[HN Gopher] Briar: Peer to Peer Encrypted Messaging
___________________________________________________________________
Briar: Peer to Peer Encrypted Messaging
Author : CobaltFire
Score : 393 points
Date : 2025-03-14 14:36 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (briarproject.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (briarproject.org)
| ajr0 wrote:
| this seems interesting and I (very briefly) installed to check it
| out but never actually used.
|
| I just noticed there is no IOS version? bit strange no?
|
| also no update on their blog since 2023?
|
| would be interested to read whats going on recently, is there
| another place to look?
| CobaltFire wrote:
| I noted that as well.
|
| Honestly given the target audience and the limited dev
| resources I (as an iOS user) do think focusing on Android is
| probably the right choice here.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| iOS doesn't allow apps to stay active in the background to
| listen for messages like Android can. And since Briar very much
| does not rely on the vendor push services that is a
| showstopper.
| mmwelt wrote:
| Indeed, this is very much a limitation for _all_ apps on iOS
| that don 't want to rely on centralised services, such as a
| push notification server other than Apple's.
|
| See also: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/685525
| tredre3 wrote:
| They explain the iOS situation here:
| https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/wikis/FAQ#will-t...
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Is there an iOS alternative?
| hkt wrote:
| Briar is a nice idea, but last time I used it I couldn't find
| peers, if memory serves. I tried adding a friend who was
| interested and we sat and waited for our messages. They never
| arrived.
|
| In the end, we went back to using DeltaChat.
| maqp wrote:
| PGP stopped being the recommendation in 2004 when OTR became a
| thing with its forward secrecy. I really do not get the charm
| of repackaging PGP as a messenger, especially when it still has
| no forward secrecy: https://delta.chat/en/help#pfs
|
| I mean, if you're not using Tor, your IP and thus identity will
| leak to the server anyway. So you should probably just use
| Signal that has double ratchet giving you forward secrecy and
| break-in key recovery.
|
| Today, PGP's safest use-cases are digital signatures and
| airgapped comms. But, you'd probably do the latter with TFC as
| it has much better key/pt exfiltration guarantee.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| Why invent wheel when we already have Reticulum network which
| provides integrity and confidentiality on OSI Layer 2 ? So for
| every packet. It is not better to build "apps" on top of a secure
| network? That way even if "app" does accidental bad thing, your
| private content is not exposed to anyone who listens to your
| network traffic. By default not by "just use another VPN with
| exit nodes full of network inspection tools, dns redirection
| services etc" ?
| pona-a wrote:
| > Why reinvent the wheel when we already have Reticulum network
|
| Assuming README is among the first files created in a project,
| here's the date of the first commit for each:
| markqvist/Reticulum: Apr 4, 2018 briar/briar: Nov 9, 2015
| SubzeroCarnage wrote:
| Briar is actually even older than that!
|
| 2011:
| https://sourceforge.net/p/briar/mailman/message/27393146/
| genpfault wrote:
| > Reticulum network
|
| https://reticulum.network/index.html
|
| https://github.com/markqvist/reticulum
| mempko wrote:
| I built my own p2p software back in 2014 (https://firestr.com)
| and briar came out in 2015. Reticulum started in 2018.
|
| Timing is the reason.
| SubzeroCarnage wrote:
| Briar started in 2011:
| https://sourceforge.net/p/briar/mailman/message/27393146/
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| you mean how everyone built on top of ipv4 and can't abandon it
| now, even after 3 decades of it's replacement being available
| and more secure? Or how everyone uses TLS now, not because it's
| the best way but because like 'Reticulum' it became the best
| bloated compromise?
|
| General purpose systems aren't always ideal, they're just ideal
| to gain mass adaption. For applications who target smaller sets
| of users and prioritize security guarantees, being able to fix
| bugs at any 'layer' and not depend on external entities is
| crucial. How I'd wish they'd even use their own Layer 2/3 stack
| if it were practical.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I just read through the documentation for Reticulum but I'm not
| sure what the point of it is. It looks like a Tor like network
| written in Python? As far as I can tell the entire thing runs
| virtually over TCP.
|
| The manual says something about physical networks (is this
| intended to replace ethernet?) but it also mentions a current
| throughput of 40mbps so surely that's not what you're supposed
| to use it for.
| Erethon wrote:
| Reticulum supports multiple interfaces to transport data, TCP
| is just one of them. Other are ethernet, packet radio TNCs
| (think ham radio), LoRa, stdio/pipes, I2p, etc. More details
| on some of the supported interfaces
| http://reticulum.network/manual/interfaces.html
| maqp wrote:
| None of the given descriptions have been too clear about
| what it is, though.
|
| It appears to not be a drop-in solution for communication
| like Briar, so why make a comparison here in the first
| place?
|
| Instead, it appears to be physical layer-agnostic (it
| doesn't care if it's run over internet or HAM-radio)
| infrastructure to build tools on top of. So,
|
| * Is it an end-to-end encrypted overlay network like
| corporate VPN/Tailscale/Hamachi?
|
| * Is it an end-to-end encrypted protocol between two or
| more endpoints like SSH?
|
| * Is it an end-to-end encrypted messaging protocol between
| two or more users like OTRv3?
|
| The entire documentation returned zero results for "Tor" or
| "onion" (routing), so what's the improvement over
| Briar+Tor?
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| As someone familiar with networking and Reticulum, I felt
| confused by reading this thread. I felt the need to explain
| Reticulum in the networking stack. So here goes.
|
| You can think of Reticulum as a mix of the internet layer and a
| message-semantics oriented transport layer. Reticulum is
| focused on trustless, encrypted data transfer with message-
| oriented semantics suitable for devices with small MTUs.
|
| In current IP-based stacks these are separated at great
| compromise. First of all, the internet layer is unencrypted.
| Any actor listening to internet layer traffic can intercept and
| track or modify IP packets (and indeed this is used for things
| like NAT.) Secondly, link layers are disparate and
| fragmentation is used to make sure that IP packets can run atop
| the link layer. Most modern networking stacks are
| (UDP|TCP)/(IPv4|IPv6)/(Ethernet|802.11). Ethernet and 802.11
| ("WiFi") frames are large enough to comfortably deliver IP
| packets with minimal fragmentation.
|
| Applications on the internet often send/receive messages but do
| this at a level above TCP. TCP fragments data atop IP but has
| stream-oriented semantics. UDP can be used for message-oriented
| semantics if used very carefully, but UDP packets are delivered
| with best-effort and UDP packets are often delivered out-of-
| order or dropped due to congestion and other reasons. There
| have been several attempts to add message-oriented semantics
| onto the net. SCTP is in heavy telecom use but seems to be
| mostly dead in the consumer space. (I recently ran iperf on a
| recent Linux kernel build and was able to get 8 Gbps on
| loopback TCP but only 600 Mbits on loopback SCTP. Unsure if I
| needed to do something different than what iperf does.)
|
| TLS can be layered atop TCP to add security, but that security
| is only available at the TLS layer and involves trusting
| Certificate Authorities. QUIC goes atop UDP but also uses the
| same CA style trust model of TLS. Both QUIC and TLS+TCP are
| stream-oriented. QUIC has unreliable datagrams which allow
| message-oriented semantics but this is unreliable. Moreover,
| all of these protocols rely on delegated authority. Your ISP
| will give you an IP address that it will route packets for and
| often this address lives as long as your ISP connection does
| and will reset when your connection does. If there's NAT
| involved on IPv4 then you don't even get end-to-end
| connectivity with your address. Your ISP also has a block of
| IPs and there's a huge governance structure involved in
| deciding which entities have which IPs and announcement
| protocols which announce IP routing tables. Reticulum doesn't
| rely on delegated authority or governance as much.
|
| Then the other side of the problem is MTUs. Ethernet and 802.11
| frames are large enough that IP and TCP can sit atop them well
| with minimal fragmentation. Fragmentation adds header overhead.
| However when you get to links like LoRa or TNCs, your MTUs are
| much smaller. Running IP on these links may be doable but TCP
| will probably be flooding the link with mostly fragmentation
| overheat. Reticulum is designed to work better with low MTUs
| allowing you to bring in links that are associated usually with
| much higher latency or lower bandwidth such as LoRa or TNC.
|
| For our wold as-it-is, the current state of TCP/IP works fine.
| ISPs are built out with this model, the governance remains
| robust, and we rely on utilities to build out the high-MTU
| links that our comms infrastructure rely on. But if you find
| yourself dealing with situations with low-MTU, smaller links or
| low-trust situations, then Reticulum could be of interest. Ad
| hoc networks are great deployments for Reticulum, for example.
| There's a lot of innovation going on in this space. See
| Yggdrassil for a solution with stable-addressing based on key-
| derived IPv6 addresses and P2P routing which works well when
| you don't have low-MTU links.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Reticulum seems to be by far the most interesting project in
| this space.
|
| I would invite anybody to explore it for a few hours at least,
| it is fascinating.
|
| Now the only thing that scare me about it is that it is really
| a "one man" project [0]. I am not sure why, I do not know if
| anybody else look or understand what he is doing, but hell it
| doesn't make me feel confident to rely on it.
|
| - [0]
| https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/graphs/contributors
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| Kind of funny that you think running python on your smartphone
| is easier than the "reinvented" app. (Also, briar is older and
| had several audits)
| juunpp wrote:
| I thought this was sarcasm, but it isn't. Seems like a very
| weird choice to me to build network infra on top of Python.
| C/Rust would have been the more obvious choice since you can
| then bind to that from any language (at least with C).
| genpfault wrote:
| "Can I use the same account with several devices?"[1]
|
| [1]:
| https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/wikis/FAQ#can-i-...
| remram wrote:
| SimpleX has the same limitation. I hate how all those apps with
| modern networking or modern crypto can't get those important
| usability things right.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Identity is tied to the physical Bluetooth MAC if I recall
| correctly.
| taskforcegemini wrote:
| can't that be spoofed/overwritten?
| tredre3 wrote:
| The BT MAC is shared with peers so they can find you (as well
| as a list of your IP addresses) but I don't think identity is
| tied to it. Identity seems entirely tied to a public
| certificate. But I could be wrong.
| maqp wrote:
| Briar runs a Tor Onion Service on your device. I'm unsure how
| well Tor supports having multiple devices acting as the server.
| One option could be to have a main program that's always on, to
| which your messages are received, and other clients can then
| use the Onion Service to fetch a copy of the conversation. It
| would add another link in the chain and increase latency so I'm
| not surprised if that's not being done.
| 0xDEFACED wrote:
| Briar offers a companion "mailbox" app for the exact reason
| you describe (i assume)
|
| where did you read that it hosts an onion service? i guessed
| that's how it worked but couldn't find anything in their docs
| that said so.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Even now, when I see Briar's name anywhere, I think of this as
| "ah, that Android only app" and that imho is saying something for
| a privacy messaging app. I am not saying it has not reason
| (Apple's unsound, unfair, and consumer hostile tight control is
| the reason! [1]) to be Android only, I am just saying - it's very
| unfortunate and unfortunately defeating.
|
| [1] In the name of privacy theatre which they have actually been
| able to defend by spending both on PR and lawyers.
| forty wrote:
| The simple fact that you generally need to have Apple hardware
| to make iOS apps is a reason enough
| vips7L wrote:
| Looks like a lot of it is JVM based, which makes it hard for
| iOS since they disallow running JITs.
| maqp wrote:
| Yup, from what I hear, the problem is Apple doesn't allow
| process forking which means Tor would have to run inside the
| same process as the messaging app which is ridiculous.
| jszymborski wrote:
| I always think "Ah, that one E2EE chat app that made a cameo on
| Mr. Robot"
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| iOS vs Android is a bit like ChromeOS vs Windows/MacOS/most
| Linux distros.
|
| There are benefits to more restrictive operating systems. For
| example, iOS not allowing apps to run in the background
| essentially stops any apps with malware from doing stuff in the
| background, but it also stops apps like Briar, Syncthing, etc,
| from working well.
|
| I assume Android isn't a problem for most Briar's users.
| They're likely running a deGoogled Android version (GrapheneOS,
| LineageOS, etc) and downloading/updating the app via F-Droid or
| something like that. They don't rely on Google (or Apple) to
| run anything.
| mmwelt wrote:
| The problem is the networking effect. Since so many people
| use iOS, even Android users often have to contact people on
| iOS devices, resulting in Briar likely remaining very niche.
| kragen wrote:
| Very few people in my country use iOS devices. Maybe 5%.
| mempko wrote:
| It's kind of interesting to see P2P coming back! I'm happy to see
| more P2P projects popping up. When the Snowden leaks came out,
| there was a brief interest in P2P encrypted messaging. I wonder
| if the political climate now is bringing interest back.
|
| Back in 2014 (I believe briar started in 2015) I wrote a realtime
| P2P application platform. Not only could you send encrypted
| messages between people, but you can also send files, play games,
| and write and share programs together, all within the
| application. The use case for mine is different than briar's.
|
| https://firestr.com/
|
| https://github.com/mempko/firestr
|
| P2P is really fun but also important and I'm happy to see
| interest in P2P apps coming back!
| vindarel wrote:
| Anyone tried https://getsession.org/ seriously?
|
| - desktop and mobile clients, cross-platform (with an AppImage
| that installs on old systems)
|
| - end to end encryption
|
| - onion routing, based on the Oxen Service Nodes [0], which also
| propels Lokinet that allows to anonymously browse the web
|
| - no phone number or email required
|
| - group chats, voice messages, voice and video calls (webRTC),
| attachments, emojis
|
| https://docs.oxen.io/oxen-docs/about-the-oxen-blockchain/oxe...
|
| https://lokinet.org/
| maqp wrote:
| No forward secrecy in 2025.
|
| Lokinet is tiny compared to Tor's 9229 nodes
| https://nusenu.github.io/OrNetStats/w/misc/all.html
|
| The last time I checked, a lot of the nodes are just run in
| Hetzner's data centers meaning there's not too many actors. I
| can't even find that list anymore so if anyone has one, I'd
| like to update my knowledge.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yes, Session seems nice. For hard-core privacy people, use
| Ricochet Refresh, other than that, Briar and Session are great.
| tasuki wrote:
| Not _seriously_ , no. But I was completely amazed by the UX:
| get the app, create an account by clicking a button: no
| email/phone nor any other "verification". Back up the seed
| phrase so as not to lose your account. It just works!
| LWIRVoltage wrote:
| I recently took a flight with family- on a budget airline that
| did not have Wifi, so we could not hop on WiFi and message each
| other using Signal. I wondered what other options there would be
| in the air- and remembered Bluetooth Communication apps- and had
| everyone install Briar- it came in haandy!
|
| I like the built in Bridge option as well, (when the app
| communicates over the internet) to help avoid revealing the
| traffic is Tor traffic.
|
| I have been impressed by the range of Briar- with a clear line of
| site, easily hundreds and hundreds of feet- i tested it to well
| over 500 outside- and on the plane , my family was scattered, but
| that was no issue at all. (More recently though i've detected my
| own Bluetooth MotoTag trackers from my luggage in Cargo holds
| while on planes, so Bluetooth indeed works well on planes.)
|
| -I have heard of but have never used BridgeFy, which I know was a
| well known famous Bluetooth app that competed with Briar in the
| past. To my understanding it isn't quite as secure or open
| source.
|
| There is a informative post here
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Briar/comments/gxiffy/what_exactly_...
| where a developer noted Briar's capabilities at that time- it
| seems due to some changes on the OS/phone Hardware end, and
| whatnot- and due to the phones only passing messages to contact
| nearby - Briar is not a true mesh networking app. It is a shame-
| i feel a true Bluetooth mesh networking app would be unstoppable
| in availability -though it might be a bit of a battery drain.
|
| It is a shame Briar isn't on iOS also -
|
| I also wish Signal would eventually consider communicating over
| any medium accessible- they would probably run into similar issue
| Briar has.
|
| What will it take to get a Peer-to-Peer capable
| Bluetooth/Wifi/Celluar network using/(more possibly in the
| future)- proper optional mesh networking, Tor capable, VPN
| friendly, wholly end to end encrypted ,perfect forward secrecy
| including, fully open source App providing messaging (with the
| 'accounts' that Briar uses?), for Android and ios?(And Let's
| throw in PC Mac and Linux, so laptops could have a extremely user
| friendly user accessible way of doing this as well.)
|
| Better yet, add Calling capability- i don't know how rough doing
| video calls would be over some methods like modern day Bluetooth-
| but even a rough capability would be used a little and be worth
| adding to the collection of things one could do(Briar is only
| Messaging at the time of this post- which is something notable
| for sure,as very few apps let you transmit solely thru
| Bluetooth<I have not heavily looked into the shared Wifi
| communication abilities of Briar at this point in time> - but
| more could be added in some form...I observe apps do exist that
| allow for Bluetooth calling or act like "Bluetooth" Walkie
| Talkies)
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| How was your actual UX with Briar? I tried to get family to use
| Briar during a flight and it was pretty poor. Messages wouldn't
| show up and we were worried about disconnecting from personal
| Bluetooth headphones while keeping using Briar. It worked okay
| and at one point my partner and I chatted about landing plans
| when the person next to us was asleep. But we found that just
| passing the phone around with typing worked just as well. It
| worked okay for the other family but again, was a pain.
| LWIRVoltage wrote:
| It worked well! Most messages did go through! The caveat- I
| don't think anyone was also using Bluetooth headphones
|
| 500 feet outside was the test i did with a clear sightline-
| the inside of the plane was not quite as far, but the
| messages did go through - and we couldn't have passed the
| phone around when one family member was 5 seats behind me,
| the next was about 20 rows in front of me
| mmwelt wrote:
| Unfortunately, iOS simply does not allow apps like Briar to run
| reliably in the background[1]. Unless Apple changes its
| thinking about iOS, Briar or other similar apps would never
| work reliably.
|
| [1] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/685525
| tough wrote:
| There's AltStore sideloading, would that enable it?
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| It's not an issue of sideloading or censorship in iOS. It's
| a product decision related to background apps (they kill
| the running process with no recourse to bring it up again
| on its own).
| dlenski wrote:
| As I understand it, only Apple's own apps get the magical
| blessing to run in the background whenever they want.
| gkbrk wrote:
| Hmm, seems anti-competitive.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Anti trust enforcement was tried briefly at the turn of
| the century but was deemed unprofitable for oligarchs, so
| it is no longer in fashion.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Eh, it has seen a mini resurgence recently
| mikepurvis wrote:
| This affects other Bluetooth-using apps too, like the
| Fitbit app needs to be periodically restarted in order to
| get data synced from a tracker.
| lostmsu wrote:
| I actually have an app in iOS store that completely executes
| in the background:
| https://itunes.apple.com/app/id6737482921?mt=8
|
| Never had it stopped by iOS. So not only there's no
| fundamental restriction, the App Store itself allows some
| apps to do that.
| monocularvision wrote:
| What API are you using to keep running in the background?
| Most likely you are misusing it on some manner and have yet
| to get caught by App Review.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| I've seen this bypassed via background audio and
| background location.
| lostmsu wrote:
| The app does background audio, and its use is legitimate.
| It is an audio app.
|
| But the point is - there's no fundamental restriction
| from the OS itself.
| Zambyte wrote:
| People have the power to not use iPhones, and should exercise
| it.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Okay, buy me an Android then.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| If you bought an iPhone you could buy an Android.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| But I don't want an Android. So if you desire for me to
| use Android, buy me an Android.
| ctm92 wrote:
| Switching ecosystems is a huge pain, I started with iPhone
| and eventually moved to Android and back again to iPhone.
| When you use a lot of the Apple/Google Services, it's not
| really easy to just switch over
| lhamil64 wrote:
| Have you seen Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/)? It seems
| like a similar concept but using dedicated devices and
| unlicensed ISM frequencies, and it's a proper mesh network (so
| you can even setup repeaters to provide better coverage for an
| area). I guess they wouldn't work too well if you're travelling
| to another country since you'd have to get the right radios for
| the country but it's a neat idea.
| myself248 wrote:
| Furthermore, the latest build of Meshtastic mentioned some
| LAN networking, so nodes that don't have radios can still
| exchange messages if they're connected by some other means.
|
| That seems just a hop skip and a jump from having a Bluetooth
| WPAN/WLAN that lets many phones share one or zero Meshtastic
| radios but still be able to talk to each other...
| stevenwalton wrote:
| > so we could not hop on WiFi and message each other using
| Signal.
|
| I have a feature request for this actually. I think if it got a
| harder push they would consider it. It's not full
| decentralization but does still prevent the concerns that Moxie
| and Meredith have stated.
|
| It is like you say: I too wish Signal would allow for
| communication over any available medium.
|
| https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-airdrop/37402
| maqp wrote:
| Briar is really interesting from the PoV of its forum and blog
| features, that try to use the messaging platform as
| infrastructure to build private services.
|
| There's a lot of discussion about alternatives here so I'm going
| to drop one more: https://cwtch.im
|
| It has wider range of clients and some unique features, like the
| ability to run multiple, password protected identities trivially,
| to appear online selectively.
| 9dev wrote:
| Sounds like a cool project, but the name is such a bad idea,
| despite the cleverness of word choice. An app for a niche use
| case has it hard enough, doesn't help that nobody can spell
| correctly even when reading it.
| maqp wrote:
| Oh Cwtch is like Cutch, and like the project says, the word
| rhymes with "butch".
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| I just wish one could delete or edit on briar's forums. Without
| that, I feel like I have to be super careful not to make a
| mistake, if I want an orderly forum. Also in latest versions
| the ability to fold forum threads is gone? Makes forums
| annoying to read. The indentation for a sublevel being sooo
| thin also doesn't help at all.
| gunalx wrote:
| The main rason for me to like vriar over other stuff is its
| insane privscy focus, and the bluetooth relay stuff for fully
| offlibe communication
| aryan14 wrote:
| Are the typos on purpose for opsec reasons?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| The idea is great, but the adoption rate is way to low for any
| P2P thing to actually work (unless with agreed upon meetings).
|
| Meshtastic is a better option, because it uses LoRa (thus
| requires additional hardware), but with a good location, many
| kilometers can be covered and mesh networking extends this a lot
| further. Meshcore is supposedly the next "generation" of
| meshtastic, but not popular enough over here to actually test it.
| apitman wrote:
| > If the Internet's down, Briar can sync via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or
| memory cards
|
| I'd like to see more "peer to peer" projects take things this
| seriously.
| DonsDiscountGas wrote:
| What's the use case? I'm assuming one is trying to send a
| message to someone far away so it seems like the alternatives
| wouldn't necessarily help.
| rsolva wrote:
| Other phones with Briar installed can carry your (encrypted)
| messages, as in a game of whisper. This works best if enough
| people between you and the recipient had Briar installed ...
| but most people don't.
|
| But I see how this feature could be very helpful if a state
| shuts down internet connectivity or during war or a natural
| catastrophe. The nifty thing is that the app can be shared
| from one device to another, so you are not dependent on
| having the app in advance of an emergency.
|
| Ideally, everyone should have this installed as an insurance
| :)
| N2yhWNXQN3k9 wrote:
| > Other phones with Briar installed can carry your
| (encrypted) messages
|
| Sounds like an excellent target for DoS
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| DoS by local users on local networks? This is that thing
| where you solve the cryptography problem with the $5
| wrench but only slightly different, right?
| 7373737373 wrote:
| > This works best if enough people between you and the
| recipient had [...] installed ... but most people don't.
|
| Which is why it would be nice if operating systems already
| included such functionality
| Velocifyer wrote:
| This is not true, unless you are all in one big fourm or
| you have a chain of shared blogs. I think they are woried
| about metadata privacy or people using this to do a DoS.
| beefnugs wrote:
| A bunch of countries turn off the internet at the first sign
| of protests, hell sometimes they just turn it off to stop "a
| bunch of college kids from cheating during test week"
|
| Coming to a country near you soon
| DonsDiscountGas wrote:
| Right but Bluetooth and local Wi-Fi are very short range so
| it doesn't actually solve that problem
| Charon77 wrote:
| It does if you consider that everyone can act as a relay.
|
| This is also how apple airtags can be find anywhere
| there's an iphone users nearby.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I haven't studied the protocol but that seems like it has
| some...obvious routing issues.
|
| Airtags have a totally different architecture than what
| this protocol is describing, I think.
| dlenski wrote:
| > I haven't studied the protocol but that seems like it
| has some...obvious routing issues.
|
| Yes indeed. I don't understand how the peer-to-peer
| relaying can possibly scale without some directed routing
| algorithm.
|
| If my phone running Briar is literally handing off every
| as-yet-undelivered message to every other phone running
| Briar, we're going to pretty quickly become overwhelmed.
|
| It'll have all the routing issues of a Wi-Fi mesh
| network, except at a vast scale. https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Wireless_ad_hoc_network#Briar
| dlenski wrote:
| > It does if you consider that everyone can act as a
| relay.
|
| Let's think this through. Imagine civil war breaks out in
| Australia, and communications infrastructure is destroyed
| or shut off. I'm in Sydney and want to transmit a message
| to a friend in Perth.
|
| How exactly is "everyone acts as a relay" going to work?
| In particular, how is it going to _scale_ when everyone
| in the country is trying to do the same things?
|
| > This is also how apple airtags can be find anywhere
| there's an iphone users nearby.
|
| This is incorrect. Airtags (and the Google version)
| communicate with nearby _Internet-connected_ devices, via
| Bluetooth and NFC I think. Those nearby _Internet-
| connected_ devices send the airtag 's location to a
| server.
|
| Nothing about this would work without the Internet.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Airtags (and the Google version) communicate with
| nearby Internet-connected devices, via Bluetooth and NFC
| I think
|
| Yes, exactly (BLE, UWB, NFC).
|
| First, Airtags only have a coin-cell battery. It is not
| remotely viable for them to be doing any sort of serious
| "communicating" because the battery would die in seconds.
|
| Second, making the Airtag effectively a dumb device means
| you gain the various security and privacy benefits, and
| means everything needed to make the magic happen can be
| transmitted in a single BLE/UWB/NFC packet (bringing us
| back to the battery life aspect already mentioned).
|
| 30,000ft view of how it works:
| https://support.apple.com/en-
| gb/guide/security/sece994d0126/...
| LikeBeans wrote:
| Yeah, I think current tech assumes a server relay.
| However imo, and if I were to imagine a solution, in this
| case I think a message would need a ttl, say 24 hours. In
| a local mesh/hive everyone would store a copy of the
| undelivered messages. When people move between hives they
| would sync these undelivered messages where ttl didn't
| expire. With perhaps a storage limit of say 1k
| undelivered messages. Undelivered means a destination
| user that didn't show in a hive. Wdyt?
| bloomingkales wrote:
| It is very much in the bingo cards that internet gets shut off
| in America as an extension of strong-arm policies.
| cannonpalms wrote:
| You mean the substrate of our entire economic engine? I think
| that's a bit dramatic.
| kragen wrote:
| What, like free trade?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Parent didn't say all the internet at once, it could just
| be a matter of telling telecoms to block connections within
| certain geofences when protests start to flare up, Egypt
| 2011 style.
|
| Could even bring down 4G services while whitelisting POS
| terminals, keep the Starbuckses up and running.
| dlenski wrote:
| I dunno why you're getting downvoted so much.
|
| This sort of thing seemed unthinkable a decade ago, or even
| in the first Trump admin, but definitely doesn't now.
|
| Other similarly-inclined regimes like Modi in India have
| proven the effectiveness of targeted Internet shutdowns.
| stevenwalton wrote:
| I've really been trying to get Signal to get _some_
| decentralization[0] but unfortunately I pissed off some mods. I
| do understand their reasoning for staying away from full
| decentralization, both Moxie and Meredith have made good
| arguments. But I think this is something where there 's a
| really good middle ground. Where both parties highly benefit.
|
| Users get a lot of added utility, "fun", and not to mention a
| huge upgrade in privacy and security (under local settings),
| while Signal gets to reduce a lot of data transfer over the
| network. There's a lot of use cases for local message and file
| sharing (see thread) and if the goal is to capture as little
| data as possible about the users, well let's not capture any
| network traffic when users are in close proximity, right? It's
| got to be a lot harder to pick up signals that only are
| available within a local proximity than signals traveling
| across the internet. The option of expanding to a mesh network
| can be implemented later[1] but I don't understand how an idea
| like this doesn't further the stated goals.
|
| The big problem with things like Briar is that you can't
| install it after the internet has been turned off AND it is
| already unpopular. But if an existing app with an existing
| userbase implements even some meshing then this benefits all
| those users when an event like that happens. Not to mention
| there's clear utility in day-to-day life.
|
| [0] https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-airdrop/37402
|
| [1] I think a mesh network maintains the constraints both Moxie
| and Meredith have discussed, concerns about ensuring servers
| are up to data. But then again I'm not sure why that can't be
| resolved in the same way it is already done where if you let
| Signal fall too far behind in updates then it will no longer
| communicate with the servers.
| kragen wrote:
| > _The big problem with things like Briar is that you can 't
| install it after the internet has been turned off AND it is
| already unpopular_
|
| Sideloading an .apk is supported in all Android versions,
| right? Even without internet access? Is something more needed
| to install Briar?
| stevenwalton wrote:
| Sure, but this doesn't really scale very well. Distributing
| those APKs without internet access is pretty hard.
| ruined wrote:
| you can distribute it via the same mechanism which
| distributes your messages
| eredengrin wrote:
| Briar already has this built in via the "Share this app
| offline" feature. It starts a wifi hotspot from which
| people can download the apk.
| folmar wrote:
| Also Fdroid has support for local distribution and
| discovery for offline scenarios.
| miohtama wrote:
| Firechat did meshed WiFi during 2014 Hong Kong protests
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/29/firechat-messa...
|
| China went to hard mode to kill the app.
| myself248 wrote:
| Secure Scuttlebutt can do similarly. A wandering node can ferry
| messages to another cluster of nodes; it's used by sailboats
| where someone visits shore to run errands and exchanges
| messages as they go.
| pferde wrote:
| Do you know of any documentation to get SSB bootstrapped? I
| tried several times, but I hit a wall of not being able to
| find any active communities, plus there were old-style,
| technically obsolete communities and new-style communities,
| and half the available documentation referred to each, so it
| was impossible to figure out what to do.
| myself248 wrote:
| Nope, same issue myself.
|
| I find it fascinating to read about, but it seems to have a
| steep and very slippery social hill to climb before the
| technical parts of the network do anything.
| jszymborski wrote:
| Not immediately apparent to me: does Briar use a double-ratchet
| these days?
| makeworld wrote:
| I'm not sure, a quick search of the specs don't mention
| "ratchet". But it does claim to have forward secrecy so it
| should be good anyway.
| fdb345 wrote:
| Briar was funded by the CIA. Partly.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Source?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I haven't heard this particular rumor, not like they have In-
| Q-Tel connections a la Wickr, but they do take funding from
| the Open Technology Fund [0] which some of the more
| righteously paranoid take issue with, being US State
| Department and all. Same parent as Radio Free Asia, Radio
| Free Europe, Voice of America [1].
|
| [0] https://briarproject.org/news/2018-1.0-released-new-
| funding/
|
| [1]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media
| johnisgood wrote:
| Do we have any reasons for concern?
|
| The source code is available here:
| https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/tree/master
| dustyharddrive wrote:
| If this is about OTF, do you also distrust Let's Encrypt,
| Quad9, Tails, F-Droid, Signal, and Tor?
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Confronting Briar with Disasters_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39174518 - Jan 2024 (2
| comments)
|
| _Briar Mailbox released to improve connectivity_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36541798 - June 2023 (11
| comments)
|
| _Indian government bans 14 messenger apps including Element,
| Briar and Threema_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35769203 - May 2023 (78
| comments)
|
| _Briar: Peer-to-Peer Encrypted Messaging_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686094 - Nov 2022 (141
| comments)
|
| _Briar Project - Secure messaging, everywhere_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33412171 - Oct 2022 (7
| comments)
|
| _Briar has been removed from Google Play_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30498924 - Feb 2022 (85
| comments)
|
| _Briar Desktop for Linux_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30023169 - Jan 2022 (84
| comments)
|
| _Briar 1.4 - Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and
| USB sticks_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227754 - Nov
| 2021 (110 comments)
|
| _Briar Project_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24031885
| - Aug 2020 (185 comments)
|
| _Briar and Bramble: A Vision for Decentralized Infrastructure_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18027949 - Sept 2018 (11
| comments)
|
| _Briar Project_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17888920
| - Aug 2018 (10 comments)
|
| _Darknet Messenger Briar Releases Beta, Passes Security Audit_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14825019 - July 2017 (85
| comments)
|
| _Is Briar really the next step of the crypto messenger
| evolution?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11690607 - May
| 2016 (1 comment)
| dang wrote:
| I guess the current thread and this other ongoing one are duals:
|
| _Cwtch - Privacy Preserving Messaging_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43367012 - March 2025 (21
| comments)
| jumploops wrote:
| I once built a version of this that strictly allowed you to add
| contacts via QR code only.
|
| The idea was simple: you can only exchange keys in person,
| therefore no central server involvement at all.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Tin Foil Chat is in this variety - mailboxes are tor hidden
| services identified by their public key.
|
| https://github.com/maqp/tfc
| maqp wrote:
| Well not quite :) Wrt what upper post said:
|
| It used to be the case you could only exchange keys in
| person, but X25519 was introduced in 2016, and it was bumped
| to X448 in 2019. You can of course still exchange PSKs as
| it's currently the only post-quantum key exchange it can
| offer. QR-codes are not used, instead, imported strings are
| split into small segments that are typed manually. The
| program then does what it can do, to help the user identify
| typos.
| thomasdeleeuw wrote:
| I did something similar, share contact via QR code, offline,
| but with a dedicated encryption/decryption device to realize
| the airgap: www.qryptr.com
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Does this still require signup to their server before using p2p
| app ? Meaning it cant be shared offline and used ?
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| As per their website, the account is local to the phone.
|
| It just cannot be backed up, unfortunately.
| reffaelwallen wrote:
| Logo reminds me of the old slack logo
| keepamovin wrote:
| The threat model is excellent, except: "The adversary can't break
| standard cryptographic primitives"
|
| Let's assume they can and you can swap in non standard crypto
| models to frustrate and vex 'the adversary.' (Lol: "the
| adversary"... religious)
|
| More info, the threat model: All long-range
| communication channels (internet, phone network, etc) are
| comprehensively monitored by the adversary. The
| adversary can block, delay, replay and modify traffic on long-
| range communication channels. The adversary has a
| limited ability to monitor short-range communication channels
| (Bluetooth, WiFi, etc). The adversary has a limited
| ability to block, delay, replay and modify traffic on short-range
| communication channels. The adversary can deploy an
| unlimited number of devices running Briar. There are
| some users who can keep their devices secure - those who can't
| are considered, for the purposes of the threat model, to be
| controlled by the adversary. The adversary has a
| limited ability to persuade users to trust the adversary's agents
| - thus the number of social connections between the adversary's
| agents and the rest of the network is limited. The
| adversary can't break standard cryptographic primitives
| schoen wrote:
| "The adversary" is standard terminology in analyzing
| cryptographic security.
|
| It would be interesting to figure out who introduced it. I
| looked briefly on Google Scholar, and I see it's used in the
| modern sense as early as Yao (1982), but it might have been
| used much earlier. It doesn't appear in the Diffie-Hellman
| (1976) or RSA (1977) papers.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Well either way it's an appropriate name, lol!
| maqp wrote:
| >The threat model is excellent, except: "The adversary can't
| break standard cryptographic primitives"
|
| >Let's assume they can
|
| Let's not.
|
| The weak key sizes (<90 bits), broken primitives (SHA-1, MD5,
| DES), and weak modes of operation (ECB, unauthenticated CBC)
| are all known.
|
| We know the Grover cuts symmetric key sizes in roughly half,
| and we know Shor will break classical asymmetric algorithms, so
| the industry is upping key sizes and moving into hybrid schemes
| that add post-quantum algorithms.
|
| >non standard crypto models
|
| Here's a thought: Submit your primitive (the rainstorm hash
| function) into the SHA-4 competition whenever it's due, and win
| it, or at least become a finalist. Then you don't have to sell
| it to serious projects as security through obscurity.
|
| Surely you realize Briar is open source so the implementation
| of your hash function will be available to the attacker, and
| they can perform cryptanalysis on it to their heart's content?
| So you can't really get over the fact it needs attention from
| the professionals.
|
| If you want to be taken seriously, maybe start by improving on
| attacks over existing algorithms? That distinguishes you from
| the random cranks who think they've come up with improved
| schemes.
| keepamovin wrote:
| It seems insufficiently secure to just trust that the people
| who designed the ciphers you use, and who also are
| responsible for breaking ciphers at state-level, would tell
| you if they could break those ciphers. Hahaha :)
| maqp wrote:
| Ok so you have no idea who's vetting the algorithms at
| competitions. It's the other participants. That's going to
| be you among others. You get to break apart all the
| competing algorithms that claim to be better than yours.
| And they get to show you if yours is the weaker one, as
| they also want to win the competition.
|
| Sure, you can't put fox to guard the henhouse that's how
| you get stuff like DUAL_EC. But that's not the case in
| modern competitions. They are open to the public, and
| academic in nature. Everyone gets to analyze them.
|
| We don't know who you are, what are your credentials, and
| we don't have any proof of you showing you have what it
| takes to analyze current standards, let alone create new
| primitives resistant to cryptanalysis. Until you decide go
| the long way, you'll find yourself treated as yet another
| Crown Sterling.
| keepamovin wrote:
| I love your enthusiasm for this, have a good weekend!
| kragen wrote:
| It's on F-Droid. I hadn't realized it supported message-passing
| over Bluetooth like FireChat! Not just Tor.
| dav wrote:
| I spent a little time ~2012 trying to think how to create a
| system like this that would work with iPhones at burning man.
| Never really got anywhere with the idea, but I'm excited to try
| this!
| jeffparsons wrote:
| Serious question for whoever actually understands this: what is
| the legal status of true, peer-to-peer, attack-resistant
| encrypted messaging in the "western" world? I'm particularly
| interested in the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and
| whatever European countries you care to throw into the mix.
|
| I've occasionally tinkered with building software (but never
| released said software) that uses encrypted peer-to-peer
| connections as the _sole_ way of communicating, because it seemed
| like the most natural way to build said software _and_ the most
| interesting technically. (And I have zero interest in hosting
| servers for FOSS side projects.) If I were to actually release
| one of these projects and it were to become popular, should I
| expect to be shut down by law enforcement on the grounds that
| it's already unambiguously illegal? Or would I likely receive a
| "Technical Assistance Notice" at some point, effectively
| requiring me to sneak a back door into the software? Or is it
| actually fine?
|
| I seem to recall all sorts of stories about law enforcement and
| "TLA agencies" pressuring vendors of secure messaging software to
| make the software unavailable or to add back doors, including at
| least one who chose to shut down their business rather than lying
| to their users about the security of the product. But somehow in
| all this I failed to glean whether or not it's actually meant to
| be legal, even on paper.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I would look into wassenar if I were you, an artifact of the
| cold war, encryption can be treated like a munition. Nothing
| stricter than that from what I've seen. Yet.
| gardnr wrote:
| In the Five-eyes jurisdiction, it is legally allowed to use
| strong end-to-end encryption. Any potential laws that are
| contrary to that would come up against some serious 4th
| amendment issues. The idea of cryptography as a munitions was
| largely set aside in the name of capitalism.
|
| Tor was funded by the U.S. Department of State. Signal and
| WhatsApp are end to end encrypted.
|
| Sign up for EFF's mailing list and donate money to them. Check
| out their Secure Messaging Scorecard:
| https://www.eff.org/pages/secure-messaging-scorecard
|
| We, as a society, are under constant attacks on our ability to
| maintain our privacy. As we've seen in large political and
| technological shifts, it only becomes more important to
| maintain your privacy. Deep fakes used in scamming relatives is
| one good example.
|
| Please do release your software and ideas that make information
| more secure.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Encryption for end users is de facto legal almost everywhere
| except for UK. For vendors it's illegal almost everywhere maybe
| except for USA, but that's just how the law works in USA: you
| receive a subpoena, then it's up to your luck.
| flimflamm wrote:
| Not illegal in Finland at least.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Oh and proton mail brags that Swiss allows it too.
| miohtama wrote:
| Mullvad is Swedish and they run no logs VPN so not illegal
| there
| anonym29 wrote:
| Curious as to whether Mullvad will respond the same way
| Signal did to Sweden's assault on E2EE.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/26/signal_will_withdr
| aw_...
| cornholio wrote:
| It's not illegal for vendors, they just have to colaborare
| with law enforcement when a subpoena is received, and this
| collaboration can entail attacking their own users as long as
| a technical capability to do so exists.
|
| If you think about it, it's more or less the only way this
| could work in any democratic society.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Encryption for end users is de facto legal almost
| everywhere except for UK.
|
| Encryption is legal in the UK.
|
| But if the government turns up asking for your decryption
| keys, "you can't have them" is not an option unless you wish
| to enjoy the luxurious surrounds of a prison cell until you
| change your mind.
|
| Which, to be fair, is basically the case worldwide, as per
| the famous XKCD cartoon[1].
|
| [1] https://xkcd.com/538/
| actionfromafar wrote:
| That's a huge simplification.
|
| If you don't have they keys, you can't hand them over, for
| one thing.
|
| Also, the wrench treatment is extremely unlikely in most
| democracies. Now, deplatforming such as seizure of DNS
| names and such, is another matter and varies, often
| orthogonally to the risk of wrench treatment.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > the wrench treatment is extremely unlikely in most
| democracies
|
| If you prefer ... substitute "wrench treatment" for the
| democratic wording: "jail time and the associated
| criminal prosecution process"
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Where has this happened? For using encryption? Or what
| are we talking about here?
| woctordho wrote:
| There's deniable encryption to counter the wrench attack
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > There's deniable encryption to counter the wrench
| attack
|
| The trouble with deniable encryption is its viable use-
| case is very narrow.
|
| It is, for example, not viable to use deniable encryption
| when exchanging messages with others.
|
| If the authorities, through whatever means, get the a
| copy of an encrypted message you sent, and they have done
| sufficient metadata homework to link it back to you, find
| your address and come knock on your door, then you are
| going to seriously struggle with a deniable encryption
| defence.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| I know of no law here in Germany that would make it illegal,
| heck, Germany allows me to sign my PGP Key with my National ID.
| There has been some conservative resistance over the years but
| it's still legal and in practice for the normal user simply not
| an issue. Unless you are using things like Anom or other
| messengers that are like exlusively used by criminals and even
| it's not illegal in itself you might at worst get caught up in
| a sting operation when they take down the central servers.
|
| Fun fact most Tor exit nodes are in Germany. Hosting those is
| more risky.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| I heard tutanota collaborates with German law enforcement for
| decryption.
| EGG_CREAM wrote:
| Heard from where? How would they do that? Tutanota doesn't
| have the key, the end user does. I keep hearing weird
| things about Turanota that sound like the types of rumors
| intelligences agencies who really don't want people to use
| the service would start.
| bboygravity wrote:
| end-to-end encrypted messagess, when the end-points (Android,
| iOS, Windows, etc) are basically spyware?
|
| On top of that it runs through servers running who knows what,
| closed source stuff. So who knows if they're somehow decrypting
| everything on there before forwarding re-encrypted stuff?
| WorldPeas wrote:
| fair point, when someone's using google push notification
| service and gboard, that's both ends of the pipe, for the
| most part
| ein0p wrote:
| Those "journalists" they claim to protect could get into serious
| trouble for merely using Tor. From there it's a trivial matter of
| rubber hose cryptanalysis to defeat the rest of the "protection".
| The danger with such tools is someone without proper training
| thinks they're a super spy, and then they draw attention of the
| people who actually understand such things, and can put a bag
| over their head and deliver them to a black site.
| rmac wrote:
| love briar!!! please add p2p discovery / pairing without qr-code
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