SecureVault

I don’t know why, but the db crashed, so the backend wasn’t working and many of you couldn’t test out the app.
I just fixed this problem, and added in docker compose the restart clause, so things like this won’t happen again.
Sorry for the problem

Finished the project. I used a seo checker to improve the seo, at least, what I can actually improve.
I then focused on writing the md files. The readme and the security.md, that displays all infos about how crypto works and in general terms, security.
I hope you like the project.

Hey guys, here I am again.

Lately I focused a lot on improving both the website and the overall user experience. The first thing I did was completely redesign the landing page. I switched everything to a dark theme, added a new hero section with a background image and gradient overlay, and converted every section into dark cards to make the design feel much more consistent.
I also reworked the pricing section
Finally, I added smooth navigation between sections using anchor links. I also redesigned the navigation bar. On desktop and tablets it stays at the top as expected, while on mobile it moves to the bottom of the screen for easier access. During this process I removed the old hamburger menu.
The file manager received one of the biggest UI updates. On mobile there’s now a bottom navigation bar with a floating upload button in the center. The Files page no longer uses a traditional table; instead, files are displayed as modern cards with encryption badges and a cleaner action menu that groups all available operations together. I also fixed some spacing issues on the login page caused by the fixed navbar.
Besides the UI, I spent some time improving the website from a technical perspective. I configured gzip compression, hid unnecessary server information, fixed some SEO issues like duplicated headings, and added both a robots.txt file and a sitemap.

Another important feature I implemented is the new Settings page. It now includes profile information, security settings, storage usage, and account management. I decided to keep the interface honest: only features that are actually supported by the backend are available, while future ones are clearly disabled. I also implemented permanent account deletion, both on the backend and frontend, making sure all related data is safely removed before the user is deleted.

I added a lot, I hope everything works as I expect.
See ya

Okay guys, big news: I was finally able to get an SMTP server from a friend of mine, so now email verification and password recovery are working. I’m pretty satisfied; I really wanted this app to work as well as possible, and with email support, it feels even more complete.

Stay tuned, because it won’t be long before it’s ready.

Hey guys, I know this isn’t a proper devlog, but I wanted to show you this new tool I used yesterday, called graphify. Basically you take an AI, and you install graphify on it.
It will create this graph, that represents the project. I find it really useful for my actual process, reviewing. As you can see, I just need to start from the biggest Node, which is the “center” of the project, and then link every other Node.
The nice thing is that you can also ask questions, and the AI will respond also taking in consideration the graph, so the response will be more accurate. I strongly advice this tool for reviewing the code and improving the “style” of the code.
I hope you like it

Hi guys
Lately I did much work. First of all, security audit fixes.

I bound internal ports to localhost; moved JWT secret to a real random value in .env; hardened rate limiting (to avoid spoofing); set file uploading limit to 40MB and switched uploads/downloads to streaming so files aren’t loaded whole into RAM.

Sharing rework (the main piece). Before, each user had one master DEK that encrypted all their files, and sharing sent that master DEK to the server in cleartext, so the server could decrypt shared files, and sharing one file handed over the key to every file. Now the master DEK only wraps other keys. Each file has its own random DEK (encrypting its content and name), stored wrapped by the master DEK.
Each user has an RSA keypair: the public key is stored in cleartext, the private key is wrapped by the master DEK (so password reset and recovery keep working without extra code). To share, the sender fetches the recipient’s public key and RSA-encrypts only that file’s DEK; the recipient decrypts it with their private key. The server never sees a key in cleartext, and the recipient gets access to only that one file. Public links work the same way, carrying the DEK for each file in the URL fragment (never sent to the server), with a revoke action.

To clean the code I also made an interfaces refactor. Moved all TypeScript interfaces into core/interfaces/, one per file (I), updated imports, removed the old model files.

I’m quite done, I still have to review some graphical aspects and improve some things in the code, but I think I’ll be done this week.

Okay guys, big problem. I realized I haven’t solved my problem with sharing files. I actually made things worse.

Now each user has one DEK that is used for encryption of all their files.
Two issues: the server is able to read the key (it decrypts shared files, thus E2EE is not provided), and when you give a person access to one file, you give the person access to all files.

The solution I need to implement: the master DEK will not be used for encrypting the files anymore, but will become a wrapping key, each file will have its own DEK which encrypts data in this particular file, and this DEK will be wrapped by the master DEK.

Each user should also have a key pair for RSA encryption: the public part of the key will be in cleartext, while the private part will be wrapped by the master DEK.

When a user shares a file, they encrypt only the DEK of this file with the recipient’s public RSA key, the recipient decrypts it with the private RSA key, and the server does not see any key in cleartext.

Wrapping the private key with the master DEK (not the password) means it’s recovered for free via the recovery key and survives password resets, so the existing login/recovery code stays untouched.

I hope to be able to fix this problem in reasonable time. I’ll stay in touch for further clarification and devlogs

P.S. in the screen you can see the DEK, proof for my thesis.

Still improving the application. I want everything to be the best as possible. I fixed some minor bugs in fronted, mostly with the crypto service. I had some problems with the sharing of files, I realized I was also sharing the DEK of the user, which is really a problem since the receiver could, from that moment, decrypt every sender file.
After fixing it I improved some things in the backend, like the process of uploading and downloading files. Another important thing I fixed is the preview. The problem is that before I was opening the file directly in RAM, which, as I explained in some prev devlog, is a problem, since I have only 2 gb of ram. The important thing is that I was able to fix it, by opening it on disk.

Still working for improving the app. I’m slowly changing simple details, and fixing bugs, like rate limiting for api, uploading dimensions and so on.
As you can see from the screens, I also added the “fake” email inbox, that allows to verify the email. This was a solution I came up yesterday, to avoid using an SMTP server.
I hope you find it reasonable.

Still improving the website and checking security. I hope everything works well and is secure.
I’m now focusing on fixing small bugs, and improving UI.
Something I still have to figure out, is how to manage SMTP. I don’t know if I’ll just skip this part and open a link in the browser, that works like the mail. Idk
In the meanwhile I’m also addressing some memory issues, since the container given by Nest is just 2 GB in ram, so I have to optimize everything, to make the app work correctly.

A thing I found really useful in this project is committing with claude. Many times I don’t know what to write, and many commits are too vague, so Claude is really helpful for this task.

I’m slowly compelting this project. I uploaded everything on #Nest, very useful. I still have to find a solution for the SMTP service, but I’m sure I’ll find something.

I’m currently fixing some graphical isseus, for example I fixed the responsivety of the application, mostly the lateral navbar.

Before the release, I want to fix some other problems and things I don’t like.
Additionaly I want to test everything and be sure that the encryption is secure and working correctly.

I’m currently working on secureVault, a E2E platform which allows people to store securely files and organize them in folder. Additionaly there’s the possibility to share files. It follows a lot of directives to mantain everything crypted. I had already started this project, so it isn’t fully logged.
Stay tuned.