Briar is a messaging app designed for activists, journalists, and anyone else who needs a safe, easy and robust way to communicate. Unlike traditional messaging apps, Briar doesn’t rely on a central…
Briar is a messaging app designed for activists, journalists, and anyone else who needs a safe, easy and robust way to communicate. Unlike traditional messaging apps, Briar doesn’t rely on a central server – messages are synchronized directly between the users’ devices. If the Internet’s down, Briar can sync via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or memory cards, keeping the information flowing in a crisis. If the Internet’s up, Briar can sync via the Tor network, protecting users and their relationships from surveillance.
Users who are online at different times can use Briar Mailbox to deliver their messages securely.
The quick start guide and the manual describe how to use Briar and the features that are available. Technical details are available on the wiki and explained in this video.
Briar uses direct, encrypted connections between users to prevent surveillance and censorship.
Typical messaging software relies on central servers and exposes messages and relationships to surveillance.
Briar can share data via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Internet.
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Briar can share data via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the Internet.
Briar provides private messaging, public forums and blogs that are protected against the following surveillance and censorship threats:
- Metadata surveillance. Briar uses the Tor network to prevent eavesdroppers from learning which users are talking to each other. Each user’s contact list is encrypted and stored on her own device.
- Content surveillance. All communication between devices is encrypted end-to-end, protecting the content from eavesdropping or tampering.
- Content filtering. Briar’s end-to-end encryption prevents keyword filtering, and because of its decentralized design there are no servers to block.
- Takedown orders. Every user who subscribes to a forum keeps a copy of its content, so there’s no single point where a post can be deleted.
- Denial of service attacks. Briar’s forums have no central server to attack, and every subscriber has access to the content even if they’re offline.
- Internet blackouts. Briar can operate over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to keep information flowing during blackouts.
Briar is designed to resist surveillance and censorship by an adversary with the following capabilities:
- 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.
Our long-term plans go far beyond messaging: we’ll use Briar’s data synchronization capabilities to support secure, distributed applications including crisis mapping and collaborative document editing. Our goal is to enable people in any country to create safe spaces where they can debate any topic, plan events, and organise social movements.
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Comments
By LWIRVoltage 2025-03-1418:524 reply 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)
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.
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
By immibis 2025-03-1610:25 It's only Apple that does this lock-in thing, IME. Google also has services, but they're not as important or inseparable.
By meristohm 2025-03-1822:46 I guess it's easy if a person cares enough about it? I'm the relative PITA in my family because I prefer to put everything on a paper calendar and mostly use my phone for Signal, iMessage, occasional email, some photos, and internet, including toe-dips into this forum as my social media engagement. I'm in my 40s, grew up with a Commodore64, and am disenchanted with computers now (while still using them for a few things- life's messy, and that's okay). Surveillance capitalism is more of a threat to much of what I care about (includes partcipatory democracy and mutual aid), and it makes sense to both push back and find a better path.
Humans have done okay for a hundred thousand years+ without computers, with some dark ages here and there when people get greedy.
By the_clarence 2025-03-162:303 reply Honestly with Apple not producing folding phones I think in a few generations everybody will have naturally moved to Android
This is such a weird take. Folding phones are a tiny market and they all have considerable durability downsides.
Also, if the market did shift Apple could easily build one. I’m sure they’ve prototyped a few already.
By the_clarence 2025-03-1617:042 reply People said the same thing about bigger screens years ago
No larger screen has ever had issues with permanent damage from regular use. They just aren’t a good fit for most people in their current durability state. Anyone who totally baby’s their phone can use them, but that’s about it. Also, they’re pretty much all in an extreme price bracket. You could buy a small tablet and a regular flagship phone for the price of one of the galaxy folds.
By the_clarence 2025-03-194:501 reply I have one and constantly drop it and its still in perfect condition. Not sure what you mean
> Not sure what you mean
Surely you jest? There’s oodles of reporting on how delicate the flexible screen is. Fingernails can forever leave scratches on it. There’s plenty of reports of people having their screen randomly break despite no noticeable physical damage. Dust/dirt can get in the hinge and cause damage as well, despite advancements in the hinge design. It’s better now of course, but the physical limitations are still there.
By the_clarence 2025-03-265:14 Not sure. Maybe because I have the latest one? Google pixel 9 pro fold
By devilbunny 2025-03-181:59 People didn't like the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. They complained left and right.
I'm a tall adult male. Every other controller is tiny to me.
My max phone size is just about right on the ProMax iPhones. They should be a little smaller - but only a little, like 1-2 mm width. I've got big hands, and I love a big screen.
If only folding phones weren't prohibitively expensive, fragile, and most notably completely pointless...
By the_clarence 2025-03-1617:042 reply They're basically going to replace your phone and tablets. But people have a hard time seeing into the future
By brokenmachine 2025-03-1722:121 reply I don't want one unless they can make the screen completely perfect where it folds. Which they won't be able to.
By the_clarence 2025-03-194:511 reply It is perfect already, what do you mean? Go try one in a store its not hard
By brokenmachine 2025-03-203:021 reply I don't need to do that, despite it not being hard to do, because I know that would be a waste of time because I can clearly see from the pictures in the reviews that it is far from perfect. You can definitely see the fold.
It would piss me off no end watching videos with a line down the middle.
Also, knowing that every time I bend it, I'm one step closer to the screen failing.
By the_clarence 2025-03-265:15 No you cant see the fold, only if you look at it from an angle.
Try it if you dont believe me. Or read any review, they will tell you the same
By account42 2025-03-1712:12 Will that be before or after flying cars?
By meristohm 2025-03-1822:54 huh? Those things are a novelty. I may be aging into fuddy-duddy land, though. If I keep using a mobile phone, I like the smaller ones that easily fit in one hand and most pockets, I want it to last a decade or more (this iphone is from 2018, I think), and I like it just powerful enough for communication, browsing, and photos. Done with games.
To try to see another view, though, if the tech is there and not too harmful (that's relative- I think our venture into computer-land is immensely harmful in many ways) and durable enough, it seems nice to protect the screen? Except if grit gets between the glass?
By browningstreet 2025-03-161:531 reply I don’t trust Android.
By guillermin 2025-03-162:022 reply What do you not trust of AOSP? How can you trust a proprietary closed-source OS more than an open-source one?
By immibis 2025-03-1610:27 Android isn't AOSP, and Android isn't open source.
It's safe to assume that every large tech company is spying on everything you do - including Apple. (Remember they're legally required to do so in the UK, and probably in more countries but it only leaked in the UK)
Android is more trustworthy not because of that but because it lets you install apps that haven't been approved by corporate overlords first.
By browningstreet 2025-03-162:091 reply I don’t blindly trust Apple either, but I believe enough of what they say and consider the gaps when they don’t say something. They fight things like the UK E2E encryption requests… but also, having owned both Android and Apple devices, and managing my own iOS devices and the Android devices my parents own, I definitely feel like the iOS devices are more secure and less prone to bad actors via App Store. I think safari is more anonymizing than chrome.
The (US) government already has too much access to us, and I think Android is more open to them than iOS. The government has cameras in public and access to our banking data, I’m not gonna protect myself from them by choosing one platform more than the other, or one bank more than the other.
What I don’t want, though, is to be annoyed to death or scammed. My choice is more front loaded by that consideration. If I find out that Apple accedes to backdoors though, I’d have to live without both Android and iOS.
By doublerabbit 2025-03-1519:261 reply Okay, buy me an Android then.
By ParetoOptimal 2025-03-1519:411 reply If you bought an iPhone you could buy an Android.
By doublerabbit 2025-03-1520:221 reply But I don't want an Android. So if you desire for me to use Android, buy me an Android.
By pessimizer 2025-03-161:321 reply Advice is not desire. I advise you to keep batteries in your fire alarm, but I don't personally care enough to buy you any.
By doublerabbit 2025-03-161:51 Didn't really sound like advice.
And thats we are different. I would.
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.
By monocularvision 2025-03-1516:341 reply 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.
By idle_zealot 2025-03-1520:341 reply I've seen this bypassed via background audio and background location.
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.
You contradicted yourself.
Whether you want to call it a “restriction”, “a lack of permission without being X type of activity”, or “it works because the app exhibits Y behavior”, it’s all functionally a restriction.
You can run some background activities that are not audio apps, but you’re at the mercy of iOS’s decision to keep your task active or not. If you’re off the charger, all bets are off. iOS’s dev docs make this very clear.
No, basic set theory: not every restriction is a fundamental restriction.
Another way of phrasing this: There is a fundamental restriction, with a carve out for a few specific things, including audio playback.
I don't think you understand the difference between a fundamental restriction and a restriction in general.
What’s not fundamental about the OS pausing any background thread that doesn’t have an excuse to continue running from a relatively short list?
I am not here to debate meaning of words. If LLaMA 3.1 8B can understand the difference between a fundamental restriction and a restriction in general on its own, so can you. If you feel like this topic is worth your time for intellectual pursuit, feel free to debate with it: https://huggingface.co/meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct I don't feel that it is worth mine. See if you can convince it the definition your are implying is more accepted than the one I am.
> I am not here to debate meaning of words
You say that, but then you dedicate a whole paragraph to my potentially (I’m not a native speaker, so it’s very possible) incorrect word usage :)
But also, I took your advice and had a chat with an LLM – seems like it's pretty much in agreement with my understanding of the meaning of "fundamental" as a plausible one.
By fivestones 2025-03-175:57 In this context, fundamental just means something inherent to the system, like a thing that can’t happen because of the way the system was defined. A boat fundamentally can’t fly, because it wasn’t made in a way that would allow it to fly. This is different from a plane which is restricted from flying because of a no-fly order. There’s no fundamental restriction (the plane was designed to fly, after all) but there is something keeping it from flying. And maybe one plane get special permission to fly despite the no fly order—that’s a carve out. So with iPhones, they are built in such a way as to allow background execution (there is no fundamental restriction) but Apple has made it so they cannot do so, with certain carve outs for things that people will want to be able to do while the app is in the background, like listening to audio or tracking the phone’s movements with gps. So there isn’t a fundamental restriction to background execution, it’s just a rule Apple makes (and then makes some exceptions to). There are other ways you could use the word fundamental, as in something that is important because other things rely on it. But that’s not the way it was being used here. Hope that helps!
By lostmsu 2025-03-1614:06 Plausible is not more common/more accepted.
By forgotpwd16 2025-03-169:42 Not sure what you mean with fundamental. As mentioned in the thread parent comment links to, the issue lies in enforced limits and lack* of general mechanism available to developers to allow background execution for any kind of app or/and purpose. No one said iOS itself lacks the functionality for background execution.
*In the same thread, it is noted that this lack is by choice and special-purpose mechanisms are preferred instead to prevent abuse.
By ivanmontillam 2025-03-152:351 reply 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).
As I understand it, only Apple's own apps get the magical blessing to run in the background whenever they want.
By immibis 2025-03-1610:28 In Europe it's been ruled that since Apple makes no pretense of being competitive, they don't have to be, while Google has to actually deliver on their open platform promises.
By actionfromafar 2025-03-1510:461 reply 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.
By Georgelemental 2025-03-1514:44 Eh, it has seen a mini resurgence recently
By mikepurvis 2025-03-1514:13 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.
By stevenwalton 2025-03-151:14
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.> so we could not hop on WiFi and message each other using Signal.It is like you say: I too wish Signal would allow for communication over any available medium.
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.
By myself248 2025-03-1516:35 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...
By brokenmachine 2025-03-1722:24 I've been checking out https://reticulum.network/ which does the same thing as meshtastic, but encrypted. Looks like it's in the early stages though.
By Karrot_Kream 2025-03-1421:051 reply 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.
By LWIRVoltage 2025-03-150:03 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
> 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.
By stevenwalton 2025-03-151:081 reply 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.
> 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?
By stevenwalton 2025-03-153:432 reply Sure, but this doesn't really scale very well. Distributing those APKs without internet access is pretty hard.
By eredengrin 2025-03-158:031 reply 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.
By folmar 2025-03-1519:26 Also Fdroid has support for local distribution and discovery for offline scenarios.
By ruined 2025-03-155:44 you can distribute it via the same mechanism which distributes your messages
By miohtama 2025-03-159:53 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.
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.
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.
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.
By evbogue 2025-03-160:10 I'm fairly certain there is not a working implementation of ssb in it's original form anymore.
But yes, it had local wifi sync.
By DonsDiscountGas 2025-03-1421:402 reply 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.
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 :)
By 7373737373 2025-03-1512:01 > 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
By Velocifyer 2025-03-1516:24 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.
By N2yhWNXQN3k9 2025-03-150:342 reply > Other phones with Briar installed can carry your (encrypted) messages
Sounds like an excellent target for DoS
By AnthonyMouse 2025-03-151:001 reply 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?
By N2yhWNXQN3k9 2025-03-181:39 I haven't looked at the implementation. I was making an off the cuff comment to see if anyone had more information, but yes, ultimately I assume that you could mute an unwanted node with brute force? Or just move further away from it?
I was thinking more you flood the "mail bag" of the "message carrier" and assume the implementation has a LRU eviction policy on said "mail bag".
By genewitch 2025-03-1617:19 Someone not participating in briar or the DoS can use fing (android app) or a signal strength meter (handheld, I have 2, personally) to direction find and triangulate the person sending the traffic. Hence $5 lead pipe.
and by "someone" i mean "any android cellphone"
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
By DonsDiscountGas 2025-03-151:061 reply Right but Bluetooth and local Wi-Fi are very short range so it doesn't actually solve that problem
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.
> 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.
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?
By fc417fc802 2025-03-165:51 > With perhaps a storage limit of say 1k undelivered messages.
If you want this to scale you'd need a scheme to deal with limited cache per device. Something like having each device assign a random priority to each message it has in transit. That way everyone culls a different set when things fill up.
> would need a ttl, say 24 hours
Probably better off scaling priority by age. That way you deliver if at all possible, until it eventually falls out of cache. Some people will be able to dedicate much more storage than others.
By dlenski 2025-03-195:21 I do think this approach would be fairly tractable within "hives" where most of the members have few-hop connections to all of the others, most of the time. The trouble is that there would be so many unpredictable cases:
- Regular travelers between cities (e.g. flight attendants) might be the only reliable links between those hives. Travel patterns change, war breaks out, etc and the hive suddenly splits into two (or more). - A lot of people probably move around too much, and too unpredictable, to participate in a hive that's stable on scales necessary to maintain a TTL of <24h and a reasonable amount of cache for storing others’ undelivered messages.
Maybe I'm being too pessimistic here… I do think it'd be fascinating and instructive to try to build and use a hive/mesh messaging system like this at scale.
The Galapagos Island "post office" is an interesting real world example of serverless/decentralized message delivery: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/galapagos-...
Basically, if you visit the Galapagos and you're so inclined… you leave a letter for someone else, and you sift through the letters that have been left there, and try to find one or two that you could conceivably hand-deliver when you return home.
The latency is 100~1000x longer than "normal" snail mail. This is basically with one "hive" constructed around tourists and researchers in an unusual location. But it basically works.
By traceroute66 2025-03-1512:57 > 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/...
By idiotsecant 2025-03-154:461 reply 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.
By dlenski 2025-03-156:43 > 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
By bloomingkales 2025-03-1422:152 reply It is very much in the bingo cards that internet gets shut off in America as an extension of strong-arm policies.
By cannonpalms 2025-03-1423:063 reply You mean the substrate of our entire economic engine? I think that's a bit dramatic.
By jazzyjackson 2025-03-152:44 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.
By kragen 2025-03-152:09 What, like free trade?
By dlenski 2025-03-156:46 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.
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://github.com/mempko/firestr
P2P is really fun but also important and I'm happy to see interest in P2P apps coming back!
By ianopolous 2025-03-1617:42 G'day mempko, I remember firestr! Very nice! You might remember around the same time (2013) I started Peergos. We're still working on it!
