File Transfer
by Berg
Image Text: Every time you email a file to yourself so you can pull it up on your friend's laptop, Tim Berners-Lee sheds a single tear.
Hello, all! Berg here again. Jeff is... actually, I don't know why Jeff couldn't do today's post, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that it's because he's having a hemorrhoid removed. Now then, onto xkcd!
Today's post is poking fun at the inability of many people to share large files via the internet, despite the fact that the internet was arguably developed to ease the sharing of large files between geographically distant computer users. Granted, what constitutes a "large file" has changed significantly over the years (my family purchased a 250 MB external drive when I was a youth, and we fretted that we wouldn't ever need that much space. We were wrong), but still- the inherent irony in being unable to use the internet for the purpose the internet was developed for is the engine driving today's xkcd. Now then, let's dissect it, shall we?
Cueball, whom I presume is on the phone with Cutie (Black Hat shouldn't have a hard time with any of this stuff), is trying to help a friend help their cousin send them a 25 MB file. This exceeds most email programs' 20 MB attachment limit (note: Gmail increased their attachment limit to 25 MB in 2009, though many email programs still top out at 20 MB. If anybody knows a reason behind that number, let me know in the comments), and so simply attaching the file to an email is out of the question.
The next option is to upload the file to an FTP server (file transfer protocol, as opposed to HTTP, hypertext transfer protocol), used to transfer files between computers on a shared network, such as the internet. However, FTP servers are a touch more esoteric than a mere email attachment, and many internet users (myself included) don't have one of their own. Indeed, I've only even used FTPs a handful of times (unless FTP is automatically used every time you download a file. This is honestly much more of a Jeff "I do computers for a living and can afford to have my hemorrhoids removed" Roman field than an Alex "Barely making a living as a comedian so thankfully I don't have any hemorrhoids which I would have to pay to have removed like Jeff does" Berg field).
Web hosting is simply the ability to create a website and store all the data for said website on a server which is connected to the internet. If Cutie's cousin (CC?) had the ability to do that, sharing the file would be as easy as making a website for it, then having Cutie visit said website and download said file. But no, the adventure continues.
MegaUpload is one of many, many sites on the internet that recognizes most users' inability to host large files on their own, and so offers to host large files, sometimes for free, sometimes for a small fee. The payoff is that in order to make such a service profitable, many of these sites are cluttered with banner and pop up ads in a mad effort to squeeze as much ad revenue out of every page view as possible. It's not a dealbreaker for some, but Cueball seems to think it'll be too much for CC to handle.
AIM direct connect was a file sharing system on AOL Instant Messenger that I think was dying out in popularity even by the time I got to college in the fall of 2000. Clearly, Cueball is grasping at straws here- anybody desperate enough to invoke the name of AOL as a solution instead of a problem must be at their wits' end.
But then- the perfect solution arises: Dropbox. A simple, easy to use program with an intuitive GUI that will automate file sharing between two computers using the internet, just like the internet was designed to do. But alas, by the time Cueball arrives at a solution, CC has used a mix of old and new technology, namely the car and the USB drive, to physically transport the file to Cutie's house, thus circumventing the internet all together. It's not an elegant solution, but sometimes brute force is the easiest way to get something done.
...and this, this inability to use the internet for its intended purpose, is why Tim Berners-Lee, the arguable inventor of the internet (take a hike, Al Gore), sheds a tear: His creation cannot be appreciated by the masses it was intended for.
That's it for me! But before I go, I'd like to take this opportunity for a shameless plug that Jeff has in no way endorsed. I've started a blog called Berg and Bot where I do text-based improv with Cleverbot a (supposedly) advanced piece of AI chatting software. If you wanna check it out, head to BergAndBot.tumblr.com. If you don't, I understand.
September 9th, 2011
There is even a official standard for moving data with physical devices and pdgeons.^^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers
September 9th, 2011
There is a old saying (older than the web if I recall correctly, but not older than the internet) “Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes”
September 9th, 2011
That was in one of my university text-book. I think it was perhaps Tennenbaums book on networking. It was a comment to a student assignment that had us calculate the network bandwidth of said truck of tapes.
September 9th, 2011
the common limit is not 20MBs but 10MBs.. and it comes (you guessed it) MSFT Exchange. old versions were hardcoded to 10MBs (including encoding MIME).
Gmail limits to 25MBs *with* encoding, without it for most files (text and images) it’s about 20MBs
Direct Connect (DC++) is not the one from AOL, but a p2p.http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/
September 9th, 2011
AIM Direct connect is a feature of the AIM client to directly send files between users, much like in skype, icq or pretty much every other instant messenger.
The direct connect protocol you are talking about still needs a server somewhere to discover other peers, and is even more complicated to set up.
I guess file transfer via Skype is probably the most used direct file transfer method nowadays, at least in my experience.
September 9th, 2011
There’s a difference between the Internet, a collection of interconnected networks all running a TCP/IP stack to communicate between the individual networks as if they were all one network with origins dating back to 1969, and the World Wide Web, a specific application of the internet utilizing the HTTP protocol and various www clients and servers to transfer hyperlinked documents and files that was initially developed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in the early 1990’s.
AIM, email, and FTP all predate the WWW and don’t use HTTP, while the other two solutions pretty much rely on the web.
September 9th, 2011
Oh! You’re that Berg!
I’ve subscribed to your blog yesterady. I think I’ve found it out via Google+
Nice work, lots of fun!
September 9th, 2011
Under the hood http is basically telnet. A common method of debugging an http server is making a telnet connection to port 80 on the IP address of that server and typing what a browser would send so as to see the exact response including all the headers. As a protocol http is quite simple; as with most Internet developments of recent decades the intelligence is at tbe ends of the connection rather than in the transport layer.
September 9th, 2011
You do know it’s incorrect to spell Interent with a lowercase “i” right?
September 9th, 2011
You do know it’s incorrect to spell Internet as Interent, right?
September 9th, 2011
Well, splitting the file into 2 or more zip archives, using 7zip or something, and emailing individual parts works too.
September 19th, 2011
As does UUEncoding it, splitting it into 140 character groups, and taking advantage of “unlimited” SMS on your cell plan.
September 9th, 2011
Back in the days when 9-track tapes were the standard, I was told that someone did a study of the most cost-effective and fastest way to send large amounts of data between research sites – the answer turned out to be the US Mail.
So driving over with a USB drive doesn’t surprise me.
September 9th, 2011
The “single tear” comment is probably a reference to the 70’s Iron Eyes Cody “Keeping America Beautiful” commercial showing a Native American shedding a single tear when he sees a car throwing garbage out a window.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM
September 12th, 2011
Oddly enough, the actor who played the American Indian was actually the son of two Sicilian immigrants, though he married an American Indian woman and lived in their community as an adult.
September 9th, 2011
Would also depend on the driving distance. Having 2 or more people setup Dropbox would be faster if they were hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
…I also email myself files to download on other computers like it’s nobody’s business
September 9th, 2011
I think Tim Berners-Lee sheds a tear, because of the non-sensical way described:
Writing an email to yourself for file transfer – that probably involves a web mailer so that you can access your email on the target PC.
So the easiest way nowadays in the Internet, which is made for sending streams of data, involves all kind of complicated http (https, authentication, POST, images for icons, ads, …) to do just that.
That’s like using a telephone service with speech recognition to dictate a SMS which is read to your friend on the phone instead of just calling her.
September 9th, 2011
Can we *PLEASE* put the Al Gore thing to rest?
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
TBL’s contributions are definitely more material in the actual creation of the WWW (which isn’t “the internet” despite what Windows 9x desktop icon’s say), but the already-been-debunked-a-million-times swipes at Gore are just petty.
September 12th, 2011
And it shows how dumb and gullible a lot of Bush supporters were. “But hey… as long as it fits my simplistic preconceived notions of the world!”
September 9th, 2011
TimBL invented the world wide web, not the internet. They are two very different things.
And to your Al Gore comment: Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet. His comments were taken out of context by the media. What he really said was that he “took initiative” in the invention of the internet, meaning he moved it along at the governmental level.
September 9th, 2011
ahem, he “took the initiative in CREATING of the Internet”. (not inventing) The Internet is not a concept, but an actual physical thing which needed to be built.
September 9th, 2011
“the inherent irony in being unable to use the internet for the purpose the internet was developed for is the engine driving today’s xkcd.”
I’d like to suggest an alternate interpretation is that the inherent irony in the strip is that in, let’s say, 15 years since the internet has become popularized (I’m sure many had it before 1996, but I think that was AROUND the time when the general public started getting emails accounts) You would think that someone would have developed a simple easy to use way to send large files, but this is the one thing that has really always been needlessly complex on the internet. I am not sure the strip truly intends to go to the ‘very purpose the internet was created’, but simply “why the hell can’t we send large files with one click in 2011?!”
However, I admit that the alt text speaks more for your interpretation than mine. I suppose he could be crying simply because in 20-some years since his invention, he’d have expected there to be a more simple and elegant solution to accessing your files from two computers than using email (not what email was designed for).
In fact, the most convenient and obvious solution seems to have been ignored and I’m not sure why. AIM Direct Connect is mentioned – this was, in fact, a system that allowed users to form a direct connection and share images directly in the text window, and record 10-second sound clips that would also pop up in the chat window. While a file could be placed in a chat window and sent that way, that wasn’t the typical use of Direct connect when I used it (which would have, in fact, been more the 2000-2005 period, despite the timeline Berg suggests).
The most common solution to sending large files – especially to cousins and friends and family, to me, would be a file transfer (which I believe predates aim direct connect, and is available in most instant message softwares). I know IMs are becoming obsolete by their effective emulation in Facebook, but I think they are still kicking around.
Other than dropbox, I have done every one of the methods mentioned in the strip. File Transfer by IM is typically the fastest way; especially these days where 25 megs won’t take terribly long to send.
September 9th, 2011
PS: IMHO And ultimately the punchline of the comic is that it takes longer to figure out how to send a large file than it takes to drive to someone’s house. Perhaps Dropbox would have been the “correct” answer as someone above mentioned, but even dropbox has two or three steps that cueball mentions before being cut off. The point being that even dropbox is too clumsy and slow to get started for someone to bother signing up for it and installing software for a quick file send.
(BTW: When I forget a large file at home, and I’m at my Fiancée’s, I’ll usually drive home and get it or simply ‘forget about it’; mainly this is due to bandwidth concerns, however for much larger files like several hundred megs. For a 25 meg file, I would open logmein and direct-send the file)
September 9th, 2011
I think you got the punch line right, TH. Apparently the recipient is so close by it was possible to deliver the USB before the conversation was even finished. It’s possible to get so focused on latest technology that we forget the obvious non-tech solution. “Oh, cool. That works too.” Like talking direct to the neighbor over the fence instead of texting.
September 12th, 2011
I agree with your addition that cueball is so lost in trying to come up with a tech solution that he ignores the “laymen” approach. I readily admit guilt in this one – and similarly trying to get the solution I “want” to use to work, when quitting and doing something manually would be far faster once my way has proven not to work on the first try.
September 9th, 2011
Dropbox is really easy actually, just give them an e-mail and they send you a password and you are good to go.
You CAN download and install the program but you do not NEED it to upload/download files.
Only the uploader even needs the account anyway as long as the file is less than 300MB and is placed in the public folder, then you can e-mail a link to the file and download it. Easy.
But of course I’m sure everybody has their own way (I personally hate FTP)
September 9th, 2011
One point which some are hinting at, is that TBL, by putting the WWW on top of the Internet CREATED this exact problem.
September 9th, 2011
Care to elaborate?
September 9th, 2011
Pre-WWW, the Internet was used mainly for transferring files, one way or another. Everyone who used the Internet then knew how to transfer files, and had the client-side utilities needed, and were connected to a system which had the server-side utilities needed.
The WWW was a bit different. While it still transferred files, it was designed not to actually save the file, but to merely to hold it in memory and display it. Further, it encouraged placing the files to be displayed in a centralized location, so they was less peer-to-peer communication.
September 9th, 2011
Skype has a direct connect feature too, not sure on the file transfer limit but i think its fairly large. Still, you would think there would be a dedicated program by now, like AIM direct connect without the chat feature, or with limited chat support.
When i was in high school, five or so years ago, i figured out that on Blackboard, if a teacher didn’t bother to log onto their account, their default password was just their username. After trying different account names, I found a random counselor who by coincidence had the same name as one of my teachers, but had never logged on before. The dropbox on blackboard at the time was unlimited, so i would upload movies to it, and give my friends the new password to the account so they could all download it. Rudimentary and not very secure, but surprisingly effective.
September 9th, 2011
I like the Dropbox love in here. However, I would personally opt for ad-free/limited file hosting services, such as socifiles.com (a pretty underground host) or even mediafire.com if I had to. Dropbox space is just too scarce and I’m not making a new account to use just once.
September 9th, 2011
Also, nice article this time. We could really do with the change.
September 9th, 2011
What’s an “early adopter?” Isn’t it in a Scott Westerfeld book?
September 9th, 2011
They could just private torrent but then there’s that torrent stigma.
September 9th, 2011
I still use AIM Direct Connect, though it seems like Google Docs would work too, you’d just make the file public (unless there’s a file size limit on there). I’ll have to check out Dropbox, I guess.
September 9th, 2011
I mean, share the file with their Google Docs account. Or whatever. I dunno it probably makes little sense.
September 10th, 2011
Just Use GOOGLE DOCS!
(1 GB file limit, should suffice)
September 11th, 2011
The real essence of the problem today is the way in which we connect our individual computers to the internet, as well as security issues that further hinder our ability to connect to another computer (by design).
When the number of computers on the internet was “small”, it was the case that most every system (that you’d commonly use) had an internet name and was accessible from anywhere else on the internet just by specifying that name.
As the number of systems grew to include everyone’s home PC, this became impractical, and in addition, the number of computers connected to the internet became larger than its original design could easily handle. Solutions were invented, of course, including DHCP and NAT. The first makes it easy to attach new systems by providing a dynamic numeric internet address, and the second makes it possible for a router to connect an entire local network of computers using a single internet address.
Also, security considerations mean that many common ways of accessing a remote computer are “shut off” (firewalled), in order to prevent any inherent insecurities in those methods from being exploited.
The result of these things is that I can’t just tell you to contact my PC by giving you an internet name or address. (It can still be done, but it requires paying for setting up explicit hosting.) I don’t know my address, since it might change every time I reboot my PC. Even if I knew it, it might turn out to be a local network address, not visible beyond the router or gateway I’m using. And then, of course, the program necessary to respond may not be installed on my PC, or it may be cut off by one or more firewalls.
There is a way around each of these barriers, but it takes a good amount of knowledge and skill to even discover which ones you are facing.
The reason that Dropbox and various other solutions work is that while it can be impossible for a random computer on the net to find my computer, it is very easy for anybodies’ computer to connect to a web server that’s already set up for this. Thus two PCs can connect to the server, and then that server can then tell the two PCs how to talk with each other.
September 12th, 2011
Yes, DHCP/NAT with firewalls means that most forms of direct p2p are nigh impossible. BitTorrent and Freenet use UDP with hole punching and handshakes. If ISPs would hurry up and transition to IPv6, then we would no longer need either and direct connections would be much easier. I personally use DDNS built-in to my router to give my computer a constant address, combined with port forwarding. But of course, that’s beyond the capabilities of most ePsilons.
As for file transfer, I use TeamViewer to solve most problems with the computer illiterate, and it has file transfer too. Since my computer has a permenant registry, the HTTP-based TeamViewer gets around most firewalls. Easy to install, problem solved.
September 12th, 2011
I just use AIM 7 right out of the box. Transfer a file to a someone I’m doing work for on my buddy list, and off it goes. I’m set up so files can be transferred to me (buddies only) when I’m not around. I’ve done gigabyte files this way. It does take a while, though.
November 17th, 2011
I got myself a 100GB ftp/www/mail server. Problem solved forever.