this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Signal is two things, a protocol to use over something else, and a proprietary service.
Matrix is an example of a total solution.
Signal is great, but it was unclear if I would be able to self-host my own Signal server if I wanted to support the public network and provide redundancy to my local LAN and connected networks.
Every time I look at Matrix it looks really cool and sounds great. But each time I try to setup a client or actually use it, nothing works, apps crash, and I can't actually use the dang thing. I tried setting up my own server, even tried using a public server with the Element web-app and still nothing worked, couldn't join rooms, etc.
Love the idea, haven't seen a decent implementation yet. Honestly kinda wish there was PGP for sms or something like that. I couldn't care less if the transport is insecure, as long as I can trust that only the intended recipient and myself can read/modify my messages.
~~You can't. Signal's server is closed source. Only the clients are open.~~
I just discovered Signal open source the server. Please kindly disregard what I said. I had the old news in my mind (maybe).
I thought it was something like that. What I really want to see is an open-source version of Briar.
Go look at SimpleX Chat. Decentralized, no identificators, very privacy focused.
Briar is open source, but yeah, check out SimpleX Chat
I just checked and you're right! I looked into Briar a while ago and ignored it because I couldn't run the Briar-Mailbox program on Linux.
I don't think it runs on iOS yet either, which may limit who you can contact with it.
I have an off-grid Linux box that hosts a local Wi-Fi network and some communication and entertainment apps. I want to host a chat service for asynchronous off-grid comms. Briar looked like the perfect option if I could just add the mail-box to my Linux box.
Simplex looks like it might do something similar, but it doesn't look like it does comms over direct Bluetooth.
It doesn't. But you can run your own server pretty easily.
You could also check out Jami. It doesn't do direct Bluetooth but it works on a lan if you run your own dht... proxy? bootstrap server? It can also do local discovery over udp, but I haven't tried that yet. I think async may chew up battery though
Maybe your own matrix server?