PGPfone (1995) • Hacker News Board

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#11

Post by JshWright » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

frank_boyd wrote: post #8

JshWright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the above don't involve a central server? A server is absolutely necessary for VoIP, if only to set up calls (its also the only way to deal with some NATs).

RetroShare is completely decentralized/p2p/OTR. EDIT: @JshWright - Not sure I understand your question, but RS does "real-time voice communication" (besides the other things like chat, messaging, file sharing, forums, channels...)

Isn't the article about a real-time voice communication?

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#12

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 4:38 PM UTC

msh wrote: post #10

I guess the 2013 edition is silent circle...

There are a few applications that use ZRTP, but Silent Circle is the only one with direct involvement by Phil Zimmermann (AFAIK), yeah.

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#13

Post by thex86 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

msh wrote: post #10

I guess the 2013 edition is silent circle...

IIRC, Silent Circle ran into a lot of issues because their product was not open source.

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#14

Post by p4bl0 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

I've recently given a try to Jitsi [1] and seriously it works great. It really is a Skype drop-in replacement, and is fully open source. Without any need for configuration, I could discuss by text, audio, and video (and also do screen-sharing) all encrypted between my Debian laptop and a Windows PC, using existing XMPP (Jabber) account.

Really I've never seen any other free software do as good as Jitsi in the VoIP field. I've always tried SIP client and it was never perfect. Jitsi can do SIP to, but does wonder over XMPP so I didn't even try SIP.

[1] http://jitsi.org/

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#15

Post by p4bl0 » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:13 PM UTC

devx wrote: post #9

JshWright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the above don't involve a central server? A server is absolutely necessary for VoIP, if only to set up calls (its also the only way to deal with some NATs).

That's Retroshare. It's also the only one as far as I know that has P2P "e-mail", too (besides Bitmessage, which is still quite new and unproven).

BitMessage has already proven to be breakable (as usual, by tricking the user, but still). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6263850.

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#16

Post by lozf » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:23 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #7

frank_boyd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'd stay away from anything that is closed-source (as we don't know what's happening inside) and/or centralized (because it's just one more attack vector and totally unnecessary for VoIP).

Which of the above don't involve a central server? A server is absolutely necessary for VoIP, if only to set up calls (its also the only way to deal with some NATs).

Twelephone gets round that by using twitter for call set up only & transmits media peer-to-peer using WebRTC.

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#17

Post by frank_boyd » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #14

I've recently given a try to Jitsi [1] and seriously it works great . It really is a Skype drop-in replacement, and is fully open source. Without any need for configuration, I could discuss by text, audio, and video (and also do screen-sharing) all encrypted between my Debian laptop and a Windows PC, using existing XMPP (Jabber) account. Really I've never seen any other free software do as good as Jitsi in the VoIP f…

Does it encrypt PGP-style?

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#18

Post by lowglow » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 6:39 PM UTC

Normal people just really don't care about security. It's super sad.

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#19

Post by rdtsc » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

frank_boyd wrote: post #17

p4bl0 wrote: post #14

I've recently given a try to Jitsi [1] and seriously it works great . It really is a Skype drop-in replacement, and is fully open source. Without any need for configuration, I could discuss by text, audio, and video (and also do screen-sharing) all encrypted between my Debian laptop and a Windows PC, using existing XMPP (Jabber) account. Really I've never seen any other free software do as good as Jitsi in the VoIP f…

Does it encrypt PGP-style?

More like ZRTP style, also not sure exactly what you mean by PGP-style

Re: PGPfone (1995)

#20

Post by vertex-four » Sat, Aug 31, 2013, 7:46 PM UTC

lozf wrote: post #16

JshWright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the above don't involve a central server? A server is absolutely necessary for VoIP, if only to set up calls (its also the only way to deal with some NATs).

Twelephone gets round that by using twitter for call set up only & transmits media peer-to-peer using WebRTC.

The issue is that behind certain NATs, WebRTC's peer-to-peer component can't work. In these situations, it needs to fall back to using an ICE/STUN server, or some other form of proxy between peers.