add the blog back; wawa... :)

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+title: Personal Filesharing
+date: 2025-02-17 00:00
+tags: site
+summary: browsers do display all files after all
+---
+
+I previously used pastebin/filesharing sites to send code and images over IRC. However, I no longer do; after piecing together my own.
+
+The code to run the pastebin is small; it would be even smaller if I were more practiced in shell scripting:
+
+One script on my laptop accepts a file name and an optional time specifier in hours. It generates a new file name with a few random characters piped out of `/dev/urandom`, concatenates it with a dash - character, and a unix timestamp representing `CURR_DATE + USER_SPECIFIED_HOURS`. It then uses `scp` to copy the given file to a public-facing directory on the remote server with the generated name (the directory listing itself cannot be viewed in a browser, though, since the pasted files are meant to be relatively hidden).
+
+The second script on the remote server simply scans the directory every hour for files that are expired (based on the file name) and removes them.
+
+Of course, hosting your own pastebin is a relatively common idea if you have a webserver and the need, (I even found some tools which set up an entire netcat server if you need a full web service). However, I myself had not yet seen anyone use filenames to get almost all of the functionality of file-hosting sites like 0x0.st. I reused the idea from Protesilaos Stavrou's Emacs 'denote' package, which also showcases the power and simplicity of embedding metadata in file names; since it remains very accessible to filtering with standard CLI tools.
+
+I like being able to upload my files and share them from a space I still control. I only remembered to finish writing about this idea since it already had appreciated benefits in unexpected places; allowing me to share my University work through a link to my own site, rather than the suggested use of services such as google drive.
+
+Sometimes it's easy to forget that browsers can play raw video or display pdfs when directed to a video file.