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BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

labs.bittorrent.com

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Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#11

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

PhearTheCeal wrote: post #4

Sounds similar to already existing Open-Source projects, like Tox[1] (which was discussed on HN a couple months ago[2].) Questions for both projects still remain though: What sort of metadata can be collected from users of these programs? How can that metadata be used? Are there any security vulnerabilities that have been overlooked? We are still a ways from having truly secure chat as the mainstream communication me…

The problem I have with Tox is that it's 90% hype and 10% product. They spent all their time working on a nice website and building hype. That "screenshot" on the front page is a mockup, the Tox project isn't even close to that degree of completion.

I'd love to see them succeed, but I doubt it will. Especially with the recent falling-out among their primary developers.

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#12

Post by jewel »

lolololololo wrote: post #5

If they don't release the source, like BitTorrent Sync, they might as well just ditch this whole thing right now.

I feel the same way. I've been working on an open source clone of btsync because I don't feel like closed-source products can be trusted.

I've just documented the protocol so far, so there's no working code yet, but it's at https://github.com/jewel/clearskies.

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#13

Post by aw3c2 »

bluedevmonkey wrote: post #7

What's with [RetroShare](retroshare.sourceforge.net)? Another question: What's the sense of a tool that nobody of your friends uses, especially in social networking? The will not migrate until Facebook etc. shut down

Retroshare has awful usability. I am a smart person (yeah yeah), a programmer and a hacker and I ended up with two and a half accounts. Between two machines in the same local network it transferred files with 15 Kilobytes/s. I had to find random posts online to figure out if a blue non-descript icon meant I was sharing files with the world or no-one or if it was the green icon or something else. It looked so promising but turned out unusable.

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#15

Post by plg »

I remember the old days when one person on a unix machine could chat with another person on a unix machine using the unix talk command, (piped over ssh for security)

I had many a conversation with my thesis supervisor this way, once when I was in France and he was in Japan.

PS no third party server involved, obviously. Just my box and the recipient box. I suppose one could do a man in the middle attack but we would always start the conversation with some pleasant banter anyway so it's unlikely that a third party masquerading as one of us could last long before detection.

Too bad this technology no longer works, it was so simple and useful

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#17

Post by PhearTheCeal »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #11
PhearTheCeal wrote: post #4

Sounds similar to already existing Open-Source projects, like Tox[1] (which was discussed on HN a couple months ago[2].) Questions for both projects still remain though: What sort of metadata can be collected from users of these programs? How can that metadata be used? Are there any security vulnerabilities that have been overlooked? We are still a ways from having truly secure chat as the mainstream communication me…

The problem I have with Tox is that it's 90% hype and 10% product. They spent all their time working on a nice website and building hype. That "screenshot" on the front page is a mockup, the Tox project isn't even close to that degree of completion. I'd love to see them succeed, but I doubt it will. Especially with the recent falling-out among their primary developers.

Sure, they haven't polished the GUI to look like the mock-up yet. And they don't quite have video chat, though they are working on it. But what they do already have is what Bittorrent is promising to deliver "soon", and it is actually open-source!

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#19

Post by blake8086 »

Wouldn't this still allow an adversary to build a social network of all participants?

They would know:

Who talked to who

How often they talk

When they talk

How much information they exchange

Their IP addresses

In fact, the only they wouldn't know is precisely what was said, but that's often a very small, non-critical piece of the puzzle.

Re: BitTorrent Chat - Private instant messaging via secure, distributed technology

#20

Post by egeozcan »

Karunamon wrote: post #6
lolololololo wrote: post #5

If they don't release the source, like BitTorrent Sync, they might as well just ditch this whole thing right now.

In any other context I would dismiss this comment as a troll, but yeah.. Any program that passes itself off as "secure" and is closed source, in this climate, is immediately suspect.

Exactly. "Yeah, we designed something, just trust us and hand over all your data". They don't have to make it free, just open the source!
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