the problem with matrix is that the rooms, and room participants are known to the server admins. This makes Matrix a non-starter for this use case. At least until p2p matrix comes out (i honestly think it could be 10 years before we see p2p matrix though lol).
So this new thread is about figuring out the best stack to build this product with.
The first question is which network do we use for the message sending and username lookup. Some ideas from the top of my head are:
i will do a closer comparison of all these options in the near future. If someone else wants to join in, please feel free! i am probably forgetting some messaging options too. but i think we have to go with something more p2p ish where the server admins don’t have total control of accounts. so that excludes xmpp and matrix afaik.
There used to be a tor messaging service, unfortunately not maintained anymore as far as I know. Otherwise that would be the most logical to implement in the wallet, or link the APP to the wallet.
Not sure if this is the right one, desktop only: https://thetorproject.github.io/tor-messenger-website/
Or Briar, also tor based messaging APP, used by journalists and woks on a phone:
This looks like very cool crypto Toolbox and framework. Do you have experience with it?
What surprises me is that despite the name ‘Mesh’, I do not see much info about distributed networking (only something about Hub nodes). So, to my understanding it is a crypto toolbox but does not contain any distributed networking protocol, so it might be suited for a secure IoT network since it is ok to know which nodes are communicating, while with private messaging ideally you do not know which sender and receiver are communicating. This is just how I interpret it when I read it, it appears to be more about the security and encryption between devices than about anonymizing the nodes. Other parts look interesting though, for example groups of devices, so maybe like a chatroom.
note: Grinmo needs to include a tab for buying/selling Grin. whether it uses a Bisque API or something, i’m not sure. But need to decrease reliance on unreliable exchanges.
Python backend might be cool if we could just include the pure python implementation of Grin with it. But Python is not very portable on mobile OS’s.
Best option may be to do something with Rust + Flutter. Cross platform provided by Flutter and Rust backend already provided by the main rust implementation of Grin.
Thank you for sharing this and the discussion only confirms that keeping Grin simple is what might make it interesting to a lot of bright minds. Let’s keep it that way.
Nostr development has come such a long way since I first made this post. Forward secrecy is never going to be in the protocol, but e2e encrypted messages has become a norm now.
Nostr has really taken off! Reminder that even though Bitcoin maxxies have glommed on to the network, the protocol itself is completely separate from any crypto project.
Bitcoiners have started posting Lightning invoices on Nostr notes. Grin slatepacks are perfect for Nostr (well, if they fit in the note size limit. i haven’t checked yet)
That is very interesting, i saw that Twitter’s Jack Dorsey very interested in also. I remember somebody posted some github talk, some guy mentioned Grin to Nostr contributing people while developing, couldnt remember and find it. Does anyone remember ?
Nostr is a very good decentralized communication protocol. It already has a client that supports Bitcoin lightning payment. If it can support Grin payment, it will be a very cool event.