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Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#91

Post by iopq »

nobotty wrote: post #87
sitkack wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because NASA has used C means this guy writes code for the shuttle? Read the code. Dig through the commit logs. This is the wrong choice on about every level. The best encryption won't save you when you have code like this. What did we not learn about OpenSSL?

the only thing I'm seeing from your posts is "I'm a fucking idiot who doesn't understand that C is safer than any interpreted pretend-you're-safe language"

When have you heard of a JavaScript dangling pointer problem? Buffer overrun? Segfault?

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#93

Post by iopq »

sitkack wrote: post #77
laikaa wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has the time to do it.

We don't want the guy with the most "free time" doing the work.

You're right. Make a better program. I'll be anticipating it, I really want a Skype replacement I can get behind.

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#94

Post by ge0rg »

sitkack wrote: post #62
Byzantine wrote: post #42

What makes the main developer, irungentoo, qualified to write the Tox core?

Starting a new, blue water distributed encryption system in a non-safe language is odd at this point. The protocol is being _noodled_ through and the code is in C. This is the coding style https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/commit/84c28337d248bad... this is openssl all over again https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/commit/1d6c3934736c369...

From a short look, I tend to agree with you.

> memcpy(packet + 1, &con->ping_request_id, sizeof(uint64_t));

Copying multi-byte values into a network packet is a typical error made by novice developers - this will bite you hard as soon as somebody compiles the code on a Big Endian machine. Even if you might get away with this on opaque elements like a ping ID, the general approach should not be followed.

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#95

Post by notsecure »

donniezazen wrote: post #78

Do you sync messages across various clients? So that I can start chatting on one and move to second or third client.

Not yet. This is a planned feature but the implementation has not been decided yet because this feature is not exactly compatible with how Tox works and it could cause a lot security issues.

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#96

Post by irungentoo »

hobarrera wrote: post #56
ledo wrote: post #19

i've been keeping an eye on this project for a while, it looks really promising. I'm spreading the word about it where i can.

How is it superior to existing IM protocols (eg: XMPP)? The article comapres it to skype, which is popular, but, techonologically, one of the worst protocols around.

Tox is distributed meaning there are no central servers.

Also, encryption is mandatory.

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#97

Post by kragniz »

eps wrote: post #80
kragniz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole protocol is decentralized and peer to peer. Each person in the network has a public and private key. The NaCl library is used to do all of the encryption.

Do you have exact crypto spec somewhere? "NaCl library" is not a spec and it's still easy to use/apply it incorrectly.

Crypto is outlined over here: https://github.com/irungentoo/toxcore/blob/master/docs/updat...

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#98

Post by bramd »

I don't post often on HN, but today couldn't resist. Just tested Utox on Windows as well as Toxy, also on Windows. Both programs are totally inaccessible for people using a screenreader and I'm quite sure as well for people using things like speech recognition.

Utox seems to be C++ and a GUI framework I didn't look into. Toxy is .NET+WPF... two different stacks, but two inaccessible programs. I'm quite sure the developers didn't write inaccessible software deliberately, but this makes me wonder if we need either:

1. Inform developers better about accessibility 2. Fix tooling: warn/error if you don't label your elements etc 3. All of the above...

To give this post some more context, earlier this week I looked at Stellar... their web client is inaccessible. Earlier this week Wunderlist released a version 3... iOS app is nearly inaccessible. Earlier this week I finally wanted to give Foursquare's new Swarm app a shot... inaccessible. Do you see the pattern? I'm sorry for ranting about this, but imagine some random app update did stop the app from working and only displayed a black screen, you would be annoyed at least.

Re: Tox: A simple, distributed, free, secure Skype replacement. Now alpha with A/V

#100

Post by ahknight »

Aqueous wrote: post #33

I guess you've settled on a name, pretty completely, but tox evokes all sorts of bad feelings like "Toxin", "Detox" - generally feelings associated with the idea of poison or of poisoning yourself. From a marketing perspective this might not be the least sinister name you could have chosen. I realize this comes out of 4chan and we make a point of not giving a shit about marketing but...

Also, Tox is taken as the name of an established test runner in the Python world.
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