5 ms·

Chat-tails: Throwback terminal chat, built on Tailscale

103 points by nulbyte 9mo ago

pmdr 9mo ago
So IRC, but with easier to set up severs?
theknarf 9mo ago
Looks fun, but couldn't you just host an actual IRC server behind Tailscale?
- webdevver 9mo ago
  irc has a very low return on investment. crazy amount of tinkering for what is ascii characters vaguely thrown in your direction. it clearly has cultural staying power (and it does act as a strong filter for technically-minded people), but a oneliner chatroom in your terminal is a fun option for both newbies who get easily intimidated, and pros who dont have much free time anymore.
  - _lvbh 9mo ago
    IRC with Ergo + Soju is pretty easy and pleasant. Barely spent 20 minutes setting up a server, bridge, and bouncer. Has been really helpful where bandwidth was an issue (I am writing as I stay in a city with only 500kbps internet where Discord and other heavy webapps straight up refuse to load)
misterthp 9mo ago
this reminds me of gopher chats
lorenzo95 9mo ago
I'm gonna need an app for that . No, I just tried it. Works as advertised. Thank you for the dockerfile. Using putty, the formatting is messed up.on the banner/help. Must be some dynamic end of line thing. Still works so.
the_gipsy 9mo ago
[flagged]
jmole 9mo ago
This is great, I've been looking for an easy to use local chat app for me and my kids, and Adium on Bonjour has been flaky with my VLAN setup at home. Will have to give this a try...
bigiain 9mo ago
Looking forward to hearing Tailscale getting forced to do age verification and banning use of this to people under 16 years old in Australia under their new social media rules...
- wkat4242 9mo ago
  Don't worry, VPNs are next in line to be banned anyway due to their big evasion potential of all this age verification nonsense
  - wkat4242 9mo ago
    ps just as I wrote this the English had to prove my point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780
    - subscribed 9mo ago
      Ssh and ssl/tls without licence will be next :)
      - wkat4242 9mo ago
        Personally, I think they will go for the endpoint instead. This is part of the UK proposal now. Only allow "trusted" endpoints to access services, something which is kinda in place in the mobile world already. Many things are blocked if you are running an unsanctioned build of Android. Then once they have that in place they can just do all the monitoring through the screen of the device itself, since all content has to pass through there. It's much easier to do that than to try to mandate a backdoor to every service in the world. Of coruse it is even more disastrous to user privacy but I honestly think that's the goal not the bug.
        nickdothutton 9mo ago
        Not being able to control the endpoint, like an operator can with a mobile phone, infuriates the police and politicians here. I don't want to go "full Stallman" here but although they do not use exactly these words... the idea of a general purpose computer you own and can program bothers them. Ironically at the same time they want a tech industry and tech jobs and young people entering the workforce with "tech skills". Keep in mind though that until relatively recently they though "tech skills" was being able to us MS Word. Thankfully the RPI helped a bit with that.
LeoPanthera 9mo ago
Things like this make me wish there was a sort of public version of Tailscale where everyone got a routable IP address to everyone else no matter what kind of firewall they were behind. Like the old days of the internet, I guess.
- c45y 9mo ago
  https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ for the most part enables this - otherwise I2P and Tor for the most part facilitate this with the bonus encryption element. We might one day have it natively with ipv6 adoption increasing.
- VikingCoder 9mo ago
  I think Tailscale shares is what we currently are supposed to use? You share some "semi-public" host with all of your friends... And then you're not necessarily chatting with famous people, but you can have a near-and-dear-social network of people you actually know...
- theknarf 9mo ago
  https://veilid.com/ https://veilid.com/
dmd 9mo ago
You may also enjoy https://typeto.me/ https://typeto.me/ (discussed 15 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 ), a web version of talk/ntalk/ytalk
jwrallie 9mo ago
When I was a kid people were either there willing to communicate or AFK, the dynamic was completely different, and so were the expectations. I enjoyed messaging much more although it would be impractical for me nowadays due to moving to a different time zone.
asim 9mo ago
Kept trying to build it in a variety of ways. Ultimately its a Dev niche thing which maybe in the hands of tailscale will gain adoption but really struggled otherwise. There's definitely room for private ephemeral conversations but I think that can also be a more public utility. Who knows, maybe it lays the foundation for that.
cl3misch 9mo ago
I don't want to be that guy, but I have to ask: this is ephemeral, unauthenticated chat for a handful of people over netcat. Why does it pull >1GB of dependencies?
- kunley 9mo ago
  Looking at the go.mod, tailscale lib seems to be the offender

103 points by nulbyte 9mo ago

pmdr 9mo ago

So IRC, but with easier to set up severs?

theknarf 9mo ago

Looks fun, but couldn't you just host an actual IRC server behind Tailscale?

webdevver 9mo ago
irc has a very low return on investment. crazy amount of tinkering for what is ascii characters vaguely thrown in your direction. it clearly has cultural staying power (and it does act as a strong filter for technically-minded people), but a oneliner chatroom in your terminal is a fun option for both newbies who get easily intimidated, and pros who dont have much free time anymore.
- _lvbh 9mo ago
  IRC with Ergo + Soju is pretty easy and pleasant. Barely spent 20 minutes setting up a server, bridge, and bouncer. Has been really helpful where bandwidth was an issue (I am writing as I stay in a city with only 500kbps internet where Discord and other heavy webapps straight up refuse to load)

misterthp 9mo ago

this reminds me of gopher chats

lorenzo95 9mo ago

I'm gonna need an app for that . No, I just tried it. Works as advertised. Thank you for the dockerfile. Using putty, the formatting is messed up.on the banner/help. Must be some dynamic end of line thing. Still works so.

the_gipsy 9mo ago

[flagged]

jmole 9mo ago

This is great, I've been looking for an easy to use local chat app for me and my kids, and Adium on Bonjour has been flaky with my VLAN setup at home. Will have to give this a try...

bigiain 9mo ago

Looking forward to hearing Tailscale getting forced to do age verification and banning use of this to people under 16 years old in Australia under their new social media rules...

wkat4242 9mo ago
Don't worry, VPNs are next in line to be banned anyway due to their big evasion potential of all this age verification nonsense
- wkat4242 9mo ago
  ps just as I wrote this the English had to prove my point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780
  - subscribed 9mo ago
    Ssh and ssl/tls without licence will be next :)
    - wkat4242 9mo ago
      Personally, I think they will go for the endpoint instead. This is part of the UK proposal now. Only allow "trusted" endpoints to access services, something which is kinda in place in the mobile world already. Many things are blocked if you are running an unsanctioned build of Android. Then once they have that in place they can just do all the monitoring through the screen of the device itself, since all content has to pass through there. It's much easier to do that than to try to mandate a backdoor to every service in the world. Of coruse it is even more disastrous to user privacy but I honestly think that's the goal not the bug.
      - nickdothutton 9mo ago
        Not being able to control the endpoint, like an operator can with a mobile phone, infuriates the police and politicians here. I don't want to go "full Stallman" here but although they do not use exactly these words... the idea of a general purpose computer you own and can program bothers them. Ironically at the same time they want a tech industry and tech jobs and young people entering the workforce with "tech skills". Keep in mind though that until relatively recently they though "tech skills" was being able to us MS Word. Thankfully the RPI helped a bit with that.

LeoPanthera 9mo ago

Things like this make me wish there was a sort of public version of Tailscale where everyone got a routable IP address to everyone else no matter what kind of firewall they were behind. Like the old days of the internet, I guess.

c45y 9mo ago
https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ for the most part enables this - otherwise I2P and Tor for the most part facilitate this with the bonus encryption element. We might one day have it natively with ipv6 adoption increasing.
VikingCoder 9mo ago
I think Tailscale shares is what we currently are supposed to use? You share some "semi-public" host with all of your friends... And then you're not necessarily chatting with famous people, but you can have a near-and-dear-social network of people you actually know...
theknarf 9mo ago
https://veilid.com/ https://veilid.com/

dmd 9mo ago

You may also enjoy https://typeto.me/ https://typeto.me/ (discussed 15 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 ), a web version of talk/ntalk/ytalk

jwrallie 9mo ago

When I was a kid people were either there willing to communicate or AFK, the dynamic was completely different, and so were the expectations. I enjoyed messaging much more although it would be impractical for me nowadays due to moving to a different time zone.

asim 9mo ago

Kept trying to build it in a variety of ways. Ultimately its a Dev niche thing which maybe in the hands of tailscale will gain adoption but really struggled otherwise. There's definitely room for private ephemeral conversations but I think that can also be a more public utility. Who knows, maybe it lays the foundation for that.

cl3misch 9mo ago

I don't want to be that guy, but I have to ask: this is ephemeral, unauthenticated chat for a handful of people over netcat. Why does it pull >1GB of dependencies?

kunley 9mo ago
Looking at the go.mod, tailscale lib seems to be the offender