Files’s offline file sharing is secured with WPA2 encryption, providing a more secure file transfer. Files app uses Bluetooth to set up encrypted and direct fast wifi connection, so that you can transfer app APK or large files in seconds, send videos or pictures to your friends. Safe and secure.
SHARE FILES OFFLINE
Share your pictures, videos, documents, or apps with others nearby who also have the app. With fast speed up to 480 Mbps, it’s fast, free, and it works without the internet, so it doesn’t cost mobile data. Just pair up your phone with anyone nearby who has Files app.
EDIT: I know you said without going through the internet. Syncthing can be configured to only transfer over specific networks (e.g. home LAN/WI-FI)
I keep my phone's picture in sync with my personal computers ("send only" so I can remove old photos when my SD card is getting full).
I sync a "media" folder where I dump all the music and video I download with the youtube-dl CLI (a "yt" alias makes sure the files are stored in the right directory with some custom parameters).
I sync my KeepassXC databases (work and personal), between my personal Linux laptop, my Android phone and my work MacbookPro. Databases can be merged in a single click if there's any conflict (happens very rarely). I love the Android secure autofill service and fingerprint quick unlock
I use a "temp" folder to drag'n drop stuff between computers so I can file it properly on the right device. On Android, I prefer to use the Syncthing "sharing intent" to make any file/media available on my other devices in just a tap.
I also have installed Syncthing on my Android TV, and occasionally drop HD movies that I download on my phone over P2P (I have a pretty fast connection, so it's easier for me to choose a move from my phone, while in commute, have it download in a few seconds, and either stream it to my TV via Chromecast or open it from the synced folder through Kodi)
This really is a dream setup.
Here is the related issue: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/29
KDE Connect, https://community.kde.org/KDEConnect#What_is_KDE_Connect.3F i've been using it for years
export $(dbus-launch)
kdeconnect-cli -l
*then I sent the file from the phone*
Not technically internet so much as intranet.
If you're using Android, you could just use USB transfer using Android File Transfer [2]. Super easy, super fast.
[1] https://www.resilio.com/individuals/ [2] https://www.android.com/filetransfer/
You may also want to check Syncthing, which others have also recommended.
[0] https://userbase.kde.org/KDE_Connect/Tutorials/Useful_comman...
I'm sure people who know more than me will give me a list of great reasons why it's not straightforward to implement...
But it doesn't change the fact that I have this incredible device (iPhone X) with 256gb of blindingly fast NAND flash storage, of which I am only utilizing 30gb, yet I still have to tote around a f*ing stupid little plastic USB dongle if I want to copy some files around.
Nah, Android phones have done this forever, it's not technical difficulties stopping it from working. It's The Apple Way. They don't want you using your phone that way, or something.
It sounds like the only thing that would’ve satisfied you would’ve been for iOS to natively understand whatever the Microsoft system is for broadcasting videos? I agree it would be delightful if Apple and Microsoft could agree on a “I’m a short term drop-point” “send to any nearby open drop-point” API, but the absence of this doesn’t seem likely to be either Microsoft’s or Apple’s fault.
The Apple way to do this would’ve been to send an iCloud email. Apple Mail would’ve uploaded the file to a server, and a short-lived link would’ve been created, to avoid SMTP size limits.
Pretty much exactly what you ended up doing but manually via Firefox Send.
Since iOS 12 they also have a "copy iCloud link" share option that gives you a Dropbox-style file download page.
What could be done is to dedicate a file on the phone as block storage, and expose that as a mass storage device. This would suffer from the same problem (of the phone not being able to access it at the same time), but if it's dedicated "flash drive emulation" space then perhaps this behavior won't be as surprising to the user.
I don't think that's true. My S8 storage is mounted and accessible from my computer right now while at the same time playing music from the same storage. I can still take pictures/write to the storage.
Pointing out that the protocol used is leaky or bad in some technical way doesn't change that Android phones do in fact show up as removable storage devices when connected to (at least Windows) PC's. Your original assertion was incorrect.
samcday even said they just wanted to copy some files around. You don't need to be able to modify files in-place from the PC to accomplish this.
Android devices don't support UMS anymore.
They don't? Since when? I still have a Pixel 1 but it's running Android P, so the latest major version of Android, and this still works fine.
Wikipedia tells the sordid story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol#Compar...
Nevertheless, it's still removable storage that can take the place of the most common use case of portable flash drives: moving files around from one computer to another. Which is explicitly what we were originally talking about.
Pointing out that it doesn't work for some other use case that you yourself brought up doesn't make any sense. That's not what everyone else was talking about.
Ultimately this is an argument about the precise semantics of "removable storage". I don't regard an MTP device as "removable storage" - it's another computer that one speaks to using a special protocol, with severe limitations. So is an iPhone - with special, protocol-speaking software, you can certainly put arbitrary files on it. I interpreted the parent to mean that they wanted to plug the phone in to "any PC" and have it Just Work. MTP isn't so great at that, especially from my perspective as a Linux user, where MTP support is no more built-in than iOS-protocol support. From this standpoint, "removable storage" == "USB mass storage".
On the other hand, it sounds like whatever Apple provides is much worse even than MTP, and less well supported in general.
This is absurd. You don't get to tell someone, "you're wrong", then later when it's pointed out that the original assertion was actually true, then say, "oh, I meant that you're wrong as long as we're using my version of the word, the one that's very different from the one everyone else was using."
Sorry, but that's blatantly disingenuous. The original context was very clear. If you really meant, "well it sort of works as removable storage in one sense, but not in this other sense" you should've just said that to begin with.
As a possible explanation for this issue, I think that if you use the internet to share data, it's more likely that Google makes money from some of the interactions (either via ads in the app or via play store tax or idk because the service is hosted in GCP or whatever) than if you used an internet-free method, so Google doesn't prioritize bugfixes that would hurt their revenue. Edit: would love to be proven wrong though!
The argument from apple is even if you put a warning label on on a setting "allow filesystem access over SSH" for example, if you give users unmanaged file or other systems access, it will be exploited and in reality, what most users (or at least my mother and father) want is to just use their phone and never think about it.
It's fair not to like it and it may be wrong, but to imply that apple did it just to frustrate power users is either misinformed or dishonest.
Lastly there's a cool ios project https://github.com/tbodt/ish that gives you an emulated shell. Works pretty well.
Your only option today is MTP on Android, and it stinks.
At one time, Android did support showing up as a mass storage device. I know when I first got a G1, then the phone I had after that - both you could plug in, and they appeared as a mass storage device. Just like a USB thumb drive.
I don't recall if you could use the file system at the same time on both sides; I doubt it, though. This was never a problem for me. It just worked - just like a thumb drive.
Then something changed; I don't recall which Android version, but they gradually phased out the phone appearing as a USB drive, and started to phase in MTP. I recall MTP being absolute POS on Linux, barely workable everywhere else, and where it did work, it was slow.
It's gotten better over the years on all platforms, but it still isn't anything like it should be.
My theory on why they switched was to keep people from easily side-loading APKs, and backing them up easily, etc. I think it was all part of the battle to keep people from really owning their phones, keep them from rooting them, etc. The ever and ongoing battle in which nobody really wins, everything is left as rubble, and the results are futile, because if they lock things down completely, the people that want things open will just leave to create their own devices, and they don't really gain much.
As an aside - that's a direction I've been thinking about pursuing. There are now some relatively cheap 4G modules out there, and some open-source "phone" operating systems for the Raspberry Pi and other embedded controllers (with varying levels of "working-ness"). I'm just getting tired of not really owning my own phone, and I want to do something about it.
My current phone is an S7 (TMobile version) - and they've made it hard as heck to actually root; it seems like every time they come out with a way to do it, Samsung/T-Mobile updates to prevent it. I'm just tired of the whole cat-mouse thing; I want things completely open, even if it means I have to write my own apps.
Or, more realistically, by having file access mediated by the phone, you can:
* have the filesystem available to multiple systems at once. If it's mounted as USB mass storage then it must stop being visible to the phone itself. That's not great, especially if there are apps etc. there. To not have apps there, you'd need to partition. That sucks. So, also...
* you can use any filesystem you want. You're not restricted to things like VFAT. By not being USB mass storage, you can run BtrFS if you're so inclined and not have Windows get upset when you plug it in.
* the phone is able to restrict what is seen by the computer. This is a security benefit. I don't want someone slurping my TOTP key database because I foolishly leave my phone unlocked somewhere.
Also, you can still root phones just fine if you buy one that isn't user-hostile.
So, there are solid technical reasons for the change that make things better for a large number of users (who, amongst your average user these days, really wants to plug their phone in to the computer to move files around? I'd estimate vanishingly few.)
> My current phone is an S7 (TMobile version) - and they've made it hard as heck to actually root; it seems like every time they come out with a way to do it, Samsung/T-Mobile updates to prevent it.
Well of course they do. a) they are use hostile, so they don't give you a path. b) because there's no official path, any method that does exist must be a security vulnerability. Do you want to have a vulnerable device?
Don't buy user hostile stuff and then complain that it doesn't let you do what you want.
I bet it was simply to prevent having to implement FAT32 or some feature related to FAT and pay royalties to MS for that, like long filename support or similar.
This is why MTP was created. However MTP is - in my experience - complete garbage and creates as many problems as it solves.
So yeah, apple is only mobile you cant do this on at all, and apple is only desktop OS you cant access other phones that permit it on (without installing some 3rd party tool).
As an aside, I write this as an apple user (iphone, ipad, watch, macbook pro), and Im feeling quite infuriated thinking back on this.
I get the point of MTP is that is't supposed to be a transparent (to the user) interface but my experience is it falls short by a long way of achieving this in practice.
But, they don’t let you access to full file system for some reason.
Instead, there are these 3 ways to share files between your phone and other machines: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201301
So not so much for my Linux box or my Android phone, then. As usual with Apple's shiny crap it "all just works" as long as you're only playing inside the walled tarpit.
We have tons of protocols for transferring files over networks, there's no reason for them to go to the public Internet, nor for them to be mobile phone specific.
https://github.com/andyholmes/gnome-shell-extension-gsconnec...
Proprietary but free as in beer.
I do have an iPhone and I love AirDrop for sharing photos with the few friends who also have an iPhone but it's not even an option for me with a Linux laptop.
Works great, and I'm planning on integrating that functionality into my project which transfers files between laptops using only wireless cards, no LAN required. https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet
The correct way to do this is to configure your phone to emulate USB mass storage and then connect with a USB cable.
Your phone looks like a thumb drive. It's the easiest workflow in the world.
Unfortunately, this workflow is off limits because of some licensing requirement from MS for fat32 (or something) which is why neither android nor ios has this very basic, simple feature.
Your comment took me a little by surprise actually because there's no actual need for the internet in SSH and in fact I probably do 90% of my SSHing on local networks. But I guess your usage differs significantly?
I do use this arrangement with split DNS: inside the local LAN, the desktop's DNS resolves to the desktop directly; outside, it resolves to the gateway's external port, whence it's NATed to the desktop. SSH from anywhere :)
What I'm really looking for is a Share button enabled app that can POST arbitrary files to a customizable URL.
It seems like this should be a solved problem but maybe it takes a Mozilla or some other larger entity to push the marketing and the customer support and development to really solve the problem of transferring large files securely.
It's decentralized, end-to-end encrypted and does local discovery of devices on a LAN so it will also works offline.
As long as one device lives and is synced, I have a copy of the files.
IMO if something doesn't require the internet connection, it is more likely to be called "software", not a "service".
I run the reverse; my laptop runs sshd and then I ssh/scp/rsync from termux on my phone. But either way works.
If there's any chance of this thing being exposed to a public network (like, say, a cell network), I'd say that's a very good thing!
woof -i <ip_address> -p <port> <filename>
termux: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux&hl=....
woof: http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/woof.html
Edit:
1. Allows directory upload/download (tar/gzip/bzip2 compressed)
2. Local file server (doesn't go over the internet)
3. Allows upload form (-U option)
4. Allows file to be served <count> number of times (-c option)
cd my/directory && python3 -m http.server 80That uses MTP which the OP already discounted as being "a mess". Frankly my experience matches his and thus I actively avoid MTP whenever I can.
> I think the problem is if its too easy then people will be copying files off of each others phones without permission.
You usually need to unlock the phone to use MTP. If an attacker has access to unlock your phone then it makes no difference if they copying the files via USB, Dropbox, email or whatever - your attacker already has the permission they need to do so.