Re: Grobox: "Briar – Next Step of The Crypto Messenger Evolution"

[Moritz Bartl]

On 05/24/2016 07:06 AM, Erik 'egnun' Grun wrote:
> have you already heard about the new hot shit?
> Briar[1] is a "next level" messenger

Erik! Hot shit?! The briar project started in 2011!

It recently gained another push by finally attracting some funding. I
hope Michael Rogers, the guy behind it, was successful in recruiting
good developers.

The main feature of Briar is that it is supposed to work in a purely
peer-to-peer fashion without central servers, specifically in situations
where there *is* no Internet connectivity (using Bluetooth, local
meshes, etc). Tor is just the fallback mode for "online". In theory,
Signal (and Whatsapp) could well use Tor to connect to its servers and
provide some metadata protection too...

I think it is a very specialized solution for risk situations, and not
(mean to be) a replacement for popular messengers. I tried the private
beta back years ago and it still needed a lot of work. I do like the
idea, and I think services that work when gateways to larger networks
are cut will become more and more important...

It would be interesting to read a more thorough comparison to other
similar products, which is not Telegram or Whatsapp or Signal, but
things like the Serval project, also aimed towards peer-to-peer in mesh
situations

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