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

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

#41

Post by Snitch-Thursday »

cuu508 wrote: post #28
Jorropo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are using Bluetooth.

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?

> 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

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

#42

Post by sirffuzzylogik »

georgyo wrote: post #27

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.

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.

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

#43

Post by Shared404 »

sirffuzzylogik wrote: post #42
georgyo wrote: post #27

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.

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.

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.

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

#44

Post by hnlmorg »

3np wrote: post #38
georgyo wrote: post #27

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.

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.

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.

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

#45

Post by sirffuzzylogik »

Shared404 wrote: post #43
sirffuzzylogik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Thanks for explaining, I thought "Show HN" was for any app/project to be demonstrated, not necessarily affiliated with the poster. I just (re)read the rules and I am sorry for this mistake, maybe @dang can amend the title?

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

#46

Post by deckard1 »

KoftaBob wrote: post #20

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.

> What is it about p2p that made it not doable

Well, everything?

Nothing about mobile devices is suited for p2p. Mobile devices are the exact opposite of what you want for p2p to function smoothly. The devices are always going offline, they move around and acquire new IP addresses, they can't run things in the background without significant battery drain. And probably most important: NAT and routing issues. This isn't the '90s where two computers can just freely talk across the internet on any port they want to.

At the very minimum you would need a centralized discovery server. At that point you may as well scrap the whole idea anyway.

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

#47

Post by zelphirkalt »

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.

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

#48

Post by MayeulC »

Take a cryptokey routing-based network such as 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?)

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

#49

Post by upofadown »

KoftaBob wrote: post #20

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.

Forward secrecy normally requires a handshake where both endpoints are online. Signal is obsessively forward secret. The Signal Protocol's claim to fame is that it can do offline messaging while still providing forward secrecy. It very much requires a server to store the required cryptographic state to do so.

I guess the restriction could be considered some sort of downside that comes with protocol complexity.

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

#50

Post by jlokier »

sirffuzzylogik wrote: post #45
Shared404 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks for explaining, I thought "Show HN" was for any app/project to be demonstrated, not necessarily affiliated with the poster. I just (re)read the rules and I am sorry for this mistake, maybe @dang can amend the title?

This may help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777953

>> @dang

> The correct way to contact dang on issues like this is to write email to hn@ycombinator.com

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