The beta desktop client for Briar has been found
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For those of us who stopped using a mobile phone long ago, here is some great news on the front of secure messaging on Trisquel: https://briarproject.org/download-briar-desktop.
Latest Release: Briar Desktop 0.3.1-beta (13 October 2022)
"If the internet’s down, Briar can sync via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, keeping the information flowing in a crisis. If the internet’s up, Briar can sync via the Tor network." Note that connecting via Bluetooth is currently not available on the desktop client (as per the table at the bottom of the download page). Also, note that this is a beta version. I have just installed it on Trisquel 11 Aramo.
Am I wrong or does it sounds pretty much like what Jami does?
I have not seen anything about a DHT there [1], but I still need to get into the details of how exactly it works. Last time I checked, Jami partly relied on central servers for mobile push notifications (among others [2], although users can also choose to host their own server).
NB: Jami still sounds very much like a project open to technological experiments [3]:
"From this incident, we can conclude that when experimenting with new technology, it would be a good idea to use a technology we are already more familiar with, in parallel to experimenting with the new one, to have more fault tolerance and assurance in case things go haywire." Agreed.
[1] https://briarproject.org/manual
[2] https://jami.net/why-is-jami-truly-distributed
[3] https://jami.net/updates-on-the-jami-name-service-part-1-byzantine-faults
Sorry I misread your post, you were not asking about how it works, but what it does.
They are both supposed to allow users to send text messages to each other securely over a peer-to-peer network, plus some kind of forums and micro-blogging (Briar), or file transfer and conferencing (Jami). I am not sure what Jami actually does exactly, it did not work for any practical purpose last time I tried it. Briar looks promising, but I cannot even say I tried it. I would need to add a contact first. At least we now have a desktop client to try out.
Well, yeah I had not much luck with jami either, I guess I would needed some months around for the best features to land, anyway.
Nice to see more options, if they have a compatible source repo it might be possible to add it in backports when the development gets into a more stable release.
Cheers!
Yes, this is only a beta version. The client currently tells me: "127 days before next version". That sounds like a reasonable timeframe to start testing it on Trisquel.
I am a translator!
I am not sure what Jami actually does exactly, it did not work for any practical purpose last time I tried it.
In my experience, it works for voice/video calls between two PCs each in a fixed location but video quality is not great and audio sometimes not great also, although both PCs are connected with a cable to a routeur and have an internet connection using fibre.
I am currently in a small group trying the group chat feature, there are issues.
For now, I consider email and XMPP with server on a machine at home more reliable than that (of course, if the home internet connection fails, it does not work while Jami or Briar may still work) and email does not need permanent internet connection. However, one important advantage of Briar over email is forward secrecy, i.e. if stolen, your private key can't be used to decipher past messages.
I think it would be great to see Briar included in the Trisquel repository in future.
There is now an updated version for Aramo: Briar Desktop 0.4.0-beta (31 January 2023). The forum feature is now available. More like group chat, really.
After install, the desktop client asks for a password, which is then associated to a long user name in the form of "briar://" followed by a 53 character identifier. Users need to send their respective identifiers to each other through a side channel in order to add each other to their contact list.
That's about it. Contrary to what used to happen with Jami, messages do not seem to be lagging for hours before being eventually sent to the void. Users get a sent notification (single check mark), and what we believe to be a delivery notification (double check mark). Otherwise a clock symbol is displayed, until the other user is connected. My fellow tester, who was using the mobile app, has been unresponsive for a while, though.
>"My fellow tester, who was using the mobile app, has been unresponsive for a while, though."
He sounds like an unreliable twit. I will kick him in the shins until he logs back in and contacts you.
Edit: He said to post this briar ID for you, so I'm just going to post it on this public forum so that all the millions of briar spammers can bother him: briar://acuioa3yfnep3jlj4wycpdlvshlmjshsqjkxqltxd37i6q5mqrzwc
He says you can either post your ID here, or email him at my screen name at disroot dot org.
My fellow tester is now using the desktop app, so we must now be at least four people testing the comfort of briar.
I have also added you, but it says "unverified contact". Are you a spy?
UPDATE: the current beta version is really eating a lot of RAM. I am getting about 450MB at startup, then most of the time anywhere between 550MB and 600MB with occasional peaks at 700+MB. I have a feeling it may be related to the new "Forum" feature, although the extra privacy probably has to come with some overhead anyway.
I won't trust that Briar is secure until it consistently eats 1.5gb of ram, just like the super-secure Gnome shell.
This is clearly over the top, you should be fired on the spot for flame-baiting, and deep frozen for chilling the atmosphere. Be booed already for trying to derail this serious thread.
Horror stories, along with other abuses, are not welcome.
> "unverified contact"
There are three '#' signs next to a contact's name, and their color seems to denote increasing levels of verification:
1. a user was invited in a forum (group chatroom) in which you are also participating, but has not been introduced to you,
2. you exchanged contact details with the user and added them to your roster over the internet,
3. you met in person and scanned the other user's QR code.
If I am getting this right, desktop users will currently get the step-2 "unverified contact" status, at best.
Ahh, so we need to meet in person. I am traveling with my wife to Athens in March, you can drive your Porsche down and meet us.
I wonder how the person posted an image file in that one screenshot. I tried pasting an image file in, but it doesn't give me the "Paste" option if I have an image on the clipboard.
You need to click on the "+" sign and select the image you want to send. Then you can add some text, if you are of the more literal type. Note that there seems to be a strict policy that no attachments are allowed in the group chat. Only text posts, and text replies. Very serious business going on there.
I could always ride my new solar jetpack to Mount Olympus, but I am afraid our desktop app will not condone such high-risk behavior as scanning QR codes. I do not see any option to do that in the current interface.
Oh, I see, I was spending all my time staring at the forum rather than the direct chat. OK I sent you a picture of a beautiful female (she's also quite single and available).
I got the picture of a penguin at the beach. I suspect man in the middle attack.
Else, I have been busy trying to refine my contact verification theory. In the first screenshot of Albert's desktop app above, there is a "Chuck" who has all three '#' signs green. I had been suspecting that Chuck must have scanned Albert's QR from his mobile device at some point, or the opposite, but neither option is available on the desktop app. The feature table also says that "Add contacts nearby" is not available on the desktop client. That Chuck looks suspicious to me.
There happens to be a staled discussion about the possibility to verify unverified contacts: https://code.briarproject.org/briar/briar/-/issues/513. It has the "feature" and the "needs diagnosis" labels. So as it stands, either a user becomes a verified contact when you add them while meeting in person, or they will remain "unverified" forever. Talk to strangers over the internet at your own risks.
And now to something completely different: Briar Desktop 0.4.2-beta is available since 12 March 2023, but I missed that at the time.
It is now possible to change the UI scale and resize the window. And this is it, more or less. Maybe next version will improve RAM footprint.
I've been using the last version for all my spy reports on King Charles' coronation to the DGSE. I guess I will have to upgrade, and send upgrade prompts to my DGSE handlers.
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