WASTE is a secure collaboration tool for chatting and filesharing between friends. (
description on Wikipedia) Here's my little mini-Tutorial, based on the documentation and my own experiments:
Building a network between WASTE clients: (an example with two PCs on Internet)
1) installation of WASTE:
Get the software from the
project's download area on Sourceforge. Under Windows I would start "waste-setup-1.5-beta-3-full-eng.exe".
In our example WASTE is installed on PC1 and PC2.
2) create a new identity:
Every member of this WASTE network has to create an identity with a keypair for the encrypted data connections.
In the example network we have two identities. The user at PC1 creates one and the user at PC2 creates another one.
3) key exchange:
WASTE uses a keypair with a private and a public key (like in
PGP). The members of the WASTE network has to exchange their PUBLIC keys. Only users with direct network connections between their WASTE clients need to do this manually. The WASTE client can do an automatic key exchange with other members on the WASTE network.
To export your own public key:
"File" -> "Preferences..." -> "Network, Private Key" -> "copy my public key to the clipboard"
In our example the user at PC1 would export the public key from his own identity. He would send it via a secure way to the user on PC2. The user on PC2 would send his public key to the user at PC1. If you don't transfer the public key via a secure way, then you should check the signature of the key on telephone. This is to prevent a
man in the middle attack against your WASTE network. (sounds perhaps a bit paranoid, but you WANT a private network, isn't it?)
To import the public key from a friend:
"File" -> "Preferences..." -> "Network, Public Keys" -> "Add..." then choose the file with his public key or paste his key into the field on the bottom.
In our Example the user at PC1 would insert the public key from his friend at PC2. The user at PC2 would insert the key from the user at PC1.
4) Connect the WASTE clients:
Open the "Network Status" (symbol with an orange flash on the left side in the WASTE client). Then type in the network address of your friend in the line above (format: [IP]:[Port], a hostname instead of an IP is possible, the default port for WASTE is 1337) and press RETURN.
In our example both PCs are behind a Router/Firewall and can't accept direct connections from the internet. The user at PC2 opens the default port for WASTE (1337) on his router device and activates port-forwarding to his PC. Now his WASTE client is able to get connections from the Internet. The user on PC1 enters now the outer IP address of his friend's router into WASTE with the port 1337 (e.g. 12.23.34.45:1337). Now both users should see a secure connection to each other.
Greetings,
Nemo.
PS: I will update this mini-Tutorial from time to time. Give me feedback about this mini-Tutorial to improve the quality of this information.
Changelog:
2005-05-31 version 0.1: first try.
