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

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61–70 of 118 posts

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

#61

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!

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/bluet... for instance.

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

#62

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 protoco…

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?

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

#63

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.

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

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

#65

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 protoco…

I'd love someone with knowledge-experience with radio to chime into the feasibility of such a system, what the constraints and potential legality of it could be. I'd imagine a mesh network like this could be most useful during natural disasters that disable wired/powered communications, maybe for wartime anti-tyranny - however radio waves could be blocked/tracked and targeted afaik, so maybe not foolproof for that use case.

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

#66
post #60

> 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.

> 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?

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

#67
post #66
post #60

> 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.

> 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?

no, it uses distributed hashtables to find stuff.

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

#68
post #65

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 protoco…

I'd love someone with knowledge-experience with radio to chime into the feasibility of such a system, what the constraints and potential legality of it could be. I'd imagine a mesh network like this could be most useful during natural disasters that disable wired/powered communications, maybe for wartime anti-tyranny - however radio waves could be blocked/tracked and targeted afaik, so maybe not foolproof for that us…

I’ve been playing with Meshtastic and some ESP32s recently. Works like a charm, but no security other than “channels” and currently no iOS app. The Python API has a ton of features, and it seems like this could tie in nicely.

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

#69
post #62

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 protoco…

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?

> 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.

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acces…

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?

Meshtastic
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