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Sad! Developer of `ffsend` here. I've built `ffsend` as CLI tool for Send to securely share files from the command line. It has been a great success! Thanks Mo

Sad! Developer of `ffsend` here. I've built `ffsend` as CLI tool for Send to securely share files from the command line. It has been a great success! Thanks Mozilla, for building and providing this amazing service! For the interested: https://github.com/timvisee/ffsend https://github.com/timvisee/ffsend I'm currently hosting a public Send instance myself so ffsend keeps working. Let's see how long I can keep this going (and funded). It's available at send.vis.ee .

dmix 6y ago
Was this shutting down as surprising and out-of-left-field to yourself as someone more closely connected to the project, as it seems to me?
- timvisee 6y ago
  Pretty much. They suddenly took it down for 'maintenance'. The relaunch was delayed. Mozilla released a statement on laying off 250 employees. That's when I figured it wouldn't come back online again.
  - sfink 6y ago
    I don't have any specific knowledge, but my general impression was that malware was a very real issue that nobody could come up with a realistic response to. Other than that, it seems like Send was a breakout success. (I work for Mozilla, but mostly on the JS engine.)
    - abnercoimbre 6y ago
      With the utmost respect, can somebody please tell if anyone thought of requiring a Firefox account? Or charge $2/mo and go from there? Products usually iterate on design and security, no? Not just give up right away? Some of us recommended a Firefox+ service that bundles Firefox Send, the VPN, etc. and charge a monthly premium. I would've paid a lot of money. Nothing makes any sense looking from outside!
      - behnamoh 6y ago
        Somehow Mozilla nowadays reminds me of Yahoo! in the late 2000s and its struggles to remain relevant.
      - 40four 6y ago
        They didn’t require a Firefox account, but encouraged it by giving a significant file size limit increase. I think you’re right, seems ashamed to give up so soon. I just have to imagine it’s a result of their current circumstances as a company. In times of layoffs, I imagine there simply aren’t the resources to keep this thing going. I do like the idea of a ‘Firefox +’ type of service though.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      2 questions: 1) how? 2) how did you know? I can't quite see how malware would be sent with this? An exploiter uploads a file, then gets someone to download it - where's the secret sauce, why does this work better than hosting the file; each file is only downloadable once IIRC? Next, how were Mozilla able to determine the contents of files shared (but not able to just drop by hash known malware, or run antivirus heuristics)?
      - fencepost 6y ago
        The sending of malware part might be to get files served from a somewhat more trusted (and less likely to be blocked) domain. No matter how many files you sent through it, it was much less likely to get blocked at the DNS level by Quad9, OpenDNS, DNSFilter, etc. than some random compromised website. There's also a real incentive to having files retrievable only once, because if someone downloads the file and AV kills it, that email can't be passed along to someone so they can get their own clean copy for analysis. As for how to identify it, because files were being encrypted before sending that probably was being done by seeing how much the service ended up in spam/phishing attempts - they may well have been able to get that information from filtering software vendors.
      - staticassertion 6y ago
        It's very common for malware to use services like this: 1) To host secondary payloads 2) To exfiltrate user data 3) In some cases even to coordinate commands to payloads
        therealx 6y ago
        I didn't think about exfiltration - good point. I guess they could just host their own instance on <insert compromised server here> like the good old days.
        staticassertion 6y ago
        Malware authors like nice APIs, just like devs do. They love when it's really nice and simple to just push some data to a storage service.
    - therealx 6y ago
      On other projects, we solved this by incorporating virustotal checking. Sure, a 0day or custom malware may get through, but thats a small number at the end of the day.
  - ike0790 6y ago
    blackhole.run is a neat FOSS encrypted service similar to FireFox Send. I'm not affiliated at all just thought i'd mention it
chzplza 6y ago
should be obvious what happened "malware" means it facilitated child porngraphy and far worse I mean what could possibly go wrong when you have such a public and easy to use service that "encrypts" on the client side and allows self destructive payloads? that or it was a honey pot and got enough of you perverts sort of like google 411

dmix 6y ago

Was this shutting down as surprising and out-of-left-field to yourself as someone more closely connected to the project, as it seems to me?

timvisee 6y ago
Pretty much. They suddenly took it down for 'maintenance'. The relaunch was delayed. Mozilla released a statement on laying off 250 employees. That's when I figured it wouldn't come back online again.
- sfink 6y ago
  I don't have any specific knowledge, but my general impression was that malware was a very real issue that nobody could come up with a realistic response to. Other than that, it seems like Send was a breakout success. (I work for Mozilla, but mostly on the JS engine.)
  - abnercoimbre 6y ago
    With the utmost respect, can somebody please tell if anyone thought of requiring a Firefox account? Or charge $2/mo and go from there? Products usually iterate on design and security, no? Not just give up right away? Some of us recommended a Firefox+ service that bundles Firefox Send, the VPN, etc. and charge a monthly premium. I would've paid a lot of money. Nothing makes any sense looking from outside!
    - behnamoh 6y ago
      Somehow Mozilla nowadays reminds me of Yahoo! in the late 2000s and its struggles to remain relevant.
    - 40four 6y ago
      They didn’t require a Firefox account, but encouraged it by giving a significant file size limit increase. I think you’re right, seems ashamed to give up so soon. I just have to imagine it’s a result of their current circumstances as a company. In times of layoffs, I imagine there simply aren’t the resources to keep this thing going. I do like the idea of a ‘Firefox +’ type of service though.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    2 questions: 1) how? 2) how did you know? I can't quite see how malware would be sent with this? An exploiter uploads a file, then gets someone to download it - where's the secret sauce, why does this work better than hosting the file; each file is only downloadable once IIRC? Next, how were Mozilla able to determine the contents of files shared (but not able to just drop by hash known malware, or run antivirus heuristics)?
    - fencepost 6y ago
      The sending of malware part might be to get files served from a somewhat more trusted (and less likely to be blocked) domain. No matter how many files you sent through it, it was much less likely to get blocked at the DNS level by Quad9, OpenDNS, DNSFilter, etc. than some random compromised website. There's also a real incentive to having files retrievable only once, because if someone downloads the file and AV kills it, that email can't be passed along to someone so they can get their own clean copy for analysis. As for how to identify it, because files were being encrypted before sending that probably was being done by seeing how much the service ended up in spam/phishing attempts - they may well have been able to get that information from filtering software vendors.
    - staticassertion 6y ago
      It's very common for malware to use services like this: 1) To host secondary payloads 2) To exfiltrate user data 3) In some cases even to coordinate commands to payloads
      - therealx 6y ago
        I didn't think about exfiltration - good point. I guess they could just host their own instance on <insert compromised server here> like the good old days.
        staticassertion 6y ago
        Malware authors like nice APIs, just like devs do. They love when it's really nice and simple to just push some data to a storage service.
  - therealx 6y ago
    On other projects, we solved this by incorporating virustotal checking. Sure, a 0day or custom malware may get through, but thats a small number at the end of the day.
- ike0790 6y ago
  blackhole.run is a neat FOSS encrypted service similar to FireFox Send. I'm not affiliated at all just thought i'd mention it

chzplza 6y ago

should be obvious what happened "malware" means it facilitated child porngraphy and far worse I mean what could possibly go wrong when you have such a public and easy to use service that "encrypts" on the client side and allows self destructive payloads? that or it was a honey pot and got enough of you perverts sort of like google 411