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Comment by sieabahlpark | Hacker News Reader

I think torrenting is one of those things that people understand is sketchy without it actually being sketchy. People also don't just leave it open forever, there usually leeching or seeding and then close the program when it's done. You're probably more likely to get a virus from the pirates exe. (Save me the reply that explains you can use torrenting legally, I already know.)

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I needed to get a 100+ gb image to a coworker remote once and after fighting with it for a while we just said screw it and created a torrent. No third parties. No relays. Just us.

Worked well enough then we promptly forgot how to do it again when we needed it.

I've run into the same problem: if you want to share large files to a friend you need to either find a filehost that accepts very large files or use torrents (maybe something like irc transfer works too).

IRC transfer? I hope you are not referring to DCC. :P

I am

IRC transfer being some form of InfraRed Communication.

And DCC being Direct Cable Connection.

File transfers on IRC are via DCC[1] (Direct Client-to-Client Protocol)

S/He did reply "I am" though.

That said, I think torrents are still a great way to share files, perhaps IPFS[2]. I use LocalSend[3], too, at times, although not for large files.

[1] https://modern.ircdocs.horse/dcc.html

[2] https://ipfs.tech/

[3] https://localsend.org

I've done this with friends/family a couple times and wrote up a tutorial that I use as reference every couple months.

Has an optional step to password-protect the contents if you have any qualms with security-by-obscurity of using an unlisted torrent on a public tracker.

https://loganhood.com/2023/12/14/everyday-7zip-bittorrent

Yeah I've been surprised by how unsketchy torrenting is compared to how sketchy it should be. You'd think even just for videos, there must be absolutely tons of RCEs in VLC or whatever. Yet I've never seen one actually used.

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