Secure File Transfer

Authors

Derek Gary, Takaiya Jones

Overview

Secure File Transfer is a web application designed to securely encrypt, transfer, and decrypt files using modern cryptographic techniques. This project utilizes end-to-end encryption to ensure that files remain confidential and integral from the moment they are uploaded until they are downloaded and decrypted by the intended recipient.

This was a group project that was completed to explore the minimization of collected user metadata for cloud-based encrypted file transfer and partially fulfill the course requirements for CS 4930 - Privacy and Censorship at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Features

• File Encryption: Files are encrypted client-side using the XChaCha20-Poly1305 algorithm before being uploaded.
• Secure File Upload and Download: Files are transferred via presigned URLs generated by AWS S3, ensuring that files are never exposed to both the backend and unauthorized users.
• Dynamic Decryption: Files are decrypted client-side, ensuring that the decryption keys never leave the user's environment.
• Responsive Design: Designed to work on both desktop and mobile browsers.

Technologies Used

• Frontend: React, js-cookie, React Router
• Backend: Django, Django REST Framework
• Cryptography: libsodium-wrappers for encryption and decryption
• Storage: AWS S3 for file storage with presigned URLs
• Deployment: Docker
• Web Server: NGINX

Installation Instructions

To get the project running on your local machine, follow these steps:

cd backend
pip install -r requirements.txt

Set the following environment variables (Requires AWS S3 Setup):

DEBUG=1
SECRET_KEY='your-secret-key'
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID='your-aws-access-key'
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY='your-aws-secret-key'
AWS_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME='your-s3-bucket-name'

Run the backend server:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

Change to the frontend directory and install dependencies:

cd ../frontend
npm install

Start the frontend development server:

npm start

How to Use

To use the application, navigate to the local development server's address provided by the output of 'npm start'. From there, you can upload files to be securely stored and later download them after authentication and decryption processes.