Add support for bluetooth/local wifi messaging

[nobaraos12]

Feature request for adding support for offline end to end encrypted bluetooth messaging or even local wifi

Use cases

- airline travel (airlines only allow imessage and whatapp on free wifi as they can monitor)

• backcountry travel (no cellular service)
• conjested networks (helps relatively close communication when network speed is slow or unreliable)

Update:
According to my recent search there is another app that does bluetooth messaging called briar https://briarproject.org/
this may help development. Note they seem to only have support for android and linux

[epoberezkin]

look forward to seeing how much interest there is - vote above!

[nobaraos12]

I think the people have spoken

[Snake883]

Some other use cases:

• Natural Disaster
• War
• Protests
• Offgrid
• Search and Rescue
• Poor reception areas/buildings
• Communicate with neighbors when infrastructure isn't available.

Would be even better if it relayed or meshed.
Even better if there was a microblog/twitter type feature.
P2P has appeal.
IPFS for distribution.

[nobaraos12]

another great use case is in heavily dense crowds trying to find another individual when service is unavailable.
Example is ski resort lines, no service and dense crowds

[nobaraos12]

Would be even better if it relayed or meshed. Even better if there was a microblog/twitter type feature. P2P has appeal. IPFS for distribution.

I completely agree, similar to how telegram works

[d-RLY]

I really really want to see more messaging apps have mesh support for all the above reasons. One major feature I would be super happy to see would be the mix of bouncing messages around all possible routes. And know that even if I have zero cell or internet that my message will re-route to the next person close to me and jump to network if they do have service or is on wifi I can't get onto. Though for the purpose of not eating up large amounts of other people's data if they are the last hop before getting onto the internet or cell data. It may be helpful to only send text in that situation and have an option (or a different "send" button) to specify when a "bounce" message is being sent. Or have the app ask if you would like to strip media from the message if the person you are trying to message isn't within bluetooth or local network wifi and your normal service isn't giving a signal (or a signal below a certain amount or if you could toggle some kind of "emergency mode"). P2P could really be used for good and safety. Of course it could be even better if data prices weren't a thing since stuff could much more easily be distributed and there wouldn't be an issue of fucking up someone else's data caps.

[serrq]

I am very happy to share this topic with you, because I like it.

Personally I don’t have much enthusiasm and trust in bluetooth as it is controlled by a private consortium and it is vulnerable to many malicious attacks. But I could be wrong. So I leave this consideration to those who deal with it for a living.

The use case that I present is speleology, and I would like to use SimpleX with the wifi chip integrated (and soon through the 802.11ah or HaLow standard) without the use of a router coordinator in a way that would resemble that used in the military and civil systems gotenna.

https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-halow

https://www.morsemicro.com/

https://gotenna.com/

https://gotennamesh.com/products/mesh

https://gotennapro.com/

I think they exploit a mesh network, totally offline (no internet).

What I propose is to turn our devices at need into nodes, so that we can reach a fellow (a speleologist or a mountaineer) of roped rope that maybe fell into a cliff 10 meters below us and need for help (communication for example).

[mika-nl]

I can see this for myself as well.
I've had the idea before that an airdrop feature would be nice this way.

Imagine you are in a meeting, party, concert, etc.
You have taken pictures or a document that you want to share with the people (not contacts) in the same room.
The "airdrop" would then be a group where you can share text and files offline via wifi or bluetooth . but the same group also via internet so you can keep in touch later with the people in the group that you have met at the meeting / party / concert / and so on.

[trymeouteh]

I like how this app uses relay nodes and allow you to connect to multiple nodes at once which is quite censorship resistant.

Adding P2P connectivity would also be great in the event the internet is down. If the internet infrastructure goes down or goes offline which is done in some countries were they shutdown the internet, P2P should be a fallback.

P2P will require the LAN networks to open up ports for SimpleX to work P2P. P2P in Simplex P2P setting should include the option to use UPnP, choosing what port number to use, etc. And to have a setting to use the same P2P setting for all profiles or use different P2P settings for each profile for additional privacy.

Again, P2P will have to be a fallback and will likely need to be configured by the user to some extent. Otherwise SimpleX should use relay servers for reliable messaging.

[Darin755]

Simplex could always use i2p or tor

[RageGamerBoi]

I would love to see the P2P and offline features of Briar combined with the amazing privacy features of SimpleX.
Berty's IPFS-based protocol could be a good starting point, but it would need to integrate with SimpleX's stuff.

Bluetooth or BLE mesh would be awesome, maybe even Ad-hoc WiFi networks alongside that on supported devices.
It could be able to work with other protocols too, like LoRa with the PineDio or something similar, but it shouldn't require you to buy separate devices or antennas which may not be available.
Of course because of various security concerns and such, it should be toggle-able, or maybe even opt-in.

[Darin755]

I don't really trust ipfs when it comes to privacy and security. Its a fairly new technology that needs validation before it is put into production

[RageGamerBoi]

I misread Berty's documentation, they actually use something similar to Briar for offline communication.
It would probably be better to start off with Briar's implementation because of that anyway...

[Wjxfi]

This is a very cool idea! Look at how the Meshenger app did it below. It did it perfectly.

https://www.f-droid.org/packages/d.d.meshenger/

[RageGamerBoi]

Keep in mind that Meshenger is just over a LAN connection, BLE mesh alongside that would be ideal.

[Darin755]

The problem with Bluetooth is that it is much slower than WiFi or internet. You could do text but audio is out of the question

[RageGamerBoi]

Why do you think Briar compresses the heck out of its images?
Something that would wait to send audio/full resolution images until internet/LAN connected, but still send text and possibly heavily compressed image previews over Bluetooth, would definitely be necessary.

[Yiannis128]

It would be helpful if a relay app was also available on Android and IOS that allowed relays to be set up locally through local wifi and Bluetooth