A guide to wasting the net:

“WASTE is designed to enable small companies and small teams within larger companies to easily communicate and collaborate in a secure and efficient fashion, independent of physical network topology.”

To me that mean’s a secure chat method with the option to share files – legal or otherwise

The thing with most software with a high level of encryption if that it needs a good level of skill and understanding form the end user. The aim of this guide is to give you enough of an understanding to set it up and create your own network for chatting and sharing of files

The main advantage over other methods of chatting and sharing of files is that it works without a central server – all of you act in part as the server, if one of you goes offline simply connect to another person and the entire network is back up again

Note: this guide assumes you have a moderate level of computing knowledge

Step 1:

First of all we will need the software you can get it HERE

NOTE: There is no client and server with waste – you act as both

Step 2:

Run the Downloaded File and follow the simple install procedure

Step 3:

When you have finished the setup program you will be greeted by the following image

Move your mouse around INSIDE the box as you do you will see the bar move like so

Do this until you see the following screen

Step 4:

What you see above is fairly self explanatory, Your Nickname, Your name (alias if you want) and your connection speed. What may need a little explaining is the Network Name/ID

This is optional however for security I urge you to use it – this is a unique id for your network, now I work for X-Corp and this is a X-Corp employee network so I will use “X-Corp” as my network id. What this dose is only allow you to connect to other users that have this ID and vice versa – this is the beginning of a multi-layered security blanket that will allow you to talk and share files in peace

Having done that this is what you should be looking at – only with your own details in it

Step 5:

You are now faced with this screen

The first thing to do it click “Run key Generator”

What you will need to do is type in your own passphrase this will be another layer of security in that if you chose so this password will have to be entered every time you start the waste program – the key size will determine how big you public and private encryption keys are, the bigger the better however on older systems this can cause a slow down. I urge you to stick to the default 1536-bit option

You are now greeted with a familiar screen – move the mouse around INSIDE the box until the blue bar is full – then your computer will generate your unique key pair, this can take some time on older systems. When done you will see the following

Step 6:

Now you must choose where you want your downloads to go and what you want other users to have access to – when this is done you should see the following

Now this is the bulk of the setup done, you now have installed waste and have generated your key pairs ready to join your network

Step 7:

This is now what you should see

There are two windows

On the left is you main windows – this shows all the users that are online in your network and all the visible chat rooms on the network

On the right is the network box – this shows statistics about who is connected to you and what users you are connected to

Now is when some more info about the way in which you connect to the network and how the network can work

A common factor in the way you connect is the need for the person you are connecting into the network to have you public key and for you to have that person public key – thus a encrypted tunnel can be made – also you will need to know the ip of the computer you are connecting to

Note: once you are connected you will slowly receive the other people’s public keys and they will receive yours

Example 1:

The classic server and client method

One pc which is on the net 24/7 acts as a server if the server goes down then the network goes down

In this case the public key for the server will be stored in a common place such as a web page and if you wish to connect you must tell the person controlling the server your public key

Note: You can get you public key by going into the preferences menu (either via File > Preferences or pressing “Ctrl + P”) Click “Private Key” and then Click “Copy My Public Key To The Clipboard”

Example 2:

You have a group inside you network that are 99% online that form a core group of servers – these people are to the rest of the core group (as many 10+ connections as apposed to your single connection) the rest of the network can connect to any of these people. When you first connect you will need to tell one of those core people your public key and get their public key off them – once you have been connected for some time your key will have been spread around the entire network and you should have received most users public key as well. At that point should the person you be connected to go offline you can simply connect to another member of the core group (their ip’s or host names should be stored somewhere that all users can see)

This method gives a greater reliability to the network in that if any of the core members go offline there is always another known member that you can connect to

There are numerous other types of network but these are the main ones that will occur

Importing a Public Key:

To import someone’s key the first time you connect simply get into preferences (You can get into the preferences menu either via File > Preferences or pressing “Ctrl + P”) Then going into “Public Keys” and clicking “Add”, Pasting the key into “Public Key Text” box then clicking “Load Key Text”

Chatting to a Single User:

In the main waste window is a list of all the users online in the network – simply right click the user you wish to chat to and click “Chat User”

Chatting to Many Users:

Waste has a chatroom feature that is very much like IRC

Simply join a existing chatroom by double clicking on the chat room name in the area below the list of users or create your own by clicking the button and typing the name of the chatroom you want

Note: All chatrooms must have a ‘#’ or ‘&’ in form of the name e.g. #chat or #room

‘#’ mean the room is public and will show up on the list of network chatrooms ‘&’ means the room is private and will not be listed in the list of network chatrooms

Browsing a users file list:

To brose a spefic users files that they are sharing simply right click on the users name in the user list and click “Browse User”

Searching for a File:

To search the network for a file simply click on the icon

There you have it – you are now part of a highly secure chat and file sharing network. This is a very basic install and setup guide giving you the basic connection into a network

Soon I will publish a more advance guide on how to use some of the more advanced features and how to make your network even more secure!