the details are sketchy, but a concept for safe and happy file transfer sounds like an interesting use of jabber:
“WHY?:
A jabber peer, peerA@serverA wishes to send a 12 megabyte file to peerB@serverB. The file is too large to send via email. Both peers are behind masqurading firewalls, virtually
eliminating the possibility of peer to peer transfer via ICQ or FTP. Also, the receiving peer is on an unreliable connection, and transfers are often interrupted. PeerB is not online but
needs the file for the weekend; peerA is about to leave for the weekend.”“SOLUTION?:
A computer, running an HTTP server, such as apache, hosts a CGI program which allows authenticated users to upload files. Uploaded files are placed in a directory/storage system
not publicly accessable and indexed by a serial number. A password is generated for however many users are to download the file. The file is assigned an expiry date, so that some
maintenance function on the server can clean old files up. The uploading peer then is informed by the server of the parameters which the server has set (passwords, serial number,
expiry date, and URL of the access program [the CGI mentioned earlier]). The sender then sends a message via jabber (or some other mechanism) informing the recipient of URL,
serial number, password, decryption info, etc. The user can then go get the file.”
of course, it would probably be far easier to just create a groove transport. it appears that somebody was/is working on a groove transport, but the link is dead.