[tor-project] Future of Tor Messenger

[Nathan Freitas]

On 10/26/2017 12:01 PM, Nathan Freitas wrote:
>
> On 10/26/2017 03:47 AM, Georg Koppen wrote:
>> 2) It should support onion service-based chat protocols. Those are a
>> good showcase for metadata-free chat/messaging and we should support
>> that + convince users to switch to them.
>>
> What if took a step back, and actually design and implemented a native
> Tor protocol reliable messaging layer, within the Onion Service
> protocol? There a lot of issues related to presence, offline delivery,
> asynchronous nature of messaging, and encryption that Ricochet ran into
> as part of their work.
>
> I know there was talk of mix networks on top of Tor, and other
> DHT/blockchain style efforts like BitMessage can work well over Tor, too.
>
> Ultimately, just moving to HTTP over Onion peer-to-peer messaging,
> doesn't seem like enough, and definitely would expose a lot of issues on
> mobile, where expecting a user to be online all of the time is just not
> a reality.
>

Building on this, if we are looking for an Onion native messaging app
that could use some love and support, I vote for Briar:
https://www.briarproject.org/how-it-works.html

Everyone involved in that project is top notch
(https://dymaxion.org/essays/briarvision.html), and their Bramble stack
is probably the closest thing today to an Onion messaging layer.

I know that this project has been in the air for a long time, but
they've actually shipped an app now, and been audited!
https://www.briarproject.org/news/2017-beta-released-security-audit.html

It definitely needs a desktop and an iOS version, which is where Tor
could step in. That said, Briar has an active community on its own, so
it would be more like the partnership with TAILS, then Tor taking on a
whole messaging app itself.

Also, Tor would make Eleanor and many others very happy by not promote
yet another secure messaging tool:
https://dymaxion.org/essays/pleasestop.html

+n



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 819 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-project/attachments/20171026/5c972a13/attachment.sig>