Ad hoc file transfer

How it works

Links, portal uploads, and a manual SFTP drag are ad hoc. They need the same hash and expiry thinking as a job, and they usually lack the audit unless the tool records it. MFT exists because ad hoc does not scale.

A producer sends a 3 GB cut by link at 16:00 because the nightly job does not cover cuts. The download completes and the log shows it. A drag onto a personal drive has no log. Both were ad hoc. Only one is reviewable.

How it differs

Ad hoc is not insecure by definition. It is unscheduled.

People skip the checksum because the transfer feels small.

Use the same receipt rule.

On the ticket

• The practical close is a log line: time, actor, byte count, result.
• Without that line the transfer is a story.
• With it, the next person can see whether this door did what the ticket claimed.
• If the path is shared, say so in the partner profile so a later change does not silently pick a different limit, key, or region.
• On a real ticket, write down the door, the byte count, and the clock.
• For ad hoc file transfer, that means naming the host or bucket, the expected size, and the time the other side must have a complete file.
• A progress bar is not that record.
• A 200 response that arrives before the complete call is not that record.
• If a retry is allowed, say how many and whether it resumes.
• If a person must approve the send, name the person.
• Partners who receive ad hoc file transfer files should match on hash or size before they import.
• A same-length corrupt file passes a size check and fails a hash.
• Keep the published hash off the only channel an attacker can edit, or treat it as a corruption check rather than a substitution check.
• When the path changes, new key, new region, new cap, update the profile the same day so the next run does not use a stale limit.