12 ms·

Berty: Peer-to-peer messaging app that works with or without internet access

386 points by mpsq 6y ago

chovybizzass 6y ago
I applied for the qa role. you guys can stop applying.
maverick74 6y ago
there is also Briar ( briarproject.org ) ;)
- robotmay 6y ago
  Are there any public forums on Briar? I'd kinda like to try out that aspect of it (and the blogs) but it suffers somewhat from a blank canvas when first setting it up :D Edit: Looking closer I see contacts have to share forums, which is a shame. Would be nice to be able to join directly from a code.
  - lucideer 6y ago
    The only p2p messenger I've used that hasn't suffered too badly from "blank canvas" is Manyverse. It's technically not a dedicated messenger (more like a p2p encrypted Facebook equivalent, with a p2p FBMessenger equivalent built-in as a side feature), but that aspect just makes it a lot easier to find people to chat with. It's unfortunately not quite as stable/performant as Briar though (yet).
    - robotmay 6y ago
      I did have a bit of a play with Manyverse (and with SSB itself in the past) and it looks interesting. The lack of syncing between desktop and mobile SSB accounts is a bit of a pain which I think will hinder adoption until they come up with a solution to that. I do worry that a lot of these newer messengers and networks are operating on a memory of what social networking was like in 2010. Quite a few at least handle photos, but few, if any, handle videos, and none that I've seen have pinched Facebook's events, which are a pretty key feature for me in convincing people to swap.
      - lucideer 6y ago
        > lack of syncing between desktop and mobile SSB accounts is a bit of a pain Yeah that's something they're actively trying to figure out, but it's tricky given their "Signal-/WhatsApp-esque" single-device architecture. I think some of the work Matrix are doing on federated key exchange could be of some help though; my general understanding is that multidevice, single-account encrypted communication is hard.
      - kangaroozach 6y ago
        What if they use IPFS for encrypted larger file size messages and treat the main message as they would an on-chain message that references the ipfs CID?
      - vagrantJin 6y ago
        What on Earth us Facebook Events? During a pandemic lockdown?
        lucideer 6y ago
        Ha ha. Events was the only feature keeping me on Facebook pre-lockdown. I only realised months after the pandemic started that I'd forgotten to login to Facebook since. Would still be nice to have a non-Facebook platform to use for this if irl events ever resume.
    - schmorptron 6y ago
      One thing about Manyverse and ssb that scared me off after a while is that all of the content you view gets downloaded on your device / phone, and then subsequently passed on to others. So if you subscribe to some sort of public group and someone posts some disgusting / illegal shit you're now downloading it onto your device and in the worst case share it further against your will. Has there been any progress towards eliminating that issue, or am I just too paranoid about it?
Vmody2 6y ago
Pretty cool to see non-crypto projects being built using IPFS.
- remram 6y ago
  An E2EE messaging app is not a crypto project?
robotmay 6y ago
Looks interesting but from what I can tell currently isn't available on app stores to immediately try out. It does at least have a nice logo which is ultimately enough to make me try something :p I'd like to see the slew of new messengers coming out also address one of the few areas keeping people on Facebook: group event planning. There's lots of places to chat, but not many alternatives for sharing and planning events with a wider group of people. Briar seems to offer blog and forum concepts, which is interesting, but everything seems to be lacking in the "event" aspect and that's unfortunately a bit of a sticking point for a lot of Facebook users (it's primarily what I use it for, still).
- de4np 6y ago
  I've been thinking the same, so i built https://hollr.at https://hollr.at. it's a PWA and probably alpha/beta quality at this point, being a side project. It works pretty good for me at least and others not familiar with it can join and attend without an account which seems to be appreciated. There is no stickiness or discovery to it though. Apart from meetup.com I'd say that eventbrite.com looks pretty good. There is also https://mobilizon.org/en/ https://mobilizon.org/en/ which seems to be federated, so you have the option to self host
  - hmhrex 6y ago
    This hollr idea is cool. I feel like just having your own instance of this would be enough as a product.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dreit1 6y ago
When will the cross platform driver be available for offline communcation. As it stands looks using the Berty will be restricted by Android to Android or iOS to iOS communication Also what are the typical distant constraints in an offline environment
- Jorropo 6y ago
  The BLE driver will be iOS, Android and linux cross compatible.
andycrawford 6y ago
Awesome. Can't wait to see the difference between berty and our own in-app messaging system at tabtimize.
jonas_kgomo 6y ago
ELIF: what does it mean without internet access? Does this mean without wifi I will be able to send messages?
- Jorropo 6y ago
  We are using Bluetooth.
  - cuu508 6y ago
    What happens when Alice wants to send a message to Bob, but they are not in Bluetooth range of each other? Can a Birdy client with internet access serve as a gateway to other Birdy clients without internet access?
    - kangaroozach 6y ago
      Like GoTenna Mesh?
    - freeCandy 6y ago
      It doesn't seem to be fully reliant on BLE. From the docs [1]: > It is possible to fully use the Berty Protocol without ever accessing the Internet: create an account, add contacts to it, join conversations and send messages as long as there are Berty users within a Bluetooth range. [1] https://berty.tech/docs/protocol/#direct-transport https://berty.tech/docs/protocol/#direct-transport
    - Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
      > Can a Birdy client with internet access serve as a gateway to other Birdy clients without internet access? That's so far unclear to me as well. I will say, if they can crib some code or at least hints on how that might be done (provided they even want to support that feature), there was an old app out there called EnsiChat[1] that IIRC had internet relays running on servers, but was P2P-first. So: if Alice could see Bob directly via P2P, they could chat. Or, if Alice could see Bob indirectly, they could still chat. No idea if it supported meshing P2P connections to get Alice's message to Bob via Alice -> internet relay -> Frank -> Dmitry -> Bob [1]https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat
KoftaBob 6y ago
This brings up a question I still haven't gotten a clear answer to: why isn't Signal peer-to-peer like this? What is it about p2p that made it not doable, rather than Signal's current setup where every message goes through a centralized server before reaching the recipient? Would appreciate any insight.
- throwaway94737 6y ago
  Metadata.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  There are practical problems. Does no internet also mean no network connection? Getting two devices to talk to each other without a network is not straightforward. Bluetooth can do it but has range limitations. Wifi can do it to, but there you have to get into very hardware-specific wizardry to move packets between devices without a network router. The target devices, cellphones, are designed to provide network access, to login to a backbone of other devices, not to generate and manage the network themselves. Then there is the issue of encryption. Verifying keys is tricky without a common network. How does one revoke or renew a key? It is possible but complicated. Not something that a messaging app would normally attempt.
  - kangaroozach 6y ago
    Thoughts on GeTenna? What about an open source encrypted protocol that uses an RF device like GoTenna on specific longer range frequencies? Anything like that exist?
    - khimaros 6y ago
      Meshtastic
  - rjmunro 6y ago
    > Wifi can do it to, but there you have to get into very hardware-specific wizardry Android is supposed to support the standard for this called WiFi direct - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct#Mobile_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct#Mobile_devices. I've not seen much about it actually being used, though. Apple has its own proprietary thing that it uses for Airdrop, which unfortunately is not cross-compatible.
exabrial 6y ago
It would be cool if there was a BLE -> inter webs gateway that could be ran on something like a rpi or other very low cost common hardware. LOVE the concept of this project though. Starred and keeping an eye on it!
- avianlyric 6y ago
  Isn’t that just WiFi with extra steps? BLE gets most of its energy efficiency from aggressively turning the radios off when they’re not in use. Wifi can do the same thing, and protocols like Thread are pushing in that direction. The big issue with a BLE to interwebs gateway is that you means you need to handle routing etc. Which starts to erode the benefits of using BLE in the first place.
  - exabrial 6y ago
    I'm more talking about being able to exchange messages across continents without offering somebody full TCP/IP access to your network. Your point is valid though
- kangaroozach 6y ago
  Also for txt messages other BLE to another RF device such as GoTenna is pretty cool!
- hodapp 6y ago
  6LoWPAN has a variant that can use Bluetooth Low Energy (rather than 802.15.4) to carry IPv6. See https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/hardware/bluetooth/bluetooth.6lowpan https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/hardware/bluetooth/bluet... for instance.
akavel 6y ago
How does that compare to Secure Scuttlebutt?
- robert_foss 6y ago
  SSB doesn't do encryption. Yes, you read that right. Messages are only signed.
  - 3np 6y ago
    That's not true. https://scuttlebot.io/apis/scuttlebot/private.html https://scuttlebot.io/apis/scuttlebot/private.html If you're strictly talking about the core protocol, yes, applications and protocols with other encryption mechanisms can be used instead.
- kseistrup 6y ago
  A big difference is that Secure Scuttlebutt uses a blockchain (the “log”). An app keeps one's own entire log + the entire log of every contact within the “hops circle” (hops=1: friends, hops=2: friends + friends-of-friends, …).
sschueller 6y ago
Looks good and I'm excited where this leads but please remove items such as "https://www.shakebugs.com/ https://www.shakebugs.com/" from the android build [1]. If I want privacy I don't want some bug reporting tool tracking me. I also hope you will add this to fdroid although it will be hard with Reactive Native. A native android app would be preferred. [1] https://github.com/berty/berty/blob/master/js/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml#L59 https://github.com/berty/berty/blob/master/js/android/app/sr...
- durpkingOP 6y ago
  why don't you remove it yourself /choosingbeggars
georgyo 6y ago
The poster of this "Show HN" seems to have zero involvement with the development of berty. I've been eagerly awaiting the release of berty for a few months now, but they have not made public the app yet. They have a closed beta, for a few months. And their build process for the android app is complex. While berty is extremely interesting tech, I don't think it's quite ready to be on Hacker News yet.
- 3np 6y ago
  Early-stage prototypes and weekend hacks show up from time to time - it shouldn't be expected that "Show HN"s are production-ready. Who knows, someone might just jump in and contribute.
  - hnlmorg 6y ago
    The OPs point is that "Show HN" is for something the submitter is involved in. Otherwise it's just a normal submission. In this instance the title shouldn't be prefixed with "Show HN:". Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with the submission.
- sirffuzzylogik 6y ago
  OP here, as you said and to confirm, I am not involved with the development of Berty in any way. My understanding is also that Berty is not fully production ready yet, however I have been following the project for a while and they seem to be going into the right direction. Other HNers might also be interested and who knows, the project might grow faster with more people involved.
  - Shared404 6y ago
    I believe the reason the GP brought that up is that Show HN's are typically used to show something that you've made yourself. This is an interesting topic though so a standard submission would work well.
    - sirffuzzylogik 6y ago
algorithm314 6y ago
Jami is a very good p2p messenger - teleconferencing app. There are still some bugs, but it is usable. The next version is probably going to have group chats.
zelphirkalt 6y ago
In the readme it says: > We want to contribute to the world of free, secure communication without fear of censorship and surveillance. But their website does not work without allowing ampproject? Or so I thought! Apparently after 5s or so it does load content and displays it. Still kind of weird for them to go with amp stuff. Unfitting their goals.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
  If you know which repo it is, open an issue. It is indeed unexpected for them to be using AMP
MayeulC 6y ago
Take a cryptokey routing-based network such as https://yggdrasil-network.github.io https://yggdrasil-network.github.io, cjdns, hyperboria or (I think) TOR. The crypto-addresses be used as contact information, and users can message each other any way they want: e-mail, netcat, a dedicated application, etc. End-to-end encrypted, no WAN connection needed on mesh networks. Now, the hard parts are: - Persistence - Async communication when one of the hosts is offline. - Multiple devices pertaining to the same user, with key revocation, etc. The firsts are why I'm excited for things such as Matrix. I'm not sure about the last (and is there really a problem in the first place?)
intotheabyss 6y ago
Nice, pure cryptography at its finest.
peter_d_sherman 6y ago
A fascinating idea, I wish you a lot of luck in this endeavor! If I were going to go this route, that is, to engineer a network not dependent on the Internet -- I'd first go down to the most fundamental principle of WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, EDGE, EVDO, LTE, etc. -- and that most fundamental principal is RADIO. From there, I'd ask the question -- how can any device which implements one or more of the wireless protocols that we all know and love: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wireless_data_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wireless_data_st...) be converted back to raw radio? If it can be done, use that and design upwards. If it can't be done, then use the lowest abstraction level (above raw radio) possible that can be used for the device in question... That's the comm side of things. The "next job up" is to figure out the logistics of user adoption, getting these radio devices to communicate, what bitrates to use, what access patterns to use, how do you get data over longer stretches (if there's no user/node to hop off), etc., etc. But, quite the technical challenge! Of course, you can "cheat" -- and use pre-made protocols/software/drivers -- which gets you the highest amount of abstraction (but the least amount of control). SDR -- Software Defined Radio -- would seem to be a good middle ground between these two areas of abstraction... I'd almost argue that if someone were to make the simplest of all SDR's that could turn ordinary WiFi cards and devices into SDR, and couple that with a store-and-forward network like FidoNet or Bitnet (if anyone remembers those!), then they'd be in business! Anyway, it's a very interesting and challenging project! I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor!
- swiley 6y ago
  WiFi supports peer to peer stuff just fine. Before the internet was pervasive me and my friends would play starcraft/minecraft over ad-hoc wifi networks with link local addresses. Cell phone OSes automatically disconnect from these of course, there's no way to connect to the ad/telemetry services so what good would it be anyway?
  - capableweb 6y ago
    > WiFi supports peer to peer stuff just fine Not to mention that there is huge mesh networks around the world deployed by private persons, all using WiFi over KMs of distance.
jFriedensreich 6y ago
I really love every effort in this space and especially if making good use of ipfs, but to give an idea about how far this is from the maturity of lets say signal: the more mature parts of ipfs are just starting to become mainstream in the last couple of months. But Berty relies on the very experimantal database orbitdb that relies on the pretty experimental pubsub feature of ipfs that is to my knowledge nowhere near generally usable and scalable. I would consider berty and orbitdb as well as other projects relying on ipfs pubsub all very exciting "future" projects that are just waiting on ipfs to solve the technical challenges and as soon as the ipfs team is ready they will be ready too in a relatively short amount of time. But when that will be is hard to tell, all i know is that pubsub is experimental since early 2017 and my yearly tryouts so far always come to the conclusion that it cannot be widely used yet but will be key to a lot of ipfs applications and could lead to a breakthough for many usecases for ipfs.
- intricatedetail 6y ago
  What are the problems with pubsub? Do they need to invent something not done before or it's just a skill shortage?
  - jFriedensreich 6y ago
    Its a super complex problem to solve, it has been done in some way many times before but not with the exact constraints and tradeoffs that fit well to the rest of the ipfs architecture and that will work on a global scale with unreliable connections and delivery times in the area of ~ a second. Maybe some ipfs dev reads this and can chime in but as far as i understand they are not even really sure about what the correct algorithm for message distribution should be to build on.
jedahan 6y ago
> Berty does not and will not need blockchain in its protocol This is one of the first things I look for around decentralized communications+apps these days, and I am very happy to see no blockchain here.
- haivri 6y ago
  > The main concept of the Berty Protocol is the "group", a virtual place where multiple devices can share messages and metadata using OrbitDB, which itself relies on IPFS. Doesn't IPFS rely on blockchain?
  - detaro 6y ago
    no, it uses distributed hashtables to find stuff.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Not for basic features. There is discussion about using smart contracts via ethereum to enable some eCommerce/dynamic kind of flows in a distributed way, but there are non-blockchain alternatives being talked about too.
  - anonisko 6y ago
    I believe there's some work being done to use cryptocurrency micro payments as a layer on top of IPFS to incentivize data storage. edit; Filecoin, https://docs.filecoin.io/about-filecoin/ipfs-and-filecoin/#data-storage-incentives https://docs.filecoin.io/about-filecoin/ipfs-and-filecoin/#d...
  - sneak 6y ago
    Not at all. The people that make it are developing a blockchain product that uses IPFS, but that is totally separate.
LockAndLol 6y ago
I know people like harking on about phone number or email requirements, but how am I supposed to find my friends? Do I have to send them a message over Signal to tell them the name I picked on another app?
- bigiain 6y ago
  Something like that. That's the big reason Moxie chose to use phone numbers. Piggyback off the pre existing social network from people's contact lists. It's great for viral uptake, even if it's not as privacy preserving as a (way way) less usable "random identifier I chose" messenger like, say, Wickr. It's not a surprise that the two big names in all the discussion about WhatApp's Privacy Policy update and mass exodus were Telegram and Signal, with of which use phone numbers as social network kickstarters - instead of "I can choose any username I like but then nobody can find me and anybody could impersonate me" messengers like Wickr.
  - sliken 6y ago
    Not just that though, it makes it much more expensive to say create 1M signal clients to try to spam users, deceiver users, or create a DoS. Phone numbers/sims create a limit on the feasible number of accounts an individual (or even a company) could control.
anigbrowl 6y ago
How does it differ from Briar?
airbreather 6y ago
ok, i spent 5 minutes and i still have no info how it actually communicates? wifi, wifi radio, bluetooth, ultrasonic chirps, modulated light, all of the above? i would have thought frst thing to say, it tends toi make me suspicious, but they look like good guys, just lacking some transparency at this stage.
- exadeci 6y ago
  No internet connection required (uses the BLE technology and mDNS) It says one the readme
jcun4128 6y ago
So I guess if it goes phone to phone by Bluetooth/IR/WiFi AP, then home to home by a meshnet-alexa size/style device. The next part is the cross country/continent. Maybe HAM(bad bandwidth) or some nice billionaire has free/unmonitored satellites ha to replace the undersea cables. Random side note: I was wondering how you could use space to store information. Like you use the stars as the canvas then change the incoming light as the write... Doesn't make sense would get destroyed but yeah.
gioscarab 6y ago
PJON could help: https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/ https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/
catwell 6y ago
It is super nice seeing Berty on the HN front page. I know the founder, who has done many things before among which initiating the Paris P2P meetup (https://p2p.paris https://p2p.paris), so I've been hearing about it for over a year now. Hopefully the app will be available to the public soon!
zurn 6y ago
It's not immediately apparent what platforms this is for. In the releases there's at least Linux binaries available.
throwaway8822 6y ago
Store-and-forward messaging can be implemented on top of many networks: Internet, local wifi, bluetooth, usb drives, LoRa, and many more. Why bundling together UI, message routing and network backends? Why can't we go back to layered software design?
schmorptron 6y ago
Is there a comparison anywhere between this, Briar, Session and (P2P-)Matrix? I love that there's so much innovation in this space recently, but also really hope that any of them can really break into the mainstream.
- schmorptron 6y ago
  ...aaand I just looked and it's in their FAQ. Just didn't see it before.
etherwaste 6y ago
Like Briar?

386 points by mpsq 6y ago

chovybizzass 6y ago

I applied for the qa role. you guys can stop applying.

maverick74 6y ago

there is also Briar ( briarproject.org ) ;)

robotmay 6y ago
Are there any public forums on Briar? I'd kinda like to try out that aspect of it (and the blogs) but it suffers somewhat from a blank canvas when first setting it up :D Edit: Looking closer I see contacts have to share forums, which is a shame. Would be nice to be able to join directly from a code.
- lucideer 6y ago
  The only p2p messenger I've used that hasn't suffered too badly from "blank canvas" is Manyverse. It's technically not a dedicated messenger (more like a p2p encrypted Facebook equivalent, with a p2p FBMessenger equivalent built-in as a side feature), but that aspect just makes it a lot easier to find people to chat with. It's unfortunately not quite as stable/performant as Briar though (yet).
  - robotmay 6y ago
    I did have a bit of a play with Manyverse (and with SSB itself in the past) and it looks interesting. The lack of syncing between desktop and mobile SSB accounts is a bit of a pain which I think will hinder adoption until they come up with a solution to that. I do worry that a lot of these newer messengers and networks are operating on a memory of what social networking was like in 2010. Quite a few at least handle photos, but few, if any, handle videos, and none that I've seen have pinched Facebook's events, which are a pretty key feature for me in convincing people to swap.
    - lucideer 6y ago
      > lack of syncing between desktop and mobile SSB accounts is a bit of a pain Yeah that's something they're actively trying to figure out, but it's tricky given their "Signal-/WhatsApp-esque" single-device architecture. I think some of the work Matrix are doing on federated key exchange could be of some help though; my general understanding is that multidevice, single-account encrypted communication is hard.
    - kangaroozach 6y ago
      What if they use IPFS for encrypted larger file size messages and treat the main message as they would an on-chain message that references the ipfs CID?
    - vagrantJin 6y ago
      What on Earth us Facebook Events? During a pandemic lockdown?
      - lucideer 6y ago
        Ha ha. Events was the only feature keeping me on Facebook pre-lockdown. I only realised months after the pandemic started that I'd forgotten to login to Facebook since. Would still be nice to have a non-Facebook platform to use for this if irl events ever resume.
  - schmorptron 6y ago
    One thing about Manyverse and ssb that scared me off after a while is that all of the content you view gets downloaded on your device / phone, and then subsequently passed on to others. So if you subscribe to some sort of public group and someone posts some disgusting / illegal shit you're now downloading it onto your device and in the worst case share it further against your will. Has there been any progress towards eliminating that issue, or am I just too paranoid about it?

Vmody2 6y ago

Pretty cool to see non-crypto projects being built using IPFS.

remram 6y ago
An E2EE messaging app is not a crypto project?

robotmay 6y ago

Looks interesting but from what I can tell currently isn't available on app stores to immediately try out. It does at least have a nice logo which is ultimately enough to make me try something :p I'd like to see the slew of new messengers coming out also address one of the few areas keeping people on Facebook: group event planning. There's lots of places to chat, but not many alternatives for sharing and planning events with a wider group of people. Briar seems to offer blog and forum concepts, which is interesting, but everything seems to be lacking in the "event" aspect and that's unfortunately a bit of a sticking point for a lot of Facebook users (it's primarily what I use it for, still).

de4np 6y ago
I've been thinking the same, so i built https://hollr.at https://hollr.at. it's a PWA and probably alpha/beta quality at this point, being a side project. It works pretty good for me at least and others not familiar with it can join and attend without an account which seems to be appreciated. There is no stickiness or discovery to it though. Apart from meetup.com I'd say that eventbrite.com looks pretty good. There is also https://mobilizon.org/en/ https://mobilizon.org/en/ which seems to be federated, so you have the option to self host
- hmhrex 6y ago
  This hollr idea is cool. I feel like just having your own instance of this would be enough as a product.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dreit1 6y ago

When will the cross platform driver be available for offline communcation. As it stands looks using the Berty will be restricted by Android to Android or iOS to iOS communication Also what are the typical distant constraints in an offline environment

Jorropo 6y ago
The BLE driver will be iOS, Android and linux cross compatible.

andycrawford 6y ago

Awesome. Can't wait to see the difference between berty and our own in-app messaging system at tabtimize.

jonas_kgomo 6y ago

ELIF: what does it mean without internet access? Does this mean without wifi I will be able to send messages?

Jorropo 6y ago
We are using Bluetooth.
- cuu508 6y ago
  What happens when Alice wants to send a message to Bob, but they are not in Bluetooth range of each other? Can a Birdy client with internet access serve as a gateway to other Birdy clients without internet access?
  - kangaroozach 6y ago
    Like GoTenna Mesh?
  - freeCandy 6y ago
    It doesn't seem to be fully reliant on BLE. From the docs [1]: > It is possible to fully use the Berty Protocol without ever accessing the Internet: create an account, add contacts to it, join conversations and send messages as long as there are Berty users within a Bluetooth range. [1] https://berty.tech/docs/protocol/#direct-transport https://berty.tech/docs/protocol/#direct-transport
  - Snitch-Thursday 6y ago
    > Can a Birdy client with internet access serve as a gateway to other Birdy clients without internet access? That's so far unclear to me as well. I will say, if they can crib some code or at least hints on how that might be done (provided they even want to support that feature), there was an old app out there called EnsiChat[1] that IIRC had internet relays running on servers, but was P2P-first. So: if Alice could see Bob directly via P2P, they could chat. Or, if Alice could see Bob indirectly, they could still chat. No idea if it supported meshing P2P connections to get Alice's message to Bob via Alice -> internet relay -> Frank -> Dmitry -> Bob [1]https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat https://github.com/Nutomic/ensichat

KoftaBob 6y ago

This brings up a question I still haven't gotten a clear answer to: why isn't Signal peer-to-peer like this? What is it about p2p that made it not doable, rather than Signal's current setup where every message goes through a centralized server before reaching the recipient? Would appreciate any insight.

throwaway94737 6y ago
Metadata.
sandworm101 6y ago
There are practical problems. Does no internet also mean no network connection? Getting two devices to talk to each other without a network is not straightforward. Bluetooth can do it but has range limitations. Wifi can do it to, but there you have to get into very hardware-specific wizardry to move packets between devices without a network router. The target devices, cellphones, are designed to provide network access, to login to a backbone of other devices, not to generate and manage the network themselves. Then there is the issue of encryption. Verifying keys is tricky without a common network. How does one revoke or renew a key? It is possible but complicated. Not something that a messaging app would normally attempt.
- kangaroozach 6y ago
  Thoughts on GeTenna? What about an open source encrypted protocol that uses an RF device like GoTenna on specific longer range frequencies? Anything like that exist?
  - khimaros 6y ago
    Meshtastic
- rjmunro 6y ago
  > Wifi can do it to, but there you have to get into very hardware-specific wizardry Android is supposed to support the standard for this called WiFi direct - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct#Mobile_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct#Mobile_devices. I've not seen much about it actually being used, though. Apple has its own proprietary thing that it uses for Airdrop, which unfortunately is not cross-compatible.

exabrial 6y ago

It would be cool if there was a BLE -> inter webs gateway that could be ran on something like a rpi or other very low cost common hardware. LOVE the concept of this project though. Starred and keeping an eye on it!

avianlyric 6y ago
Isn’t that just WiFi with extra steps? BLE gets most of its energy efficiency from aggressively turning the radios off when they’re not in use. Wifi can do the same thing, and protocols like Thread are pushing in that direction. The big issue with a BLE to interwebs gateway is that you means you need to handle routing etc. Which starts to erode the benefits of using BLE in the first place.
- exabrial 6y ago
  I'm more talking about being able to exchange messages across continents without offering somebody full TCP/IP access to your network. Your point is valid though
kangaroozach 6y ago
Also for txt messages other BLE to another RF device such as GoTenna is pretty cool!
hodapp 6y ago
6LoWPAN has a variant that can use Bluetooth Low Energy (rather than 802.15.4) to carry IPv6. See https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/hardware/bluetooth/bluetooth.6lowpan https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/hardware/bluetooth/bluet... for instance.

akavel 6y ago

How does that compare to Secure Scuttlebutt?

robert_foss 6y ago
SSB doesn't do encryption. Yes, you read that right. Messages are only signed.
- 3np 6y ago
  That's not true. https://scuttlebot.io/apis/scuttlebot/private.html https://scuttlebot.io/apis/scuttlebot/private.html If you're strictly talking about the core protocol, yes, applications and protocols with other encryption mechanisms can be used instead.
kseistrup 6y ago
A big difference is that Secure Scuttlebutt uses a blockchain (the “log”). An app keeps one's own entire log + the entire log of every contact within the “hops circle” (hops=1: friends, hops=2: friends + friends-of-friends, …).

sschueller 6y ago

Looks good and I'm excited where this leads but please remove items such as "https://www.shakebugs.com/ https://www.shakebugs.com/" from the android build [1]. If I want privacy I don't want some bug reporting tool tracking me. I also hope you will add this to fdroid although it will be hard with Reactive Native. A native android app would be preferred. [1] https://github.com/berty/berty/blob/master/js/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml#L59 https://github.com/berty/berty/blob/master/js/android/app/sr...

durpkingOP 6y ago
why don't you remove it yourself /choosingbeggars

georgyo 6y ago

The poster of this "Show HN" seems to have zero involvement with the development of berty. I've been eagerly awaiting the release of berty for a few months now, but they have not made public the app yet. They have a closed beta, for a few months. And their build process for the android app is complex. While berty is extremely interesting tech, I don't think it's quite ready to be on Hacker News yet.

3np 6y ago
Early-stage prototypes and weekend hacks show up from time to time - it shouldn't be expected that "Show HN"s are production-ready. Who knows, someone might just jump in and contribute.
- hnlmorg 6y ago
  The OPs point is that "Show HN" is for something the submitter is involved in. Otherwise it's just a normal submission. In this instance the title shouldn't be prefixed with "Show HN:". Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with the submission.
sirffuzzylogik 6y ago
OP here, as you said and to confirm, I am not involved with the development of Berty in any way. My understanding is also that Berty is not fully production ready yet, however I have been following the project for a while and they seem to be going into the right direction. Other HNers might also be interested and who knows, the project might grow faster with more people involved.
- Shared404 6y ago
  I believe the reason the GP brought that up is that Show HN's are typically used to show something that you've made yourself. This is an interesting topic though so a standard submission would work well.
  - sirffuzzylogik 6y ago

algorithm314 6y ago

Jami is a very good p2p messenger - teleconferencing app. There are still some bugs, but it is usable. The next version is probably going to have group chats.

zelphirkalt 6y ago

In the readme it says: > We want to contribute to the world of free, secure communication without fear of censorship and surveillance. But their website does not work without allowing ampproject? Or so I thought! Apparently after 5s or so it does load content and displays it. Still kind of weird for them to go with amp stuff. Unfitting their goals.

LockAndLol 6y ago
If you know which repo it is, open an issue. It is indeed unexpected for them to be using AMP

MayeulC 6y ago

Take a cryptokey routing-based network such as https://yggdrasil-network.github.io https://yggdrasil-network.github.io, cjdns, hyperboria or (I think) TOR. The crypto-addresses be used as contact information, and users can message each other any way they want: e-mail, netcat, a dedicated application, etc. End-to-end encrypted, no WAN connection needed on mesh networks. Now, the hard parts are: - Persistence - Async communication when one of the hosts is offline. - Multiple devices pertaining to the same user, with key revocation, etc. The firsts are why I'm excited for things such as Matrix. I'm not sure about the last (and is there really a problem in the first place?)

intotheabyss 6y ago

Nice, pure cryptography at its finest.

peter_d_sherman 6y ago

A fascinating idea, I wish you a lot of luck in this endeavor! If I were going to go this route, that is, to engineer a network not dependent on the Internet -- I'd first go down to the most fundamental principle of WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, EDGE, EVDO, LTE, etc. -- and that most fundamental principal is RADIO. From there, I'd ask the question -- how can any device which implements one or more of the wireless protocols that we all know and love: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wireless_data_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wireless_data_st...) be converted back to raw radio? If it can be done, use that and design upwards. If it can't be done, then use the lowest abstraction level (above raw radio) possible that can be used for the device in question... That's the comm side of things. The "next job up" is to figure out the logistics of user adoption, getting these radio devices to communicate, what bitrates to use, what access patterns to use, how do you get data over longer stretches (if there's no user/node to hop off), etc., etc. But, quite the technical challenge! Of course, you can "cheat" -- and use pre-made protocols/software/drivers -- which gets you the highest amount of abstraction (but the least amount of control). SDR -- Software Defined Radio -- would seem to be a good middle ground between these two areas of abstraction... I'd almost argue that if someone were to make the simplest of all SDR's that could turn ordinary WiFi cards and devices into SDR, and couple that with a store-and-forward network like FidoNet or Bitnet (if anyone remembers those!), then they'd be in business! Anyway, it's a very interesting and challenging project! I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor!

swiley 6y ago
WiFi supports peer to peer stuff just fine. Before the internet was pervasive me and my friends would play starcraft/minecraft over ad-hoc wifi networks with link local addresses. Cell phone OSes automatically disconnect from these of course, there's no way to connect to the ad/telemetry services so what good would it be anyway?
- capableweb 6y ago
  > WiFi supports peer to peer stuff just fine Not to mention that there is huge mesh networks around the world deployed by private persons, all using WiFi over KMs of distance.

jFriedensreich 6y ago

I really love every effort in this space and especially if making good use of ipfs, but to give an idea about how far this is from the maturity of lets say signal: the more mature parts of ipfs are just starting to become mainstream in the last couple of months. But Berty relies on the very experimantal database orbitdb that relies on the pretty experimental pubsub feature of ipfs that is to my knowledge nowhere near generally usable and scalable. I would consider berty and orbitdb as well as other projects relying on ipfs pubsub all very exciting "future" projects that are just waiting on ipfs to solve the technical challenges and as soon as the ipfs team is ready they will be ready too in a relatively short amount of time. But when that will be is hard to tell, all i know is that pubsub is experimental since early 2017 and my yearly tryouts so far always come to the conclusion that it cannot be widely used yet but will be key to a lot of ipfs applications and could lead to a breakthough for many usecases for ipfs.

intricatedetail 6y ago
What are the problems with pubsub? Do they need to invent something not done before or it's just a skill shortage?
- jFriedensreich 6y ago
  Its a super complex problem to solve, it has been done in some way many times before but not with the exact constraints and tradeoffs that fit well to the rest of the ipfs architecture and that will work on a global scale with unreliable connections and delivery times in the area of ~ a second. Maybe some ipfs dev reads this and can chime in but as far as i understand they are not even really sure about what the correct algorithm for message distribution should be to build on.

jedahan 6y ago

> Berty does not and will not need blockchain in its protocol This is one of the first things I look for around decentralized communications+apps these days, and I am very happy to see no blockchain here.

haivri 6y ago
> The main concept of the Berty Protocol is the "group", a virtual place where multiple devices can share messages and metadata using OrbitDB, which itself relies on IPFS. Doesn't IPFS rely on blockchain?
- detaro 6y ago
  no, it uses distributed hashtables to find stuff.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Not for basic features. There is discussion about using smart contracts via ethereum to enable some eCommerce/dynamic kind of flows in a distributed way, but there are non-blockchain alternatives being talked about too.
- anonisko 6y ago
  I believe there's some work being done to use cryptocurrency micro payments as a layer on top of IPFS to incentivize data storage. edit; Filecoin, https://docs.filecoin.io/about-filecoin/ipfs-and-filecoin/#data-storage-incentives https://docs.filecoin.io/about-filecoin/ipfs-and-filecoin/#d...
- sneak 6y ago
  Not at all. The people that make it are developing a blockchain product that uses IPFS, but that is totally separate.

LockAndLol 6y ago

I know people like harking on about phone number or email requirements, but how am I supposed to find my friends? Do I have to send them a message over Signal to tell them the name I picked on another app?

bigiain 6y ago
Something like that. That's the big reason Moxie chose to use phone numbers. Piggyback off the pre existing social network from people's contact lists. It's great for viral uptake, even if it's not as privacy preserving as a (way way) less usable "random identifier I chose" messenger like, say, Wickr. It's not a surprise that the two big names in all the discussion about WhatApp's Privacy Policy update and mass exodus were Telegram and Signal, with of which use phone numbers as social network kickstarters - instead of "I can choose any username I like but then nobody can find me and anybody could impersonate me" messengers like Wickr.
- sliken 6y ago
  Not just that though, it makes it much more expensive to say create 1M signal clients to try to spam users, deceiver users, or create a DoS. Phone numbers/sims create a limit on the feasible number of accounts an individual (or even a company) could control.

anigbrowl 6y ago

How does it differ from Briar?

airbreather 6y ago

ok, i spent 5 minutes and i still have no info how it actually communicates? wifi, wifi radio, bluetooth, ultrasonic chirps, modulated light, all of the above? i would have thought frst thing to say, it tends toi make me suspicious, but they look like good guys, just lacking some transparency at this stage.

exadeci 6y ago
No internet connection required (uses the BLE technology and mDNS) It says one the readme

jcun4128 6y ago

So I guess if it goes phone to phone by Bluetooth/IR/WiFi AP, then home to home by a meshnet-alexa size/style device. The next part is the cross country/continent. Maybe HAM(bad bandwidth) or some nice billionaire has free/unmonitored satellites ha to replace the undersea cables. Random side note: I was wondering how you could use space to store information. Like you use the stars as the canvas then change the incoming light as the write... Doesn't make sense would get destroyed but yeah.

gioscarab 6y ago

PJON could help: https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/ https://github.com/gioblu/PJON/

catwell 6y ago

It is super nice seeing Berty on the HN front page. I know the founder, who has done many things before among which initiating the Paris P2P meetup (https://p2p.paris https://p2p.paris), so I've been hearing about it for over a year now. Hopefully the app will be available to the public soon!

zurn 6y ago

It's not immediately apparent what platforms this is for. In the releases there's at least Linux binaries available.

throwaway8822 6y ago

Store-and-forward messaging can be implemented on top of many networks: Internet, local wifi, bluetooth, usb drives, LoRa, and many more. Why bundling together UI, message routing and network backends? Why can't we go back to layered software design?

schmorptron 6y ago

Is there a comparison anywhere between this, Briar, Session and (P2P-)Matrix? I love that there's so much innovation in this space recently, but also really hope that any of them can really break into the mainstream.

schmorptron 6y ago
...aaand I just looked and it's in their FAQ. Just didn't see it before.

etherwaste 6y ago

Like Briar?