flyingcarpet

README

Flying Carpet

Wireless, encrypted file transfer over automatically configured ad hoc networking. No network infrastructure required (access point, router, switch). Just two laptops (Mac and/or Windows) with wireless chips in close range.

Don't have a flash drive? Don't have access to a wireless network or don't trust one? Need to move a file larger than 2GB between Mac and Windows but don't want to set up a file share? Try it out!

Sample Usage

On receiving end (Mac):

./flyingcarpet -receive transferred_movie.avi -peer windows

[Write down password]

On sending end (Windows):

flyingcarpet.exe -send movie.avi -peer mac

[Enter password from Mac]

Features:

• Cross-platform, Mac and Windows.

• Speeds over 120mbps (with laptops close together).

• Does not use Bluetooth or your local network, just wireless chip to wireless chip.

• Files encrypted in transit.

• Large files supported (<10MB RAM usage while transferring a 4.5GB file).

• Standalone binary, no installation required.

Compilation instructions:

(Ready-to-use x64 binaries in /bin as well, must run chmod u+x flyingcarpet for Mac.)

cd flyingcarpet

go get ./...

go build

Restrictions:

• Disables your wireless internet connection while in use (does not apply to Windows when receiving)

• On Mac: May have to click Allow or enter username and password at prompt to join ad-hoc network. (Clicking cancel may still work.)

• On Windows: Must run as administrator to receive files (to allow connection through firewall and clear ARP cache). Right-click Command Prompt icon in Start menu and select "Run as administrator," or press Win+X, A.

• Windows laptop must support hosted networking. To find out if yours does, run netsh wlan show drivers. If the Hosted network supported : line says No, you can't use this product. Known issue on Surface Pro 3 and later.

• If you choose to receive a filename that is already present in your current directory, it will be overwritten.

• After a successful transfer, Flying Carpet will attempt to rejoin you to your previous wireless networks. If there is an error midway through the process, this may fail.

• GUI forthcoming.

Disclaimer: I am not a cryptography expert. This is a usable product in its current state, but is also an experiment and a work in progress. Do not use for private files if you think a skilled attacker is less than 100 feet from you and trying to intercept them.

Licenses for third-party tools and libraries used can be found in the "3rd_party_licenses" folder.