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FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

fromjason.xyz

71–80 of 127 posts

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#71
post #50

Hi there, I am on developement team of Newnode, a successor of FireChat founded by two of the same people ( https://www.newnode.com/ ). We now provide both, a VPN and a Messenger, with purpose to help people evade censorship and enable device-to-device connectivity. You can find the source code at https://github.com/clostra/newnode

I downloaded your app just now from App Store.

When I get to the phone number step, it briefly shows a captcha screen but then transitions to the phone number screen.

When I enter my phone number. Country code +47. I don’t get any sms at all.

When I switch to the sms app to see if an sms arrived (it didn’t), and I switch back to your app, the counter on the screen that is counting down to allow resending code resets to 00:59 although it was at like 00:30 when I switched away from the app.

When after waiting for another full minute and occasionally touching the screen to prevent it from locking I am presented with the following options when clicking “I didn’t get a code”:

- Contact NewNode Support

- Resend code

- Call me instead

- Cancel

I tried resend code. No code arrives still.

Great, now I have to wait another full minute with your app in focus before I can try another option.

After waiting another full minute, I click “call me instead”. No call comes.

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#72
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a combination of LoRa, bluetooth, and WiFi might be the alternative. I've seen videos of LoRA functioning below the noise floor (perfect for evading RF triangulation), and at 200km (perfect for reaching past physical borders). The major weakness is line of sight (and availability), but bluetooth and WiFi can help there.

Theoretically it can't be below the noise floor right? I don’t know much about radio stuff fwiw that just seems impossible by definition

If you know where to look for the signal, you can often find it

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#73
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically it can't be below the noise floor right? I don’t know much about radio stuff fwiw that just seems impossible by definition

Other posters have pointed out that this is incorrect, but I wanted to give a bit of intuition as to how signals can be received when they are below the noise floor. First, as a definition, below the noise floor means that the power of my signal at any given time is smaller than the power of the ambient noise in my channel, and usually this implies that you're only interested in a particular segment of frequency spec…

Or an even more concise example: fountain codes

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#74
post #50

Hi there, I am on developement team of Newnode, a successor of FireChat founded by two of the same people ( https://www.newnode.com/ ). We now provide both, a VPN and a Messenger, with purpose to help people evade censorship and enable device-to-device connectivity. You can find the source code at https://github.com/clostra/newnode

Is the new product funded by In-q-tel as well?

You do know In-q-tel has invested in things that people use in the day to day, including Google Earth (originally created by Keyhole). DARPA kick-started the semi-autonomous vehicle industry with two of their Grand Challenges in the 2000s. The US Navy helped develop what would become Tor also in the early 2000s....

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now we can put the speculation to rest, exactly how many CIA agents visited to shut down your radical operation??

The other option given the surprisingly one-sided list of protest movements they brag about: how many CIA agents were involved in its genesis?

So hypothetically the CIA benefited from an anonymous decentralized non-internet based chat app? I guess that's two things (protest movements and a intelligence agency) can agree on....

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#76
post #30
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a combination of LoRa, bluetooth, and WiFi might be the alternative. I've seen videos of LoRA functioning below the noise floor (perfect for evading RF triangulation), and at 200km (perfect for reaching past physical borders). The major weakness is line of sight (and availability), but bluetooth and WiFi can help there.

Theoretically it can't be below the noise floor right? I don’t know much about radio stuff fwiw that just seems impossible by definition

Simplest explation is: If you take a closer look to Shannon–Hartley theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore... you can see, that in theory you can have arbitrarly low signal/nose ratio for message to get trough.

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other option given the surprisingly one-sided list of protest movements they brag about: how many CIA agents were involved in its genesis?

So hypothetically the CIA benefited from an anonymous decentralized non-internet based chat app? I guess that's two things (protest movements and a intelligence agency) can agree on....

It seems obvious to me that protest movements in certain countries serve US security state interests and other protest movements in other countries do not. It would make sense in this context if you have e.g. a backdoored chat app which is otherwise secure that it would serve US security state interests for some protestors to have access to that app, and no harm if the protestors you don't like use it.

Recall that it is public information that USAID created a Twitter clone called Zunzuneo to be used in Cuba. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they have also made some "secure" chat app.

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#78
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are significantly overestimating the level of recordkeeping by random sellers of used and/or ultra-cheap phones. Manufacturers, major retailers, and carriers may keep this information, but bodegas and street vendors certainly do not.

This is certainly approaching murder investigation levels of effort by law enforcement, but I don't think it's ridiculous to imagine a POS system being used that keeps transaction records for a year or two.

Pay cash and wait 90+ days for video records to roll over.

But, at least in the country I live in, this is excessive for a typical protest burner.

Re: FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems very likely. My point wasn't to say that they were looking to make a revolutionary tool to fight a state, more that it makes me sad that the ones that catch on are rarely open source ones that have existed.

because open source have the worst marketing budget, always. by definition.

Not only marketing but also the worst engineering, testing, design, accessibility ... budgets.

Financing open-source projects is hard because anybody can take them and build stuff on top of them to sell at a way higher margin (or they are restrictive i.e. AGPL so nobody builds anything on top of them)

Only well-financed major open source projects are the ones that existed at critical points of time where no strong proprietary alternative with abundant features existed (e.g. Linux kernel, GCC, Apache Web Server) or the ones that are created by major companies as part of their infrastructure and released as a way to shape markets (e.g. Kubernetes, Chromium, PyTorch, React, .NET Core) for the worse or the better.

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