Comment on Briar - secure p2p group communications

• artyom@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Anytime you have bad/no cellular reception. Think being at a large event where the cell network is saturated, or in a rural area with no cell service.

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  • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Right, but you have to be so close to each other for Bluetooth to work, so it seems very limited in utility. But of course, data exchange in person would be one thing.

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    • artyom@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Bluetooth has a pretty significant range, especially outdoors. So you might be watching something on the stage while a friend or family member is 300 feet away at a concession stand.

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      • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That’s pretty far, that makes it better I guess. Like you could send messages across buildings if you have line of sight e.g. That’s neat.

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• FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No one else then the parties messaging can see that the communication even occurs.

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  • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Right, but you have to be so close to each other for Bluetooth to work.

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    • TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It transfers across other peers; you don’t have to have a direct connection to the recipient, just an eventual connection to them.

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      • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        But you have to directly connect to other people’s devices via Bluetooth along the way, right? Like a relay race of handing over the message until you either reach a network, or the recipient?

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• bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ve used it to message someone while on a flight.

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  • victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That’s brilliant use, I like it.

    So how does it work? Do you just need to “have Bluetooth turned on” and it reaches the recipient, or do you need to connect to each other somehow? Can this work for a group chat with a family, or colleagues on a conference trip perhaps?

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    • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      You need to enable Bluetooth as a method of connection in the app settings (and can turn off wifi and data there).

      The phones can be in airplane mode but with Bluetooth turned back on (as you would to use earbuds).

      I don’t recall pairing the phones, but there is a “connect via Bluetooth” option on each chat that might be doing that automatically.

      You link accounts to each other by scanning qr codes.

      It does have a group chat but I haven’t used it, so I don’t know if that works with Bluetooth alone.

      I just tried testing this with an old phone of mine, but can’t get it to work right now (maybe because it has Graphene os?), but I have actually used it on flights in the past.

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      • bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I tested some more and can’t get it to work any more. I found a post saying it worked in 1.5.2 so maybe something broke in newer versions.

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