# How can you securely share large files over the internet with someone

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [December 15, 2024, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664 "2024-12-15T05:57:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2024, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664/41 "2024-12-16T12:26:33Z")

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Back when I maintained the Berkeley C Compiler suite I came across a few wonderful error messages including “Data potato doo-wop doo-wop” and “Lint’s little mind is blown”.

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**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664/42 "2024-12-16T19:29:44Z")

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> [@eschereal](#):
>
> You might investigate setting up a sftp server on your own computer.

You can do that. There are also entire media platforms like MediaGoblin.

> [@Telemark](#):
>
> error messages

Linux had the “helpful” message “line printer on fire”… There is also the ubiquitous “this should never happen” error, absolutely clear to the user what they should do in that case.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2024, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664/43 "2024-12-17T00:10:27Z")

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“This should never happen” error messages are for the benefit of the programmer, not the user, because they indicate that when the programmer thought something was impossible, they were wrong. Which helps them to figure out what mistake they made, and fix it in the next version.

XKCD also has a [guide to interpreting cryptic error codes](https://xkcd.com/1024/).

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**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2024, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-you-securely-share-large-files-over-the-internet-with-someone/1011664/44 "2024-12-17T11:42:40Z")

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Is that what’s called an unhandled exception in Windows? Or, at least one flavor of unhandled exception?

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