13 ms·

Ring: Free software for distributed and secured communication

55 points by martgnz 11y ago

mosselman 11y ago
Empty promises and no screenshots. When I click through on one of the blog posts I see: "Advanced users can also help to correct problems: we welcome contributions. We expect people to tell us what needs to be corrected, but they can also do it and submit their patches. This is the way it worked with SFLphone and it works pretty well." So you have no idea IF there are any problems, or do you know that there ARE problems, but you assume they will be corrected soon? If any of the above then how can you state "Ring gives you a ... an unmatched level of privacy."? I am sorry to be negative about something that seems like it has our privacy at heart, but promising privacy when it might not be there at all is reckless. We in the first world have issues like "I don't want my e-mails scanned by companies" or "I don't want companies to see what I write", but in other parts of the worlds you can be killed if the wrong piece of communication falls in certain hands. So it is pretty important to get it right. You (Ring) provide no information on the site about the state of the code, reviews being done, etc.
- desdiv 11y ago
  I think this is their code: GNOME client: https://github.com/max3903/SFLphone https://github.com/max3903/SFLphone KDE client: https://github.com/Elv13/sflphone-kde https://github.com/Elv13/sflphone-kde Sounds like they recently relocated from their old homepage at http://sflphone.org http://sflphone.org to this new domain and just don't have everything in order yet.
  - leni536 11y ago
    Their wiki: https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki According to this their code repos: Daemon: https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-daemon https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-daemon Client library: git://anongit.kde.org/libringclient Clients: https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-gnome https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-gnome git://anongit.kde.org/ring-kde https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-macosx https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-macosx Not really well organized.
- jordigh 11y ago
  Savoir-Faire Linux are a local Montréal company with a lot of clout. I don't consider their promises empty, and I'm excited to see them working on this.
- Elv13 11y ago
  Ring-KDE announcment: https://elv13.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/announcing-ring-a-distributed-and-secure-multimedia-communication-platform/ https://elv13.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/announcing-ring-a-dis... (I am one of the developer, ask me anything) EDIT: There is screenshots on that page
  - madez 11y ago
    As I asked in my direct comment on this submission: What are the advantages compared to Tox? I see one advantage of Tox compared to Jitsi. Account management is decentralized on Tox and federated on the protocols Jitsi supports. Are there plans to support Tox as a backend?
    - Elv13 11y ago
      As of now we have no plan to support Tox. We initially evaluated this and decided against. Ring is based on open standards such as SIP (rfc3261), TLSv1.2 (rfc5246), SRTP (rfc3711), vCards (rfc6350) and many more. We are also inter-operable with existing SIP infrastructure such as corporate phone system and classical phone provider with optional SIP accounts. We will continue to be as standard compliant as we can rather than create/support yet another custom communication protocol. What Ring bring to this existing mesh of technologies is the ability to connect people using a decentralized peer-to-peer network.
      - madez 11y ago
        Support for non-obsolete and secure standardized protocols seems to me to be a good thing. As of now we have no plan to support Tox. We initially evaluated this and decided against. I'm rather interested in the reasons of this decision. Ring is based on open standards (...). Tox is open as well. However, I see a difference between the protocols you've given and Tox: Tox is not standardized. What Ring bring to this existing mesh of technologies is the ability to connect people using a decentralized peer-to-peer network. This technology for peer-to-peer discovery is also not standardized, I assume. So, why creating your own protocol instead of using Tox for this?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mrmondo 11y ago
First time I've seen anything on .cx since 'the goat', interesting choice of domain.
- krrrh 11y ago
  Years ago the Christmas Island registry used to give away free domain registration for open source projects. it used to be really common for projects like this one.
mtrn 11y ago
Pity, I get a 403 on http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ring-nightly.dmg http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ring-n....
- bresc 11y ago
  second that. please fix
- unicornporn 11y ago
  http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/
- PipoloyJo 11y ago
  Hey, I'm the main developper on the Ring OSX client. I've just confirmed the issue and it's been fixed. Thanks for your input. We are in alpha release and the website is also a work in progress.
  - mtrn 11y ago
    Thanks!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
JoachimS 11y ago
Fairly thin on description on what it actually is. But according to the botttom of the page this is SFLphone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SFLphone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SFLphone
- leni536 11y ago
  Seems to be the case: https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki However the interesting part is the new decentralized "DHT calls". I wonder how well it works.
mdumic 11y ago
Seems legit.
madez 11y ago
What are the advantages compared to tox?
- dublinben 11y ago
  Or Jitsi. There are plenty of "secure and decentralized" free software options. Most people just don't use them.
  - unicornporn 11y ago
    I think mostly because they don't work seamlessly on desktop/mobile...
  - madez 11y ago
    For account management, Tox offers complete decentralization while Jitsi uses federation.
- Elv13 11y ago
  Ring aim at being both standard compliant and (optionally) decentralized. Please check comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9511782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9511782
unicornporn 11y ago
There's a fair amount of criticism brought up here, but I'd like to say that there are bunch of things that looks very promising, at least in the OS X version. Lots of software like this sucks terribly from a usability perspective, but here you have a nice web page (yeah, you need screenshots), a beautiful icon and a usable GUI. What I'd REALLY like to see is a way to share one or multiple folders of files with my private darknet. If that's possible or not with the technology you use, I don't know. I've been missing a WASTE[1] like communication tool for as long as I can remember. I guess one of your "competitors" will be Tox. But going to https://tox.im/ https://tox.im/ I still can't just download a client without going to a messy wiki and get nightly binaries. How many casual users know what a binary is? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
staticelf 11y ago
I unfortuantely didn't understand what this was.
mironathetin 11y ago
The download link for Mac does not work for me. Tried this instead: http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/ http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/ Choose a directory from here.
- ssalenik 11y ago
  The link on the website should work now: http://ring.cx/en/documentation/mac-osx-installation http://ring.cx/en/documentation/mac-osx-installation
antocv 11y ago
Fuck your website, it doesnt provide any valuable explanation of what it is and how its supposed to work. I too can make a website, and say, "Shit, AES128, Encrypted, Peer2Peer communication, DHT, Hash Tables, MAC, safety concern".
- lifty 11y ago
  I think your wording is a bit harsh. You should tone down your feedback so people can improve and not get demotivated.
- tucosan 11y ago
  This comment just makes me sad. HN used to be such a respectful place a few years back. Now I keep seing comments like this. @antocv do you really think that your comment added anything worthwile to the discussion? Do you sincerely believe that your comment helped to improve the HN community? How many comments like yours does it take to drive away people that try to make thoughtful comments that benefit the community (I believe many have already left). I used to come to HN to not only find interesting links, but to read well balanced critiques of software/processes/programming paradigms, and overall great insight from people that actually put care and effort into their comments. It seems these times are gone for good.
  - dang 11y ago
    When you see a comment breaking the HN guidelines that egregiously, please flag it by clicking on its timestamp to go to its item page, then clicking 'flag'. That comment was actually killed by user flags pretty quickly, but for some reason it didn't display as such. There must be a bug. We'll fix it. Edit: we fixed it.
    - madez 11y ago
      Thank you for the information and the fast reaction. However, I'm also worried about the state of the quality of comments on HN. You see puns and non-serious comments on many places. Downvotes are misused to block controversial but serious, respectful and constructive discussions. HN feels too much like reddit.
Zaphot 11y ago
You don't have permission to access /ring-download/mac_osx/ring-nightly.dmg on this server. Lol
- abcd_f 11y ago
  > Lol Care to elaborate on this insightful remark?
- ssalenik 11y ago
  Should be fixed now.
fulafel 11y ago
Why not use a memory safe language? It looks like this is a real christmas tree of protocol implementations in C/C++ facing the network.
jharig23 11y ago
I tried the windows version. It hung after I entered a username.

55 points by martgnz 11y ago

Empty promises and no screenshots. When I click through on one of the blog posts I see: "Advanced users can also help to correct problems: we welcome contributions. We expect people to tell us what needs to be corrected, but they can also do it and submit their patches. This is the way it worked with SFLphone and it works pretty well." So you have no idea IF there are any problems, or do you know that there ARE problems, but you assume they will be corrected soon? If any of the above then how can you state "Ring gives you a ... an unmatched level of privacy."? I am sorry to be negative about something that seems like it has our privacy at heart, but promising privacy when it might not be there at all is reckless. We in the first world have issues like "I don't want my e-mails scanned by companies" or "I don't want companies to see what I write", but in other parts of the worlds you can be killed if the wrong piece of communication falls in certain hands. So it is pretty important to get it right. You (Ring) provide no information on the site about the state of the code, reviews being done, etc.

desdiv 11y ago
I think this is their code: GNOME client: https://github.com/max3903/SFLphone https://github.com/max3903/SFLphone KDE client: https://github.com/Elv13/sflphone-kde https://github.com/Elv13/sflphone-kde Sounds like they recently relocated from their old homepage at http://sflphone.org http://sflphone.org to this new domain and just don't have everything in order yet.
- leni536 11y ago
  Their wiki: https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki According to this their code repos: Daemon: https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-daemon https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-daemon Client library: git://anongit.kde.org/libringclient Clients: https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-gnome https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-gnome git://anongit.kde.org/ring-kde https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-macosx https://gerrit-ring.savoirfairelinux.com/ring-client-macosx Not really well organized.
jordigh 11y ago
Savoir-Faire Linux are a local Montréal company with a lot of clout. I don't consider their promises empty, and I'm excited to see them working on this.
Elv13 11y ago
Ring-KDE announcment: https://elv13.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/announcing-ring-a-distributed-and-secure-multimedia-communication-platform/ https://elv13.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/announcing-ring-a-dis... (I am one of the developer, ask me anything) EDIT: There is screenshots on that page
- madez 11y ago
  As I asked in my direct comment on this submission: What are the advantages compared to Tox? I see one advantage of Tox compared to Jitsi. Account management is decentralized on Tox and federated on the protocols Jitsi supports. Are there plans to support Tox as a backend?
  - Elv13 11y ago
    As of now we have no plan to support Tox. We initially evaluated this and decided against. Ring is based on open standards such as SIP (rfc3261), TLSv1.2 (rfc5246), SRTP (rfc3711), vCards (rfc6350) and many more. We are also inter-operable with existing SIP infrastructure such as corporate phone system and classical phone provider with optional SIP accounts. We will continue to be as standard compliant as we can rather than create/support yet another custom communication protocol. What Ring bring to this existing mesh of technologies is the ability to connect people using a decentralized peer-to-peer network.
    - madez 11y ago
      Support for non-obsolete and secure standardized protocols seems to me to be a good thing. As of now we have no plan to support Tox. We initially evaluated this and decided against. I'm rather interested in the reasons of this decision. Ring is based on open standards (...). Tox is open as well. However, I see a difference between the protocols you've given and Tox: Tox is not standardized. What Ring bring to this existing mesh of technologies is the ability to connect people using a decentralized peer-to-peer network. This technology for peer-to-peer discovery is also not standardized, I assume. So, why creating your own protocol instead of using Tox for this?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mrmondo 11y ago

First time I've seen anything on .cx since 'the goat', interesting choice of domain.

krrrh 11y ago
Years ago the Christmas Island registry used to give away free domain registration for open source projects. it used to be really common for projects like this one.

mtrn 11y ago

Pity, I get a 403 on http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ring-nightly.dmg http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ring-n....

bresc 11y ago
second that. please fix
unicornporn 11y ago
http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/ http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/mac_osx/
PipoloyJo 11y ago
Hey, I'm the main developper on the Ring OSX client. I've just confirmed the issue and it's been fixed. Thanks for your input. We are in alpha release and the website is also a work in progress.
- mtrn 11y ago
  Thanks!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

JoachimS 11y ago

Fairly thin on description on what it actually is. But according to the botttom of the page this is SFLphone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SFLphone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SFLphone

leni536 11y ago
Seems to be the case: https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki https://projects.savoirfairelinux.com/projects/ring/wiki However the interesting part is the new decentralized "DHT calls". I wonder how well it works.

mdumic 11y ago

Seems legit.

madez 11y ago

What are the advantages compared to tox?

dublinben 11y ago
Or Jitsi. There are plenty of "secure and decentralized" free software options. Most people just don't use them.
- unicornporn 11y ago
  I think mostly because they don't work seamlessly on desktop/mobile...
- madez 11y ago
  For account management, Tox offers complete decentralization while Jitsi uses federation.
Elv13 11y ago
Ring aim at being both standard compliant and (optionally) decentralized. Please check comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9511782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9511782

unicornporn 11y ago

There's a fair amount of criticism brought up here, but I'd like to say that there are bunch of things that looks very promising, at least in the OS X version. Lots of software like this sucks terribly from a usability perspective, but here you have a nice web page (yeah, you need screenshots), a beautiful icon and a usable GUI. What I'd REALLY like to see is a way to share one or multiple folders of files with my private darknet. If that's possible or not with the technology you use, I don't know. I've been missing a WASTE[1] like communication tool for as long as I can remember. I guess one of your "competitors" will be Tox. But going to https://tox.im/ https://tox.im/ I still can't just download a client without going to a messy wiki and get nightly binaries. How many casual users know what a binary is? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

staticelf 11y ago

I unfortuantely didn't understand what this was.

mironathetin 11y ago

The download link for Mac does not work for me. Tried this instead: http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/ http://gpl.savoirfairelinux.net/ring-download/ Choose a directory from here.

ssalenik 11y ago
The link on the website should work now: http://ring.cx/en/documentation/mac-osx-installation http://ring.cx/en/documentation/mac-osx-installation

antocv 11y ago

Fuck your website, it doesnt provide any valuable explanation of what it is and how its supposed to work. I too can make a website, and say, "Shit, AES128, Encrypted, Peer2Peer communication, DHT, Hash Tables, MAC, safety concern".

lifty 11y ago
I think your wording is a bit harsh. You should tone down your feedback so people can improve and not get demotivated.
tucosan 11y ago
This comment just makes me sad. HN used to be such a respectful place a few years back. Now I keep seing comments like this. @antocv do you really think that your comment added anything worthwile to the discussion? Do you sincerely believe that your comment helped to improve the HN community? How many comments like yours does it take to drive away people that try to make thoughtful comments that benefit the community (I believe many have already left). I used to come to HN to not only find interesting links, but to read well balanced critiques of software/processes/programming paradigms, and overall great insight from people that actually put care and effort into their comments. It seems these times are gone for good.
- dang 11y ago
  When you see a comment breaking the HN guidelines that egregiously, please flag it by clicking on its timestamp to go to its item page, then clicking 'flag'. That comment was actually killed by user flags pretty quickly, but for some reason it didn't display as such. There must be a bug. We'll fix it. Edit: we fixed it.
  - madez 11y ago
    Thank you for the information and the fast reaction. However, I'm also worried about the state of the quality of comments on HN. You see puns and non-serious comments on many places. Downvotes are misused to block controversial but serious, respectful and constructive discussions. HN feels too much like reddit.

Zaphot 11y ago

You don't have permission to access /ring-download/mac_osx/ring-nightly.dmg on this server. Lol

abcd_f 11y ago
> Lol Care to elaborate on this insightful remark?
ssalenik 11y ago
Should be fixed now.

fulafel 11y ago

Why not use a memory safe language? It looks like this is a real christmas tree of protocol implementations in C/C++ facing the network.

jharig23 11y ago

I tried the windows version. It hung after I entered a username.