• lemonuri@infosec.pub
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    1 day ago

    There is already a really good foss app that does exactly that, it’s called briar and is as secure and private as it gets. The downside with p2p communication apps being, that they eat your phones battery for breakfast. Still a good option for activists or journalists I think. It’s a good way to get around the “server in the middle” problem. Still more convenient to run your own (xmpp) server at home imho…

    • hietsu@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      ** for Android (and Windows/macOS/Linux) but not iOS.

      And apparently never going to be as some key component is written in Java. Other technical obstacles should be solvable (like f.ex. getting continuous running in bg by exploiting location services like iSH can do)

      • lemonuri@infosec.pub
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        1 day ago

        Thanks, I did not realise that. So this app is for Mac to Mac communication only. If seems for briar you need to run a server still or messages will get lost between mobile users. How does this new app solve that problem? On mobile phones disconnects will happen regularly as network coverage changes and different network towers connect and disconnect when you are on the move. You might as well spin up your own xmpp server at that point, as that protocol is tried and tested for over 20 years and very lightweight and battery friendly as well…

  • Mniot@programming.dev
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    1 day ago

    I once did some programming on the Cybiko, a device from 2000 that could form a wireless mesh network with peers. The idea was that you could have a shopping mall full of teens and they’d be able to chat with each other from one end to the other by routing through the mesh. It was a neat device!

    • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I wanted a cybiko so bad as a teen. It seemed like it would be so cool if everyone I knew bought one. Of course no one did, but I still think they are awesome.

  • zapzap@lemmings.world
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    2 days ago

    If you’re in Bluetooth range can’t you chat with your mouths? Or is it for secretly chatting when you’re in a group of people? I don’t get the use case.

    • hansolo@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      It’s not about you being in bluetooth range of the person you want to talk to, it’s about all the people sitting in between you both that pass the message along without touching the internet.

      So you can be on a cargo ship, or on a remote island, with 20 other people and all use chat. If 1 person has internet, then you can all chat globally as well.

      It’s the same basic method of how airtags work. Everyone with an iPhone connects to the airtag and passes data to Apple. It’s just done in the background, so users don’t ever notice.

    • cdf12345@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      I have no idea if this is correct. But imagine if you have a setup like Apple’s AirTag. Except when you receive a signal (message) you also relay it to whoever’s path you cross for the next X amount of time. The more people using the app the bigger the mesh network gets.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Have a look at meshtastic. Yes, you do have to get a separate device, but range on it can be several tens to hundreds of miles depending on the mesh density.

    • oppy1984@lemdro.id
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      1 day ago

      Yeah my first thought when I read the headline was “why not just use meshtastic?”

  • icegladiator@lemy.lol
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    23 hours ago

    We already have Briar. I don’t get why Jack Dorsey is trying to get into the messaging space so hard. He also bankrolls SimpleX Chat if anyone is familiar with that platform

  • falynns@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Neat idea 10 years ago “discovered” recently by a tech bro who thinks he’s the first one to think of it. He got his clicks, I guess.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Aside from the fact that he made twitter (which I blame in large part for how our political/news media landscape, as well as modern discourse, has become so thoughtless), left and made blue sky, then left blue sky and endorsed twitter?

        The dude supports a ton of toxic shit and can get entirely fucked.

        • percent@infosec.pub
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          18 hours ago

          Lol he endorsed Twitter after leaving Bluesky? That’s an interesting series of events.

          Yeah I think Twitter has been a net negative for society.

  • Mahi@sh.itjust.works
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    2 days ago

    I’m happy to see a niche decentralized thing from Jack more than if it was another commercial start-up. And I have nothing against yet another bluetooth chat. But I’m not impressed. In the whitepaper nothing is written about spam protection, so it wouldn’t work as a reliable P2P app at scale. And the UI… It’s mere a toy for Jack’s personal nostalgia about “the good old times”. And nostalgia driven development doesn’t work in general, I would say.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    Let’s build an app to liberate communications but only release it inside a closed garden. Great idea

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      In the context of the US fascist dictatorship and Apple being the dominant smartphone there, starting with Apple makes sense.

      If it can be done within Apples curated monopoly, it will be technically possible on Android (probably).

    • Eldritch@piefed.social
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      3 days ago

      I don’t trust Jack. But this does seem marginally interesting. Actually decentralized, no servers supposedly. We’ll have to see. Again I sure as hell I’m not going to trust dorsey. And he’s got it under some cringey edgelord “unlicense” license which basically appears to be MIT just with a different name. The actual concept seems intriguing. But definitely nothing to get excited about currently.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        One thing I personally like more about this than about Briar - routing of messages.

        It seems Briar exchanges state of the groups with the neighboring devices, they with their neighbors, and so on.

        That might take a few iterations (thus delay) to propagate a message from, say, one side of the crowd to another, and leave different members with different state all the time.

        While here, apparently, messages are routed further immediately. From my own toying around - not the best thing too, but initiating synchronization by sender\relay and not by recipient seems sane.

        Maybe should rewrite the toy to be nicer. It seems to be closer to real world things than I thought.

      • Pro@programming.devOP
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        3 days ago

        And he’s got it under some cringey edgelord “unlicense” license which basically appears to be MIT just with a different name.

        Bro, Public Domain.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      From the description it seems to be rather clean. And perhaps not to be limited to Apple for too long.