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FireChat was a tool for revolution, then disappeared
- ltrls23 2y agoI'm surprised that no one mentioned quaul – https://qaul.net/ https://qaul.net/ It seems very nice.
- miguelazo 2y agoVery suspicious ending, which calls into question the real origin story.
- bishbosh 2y agoIt is endlessly depressing to me that the 'revolutionary' tools that so often catch on aren't free and open source.
- 1oooqooq 2y agothey are just failed business with above average marketing budgets. It would have sold to facebook just the same if it took over market as whatsapp did.
- bishbosh 2y agoThat seems very likely. My point wasn't to say that they were looking to make a revolutionary tool to fight a state, more that it makes me sad that the ones that catch on are rarely open source ones that have existed.
- 1oooqooq 2y agobecause open source have the worst marketing budget, always. by definition.
- bishbosh 2y agoDo you know of any projects that tried to advertise how much it helps? Obviously quite a limited set of projects that would even have a budget to advertise, but I wonder if there is data on how much it helps to show folks there are other options.
- 1oooqooq 2y agothere's ton of data. that's why most project want to use MIT. They dream with vc money so they can just dump it all in marketing and make bank. like moby, i mean docker. npm. etc. hence why you either go GPLv3 or don't bother calling it open source.
- okanat 2y agoNot only marketing but also the worst engineering, testing, design, accessibility ... budgets. Financing open-source projects is hard because anybody can take them and build stuff on top of them to sell at a way higher margin (or they are restrictive i.e. AGPL so nobody builds anything on top of them) Only well-financed major open source projects are the ones that existed at critical points of time where no strong proprietary alternative with abundant features existed (e.g. Linux kernel, GCC, Apache Web Server) or the ones that are created by major companies as part of their infrastructure and released as a way to shape markets (e.g. Kubernetes, Chromium, PyTorch, React, .NET Core) for the worse or the better.
- staplers 2y agoThey almost always start out this way then slowly become figured out and integrated into the corporate machine. And the ones that are centralization-resistant become demonized and/or suppressed by the media. Tor, bitcoin, etc. The entire history of the internet is basically decentralized protocols being slowly transformed into corporate walled-gardens.
- Klonoar 2y agoHuh, I've had the mesh network concept rolling around in the back of my head for years specifically due to FireChat. I had no idea it was gone - guess I took it for granted. Wonder if anybody's got more info on what happened?
- ianpenney 2y agoMeshtastic is alive https://meshtastic.org/ https://meshtastic.org/
- livueta 2y agoWhile I quite like Meshtastic and have literally dozens of t-beams, they serve fairly different usecases. Meshtastic is great for keeping in touch with your preorganized paragliding group or whatever, but the need for special hardware will always limit adoption in emergent scenarios vs. FireChat's "we're going to the protest; install this app".
- ParanoidShroom 2y agoI applied to open garden many years ago, solved their coding challenges but after back and forth it didn't go anywhere. It seem Stas has since then started clostra.com The fireside chat messenger just rebranded. https://www.newnode.com/download https://www.newnode.com/download. I love a good conspiracy but shows little evidence.
- motakuk 2y agoIt's gone because it was barely usable.
- 1oooqooq 2y agothe eulogy also forgets it was a mesh-tweeter public and all, not a mesh end to end private comunication solution people should have been using on those situations.
- shkkmo 2y agoThis critcism is about a decade out of date: > In 2014, after Hong Kong protesters demonstrated to the world how effective a tool it was, news blogs quickly pointed out that FireChat messages were not secure. By 2015, Open Garden updated the app to include end-to-end encryption,
- Quarrel 2y agoisn't that the exact opposite take from the article and anecdotes it contains? I never used it, but remember the hype. It didn't get there by not working.
- lxgr 2y agoI've tried it, and it was pretty bad. This type of service needs Apple and Google support to go anywhere, given how restricted access to radio hardware and background processing is on iOS and Android, and they're clearly not interested. Apple has even rolled back AirDrop functionality, supposedly because of people receiving unwanted photos (which I don't doubt happened, but changing the defaut could address that – just outright removing the option to receive from anybody seems wrong). There's absolutely no reason we shouldn't at least have a P2P Wi-Fi based chat client preinstalled on every iOS and Android phone, with a default of being able to message only known contacts. I mean, even the Nintendo DS could do it in 2004!
- MostlyStable 2y agoIt's been years since I had it, but I uninstalled it when I figured out it was breaking my phones wifi connectivity. I don't know how or why, but when it was installed, my wifi was inconsistent and would frequently drop. I would uninstall it, and the problem would go away. This was on Android at least 5 years, and maybe as many as 10.
- luuurker 2y agoWould Briar be a good alternative? https://briarproject.org/ https://briarproject.org/ edit: How it works: https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/ https://briarproject.org/how-it-works/
- lionkor 2y agoBriar is awesome. Ive used it to talk to my wife when we are seated away from each other in planes or trains and cant get up, via bluetooth due to lack of service, wifi, or because of airplane mode.
- unstatusthequo 2y agoAndroid only? Ugh
- vouaobrasil 2y agoIf you really want a chat tool to start a revolution, meet in person with people you trust and don't bring any electronic devices with you. And only talk to people who you really trust. Forget phones.
- serf 2y ago"just know who to trust". a super power I wish I had.
- Retr0id 2y agoNo amount of technology can solve this.
- dvt 2y agoA revolution is all about subterfuge, intelligence, and trust. If you don't hone those skills, you might not be suited for one. Conversely, technology is an attack vector.
- candiodari 2y agoNot really, for example, the current one is about money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_involvement_in_higher_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_involvement_in_higher_e...
- wave_1 2y agohaha the best reply on the Internet
- pavel_lishin 2y agoEverything is trade-offs. Meeting in person is great, until you're in the middle of a protest and everyone has to scatter because the police are firing tear gas at your skull. At that point, you rather do need to either have had a plan, or you need some way to communicate that isn't face-to-face.
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- groby_b 2y agoIt didn't quite disappear. AFAICT, the core team is working on NewNode now: https://www.newnode.com/firechat https://www.newnode.com/firechat The text mentions an anodyne "for business reasons", so that should leave the door wide open for any conspiracy theories ;)
- lelandbatey 2y agoTo be clear, FireChat was a proprietary and closed source app which went away for reasons that only the people controlling it truly understand. That immediately suggests to me more of a "the money ran out" situation vs the more salacious "the CIA had a word" style implication at the end of the parent.
- eli 2y ago> FireChat is gone because FireChat was a threat to the systems it circumvented. This seems needlessly conspiratorial. Apps and companies disappear all the time and it's usually for boring reasons.
- throwaway81523 2y ago> Then, one day in February 2020, as COVID-19 swept the globe, access to FireChat was completely cut off without explanation. If it could be shut off from one place like that, it doesn't sound very "decentralized". Anyway, are there significant obstacles to re-implementation? Someone above mentioned an alternative that uses LoRa. That's nice but it sounds like the attraction of Firechat was that it used ordinary phones that everyone already has. LoRa by comparison is special hardware that is already a bit suspicious. If you're willing to use special purpose radios and live with low bandwidth text communication, you can do quite a bit better than LoRa, such as with JS8CALL and HF radios. But, a sad "theorem" tells us that any communications medium will be beaten into carrying video....
- candiodari 2y agoOnce you realize that the ability to update code, obviously, negates any advantage "end-to-end encryption" brings, or any other form of security, you'll quickly find there is not a single secure messenger. This is an argument I've never been able to successfully make to anyone except a military colonel.
- temporarely 2y agoThis can be amplified by saying 'No end-to-end security without top-to-bottom security'.
- nwsm 2y agoIs there really no way on an Android to keep an app forever without taking updates? Of course maybe the OS needs to be updated which then breaks the app and necessitates updating the app, but the distinction of a forced update seems important.
- krb5 2y agoHi there, I am on developement team of Newnode, a successor of FireChat founded by two of the same people (https://www.newnode.com/ https://www.newnode.com/). We now provide both, a VPN and a Messenger, with purpose to help people evade censorship and enable device-to-device connectivity. You can find the source code at https://github.com/clostra/newnode https://github.com/clostra/newnode
- brokenbyclouds 2y agoCan you go into any additional detail about why firechat shut down?
- bishbosh 2y agoWell now we can put the speculation to rest, exactly how many CIA agents visited to shut down your radical operation??
- cool_dude85 2y agoThe other option given the surprisingly one-sided list of protest movements they brag about: how many CIA agents were involved in its genesis?
- compuguy 2y agoSo hypothetically the CIA benefited from an anonymous decentralized non-internet based chat app? I guess that's two things (protest movements and a intelligence agency) can agree on....
- cool_dude85 2y agoIt seems obvious to me that protest movements in certain countries serve US security state interests and other protest movements in other countries do not. It would make sense in this context if you have e.g. a backdoored chat app which is otherwise secure that it would serve US security state interests for some protestors to have access to that app, and no harm if the protestors you don't like use it. Recall that it is public information that USAID created a Twitter clone called Zunzuneo to be used in Cuba. It's not out of the realm of possibility that they have also made some "secure" chat app.
- zzzeek 2y agoFireChat is gone because apparently it wasn't open source, otherwise it would still be here
- twodave 2y agoTangential story time! Several years ago (circa 2015) I was asked to build an app like FireChat by just the _oddest_ couple of guys I've ever met. They wanted an app where you could connect to other folks just by being near them. I never could get them to agree on what exactly the app was supposed to be beyond that. The first gentleman was a VP-type for a large company. He insisted that the app (nicknamed "Pals" at the time) was for people with similar interests to find each other and connect based on just being near the same place at the same time. The second partner was a well-known lawyer in my city. When I mentioned their app sounds like a dating app, this guy says to the first man, "SEE! It's a dating app." And then he proceeds to tell me (in graphic detail) his proposed strategy to build a dating app that would tell you where the other person is when you go to meet them in person. He essentially wanted to be able to spy on them to see if the person matched their online description or not before committing to the date. I thought the idea, while clever, was also super creepy but offered to build it for them. I thought if they pivoted to something like large-scale live events they might have something. Imagine going to a sporting event and having a group chat with everyone else at the stadium. Great way to make new friends/contacts to hang out with later. They hired a marketing firm to build it instead, and last I heard they had given up on the idea. I guess the only good that really came out of it was that I had a lawyer to call when I had to go to traffic court a few years later. Turns out he was actually pretty good at his job.
- ChiperSoft 2y agoSo they wanted Grindr from before they started fudging the distance numbers.
- m3kw9 2y agosomeone/some team can easily recreate this app.
- k3nt0456 2y agoThe article mentions Singaporeans, so I was very curious to find out how they were involved. But the word (erroneously?) links to the Hong Kong protests movement.
- dgski 2y agoFireChat was never going to be resilient enough because it was installed on Apple and Google controlled devices. This kind of system needs a dedicated or at least 'open' device with adequate hardware to support wireless mesh networks. I would love to see something like this, because we (even, or rather, especially; Western countries) currently have no decentralized fallback for emergency communication. If the electric grid and cellphone network go... most people don't even have AM radios at this point.
- lxgr 2y agoIf the electric grid and cellphone go, what would be the problem with devices being Apple- and Google-controlled? It seems like you're talking about two related but ultimately distinct concerns, i.e. reliance against infrastructure failures and reliance against organizational failures.
- dgski 2y agoYeah, you're mostly right. I mean, these centralized entities could still sign and release instructions over the mesh network propagation (unlikely though). Having an overall culture/goal of decentralization, can inform decisions on multiple levels/concerns (infra, energy, org). Basically, if I'm trying to be resilient to infra problems, it won't be that much effort in changing the design to also be resilient from centralized control.
- matricaria 2y agoThis sounds like a scam. The was something similar a few years ago in Germany, a messenger advertised to criminals. Turned out to be a trap.