[krb5]

Hi there, I am on developement team of Newnode, a successor of FireChat founded by two of the same people (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

[nikolajan]

I think the obvious question is: can you shed any light or provide context on why the service was shut down?

And if not, it seems unrealistic to expect people to adopt / trust your alternative.

[zo1]

I think it's oddly telling or suspicious at the very-least that this dev isn't giving you a straight answer to your question.

[temporarely]

The timeline is possibly informative.

[aleph_minus_one]

> The timeline is possibly informative.

Where is a link to the timeline?

[temporarely]

"Then, one day in February 2020, as COVID-19 swept the globe, access to FireChat was completely cut off without explanation."

[llamaimperative]

That is… not very informative at all.

[cookiengineer]

Hong Kong now being part of China, and not an independent regime anymore?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9...

[codetrotter]

I downloaded your app just now from App Store.

When I get to the phone number step, it briefly shows a captcha screen but then transitions to the phone number screen.

When I enter my phone number. Country code +47. I don’t get any sms at all.

When I switch to the sms app to see if an sms arrived (it didn’t), and I switch back to your app, the counter on the screen that is counting down to allow resending code resets to 00:59 although it was at like 00:30 when I switched away from the app.

When after waiting for another full minute and occasionally touching the screen to prevent it from locking I am presented with the following options when clicking “I didn’t get a code”:

- Contact NewNode Support

- Resend code

- Call me instead

- Cancel

I tried resend code. No code arrives still.

Great, now I have to wait another full minute with your app in focus before I can try another option.

After waiting another full minute, I click “call me instead”. No call comes.

[djbusby]

If they are on Twilio or other VoIP provider need to enable other countries. My USA based business had that issue with international, check a bunch of boxes in the (Twilio) UI and click save.

[outime]

Same exact experience, uninstalled it.

[kI3RO]

same

[jayveeone]

Hey there thank you for taking the time to respond. I have a few questions:

The sign up process is surprisingly difficult and doesn't appear to be working.

The CAPTCHA is VERY thorough. I couldn't seem to get it to agree that I was human. When I finally solved it, the submit button is hidden (you have to scroll for some reason).

When I enter my phone number it prompts me to enter a code that never arrived. When I click "I didn't receive a code" the app sends me back to the CAPTCHA (lol). I complete the captcha again and request the code.

I went through this process three or four times before I gave up. This seems like an ongoing issue[1]

Does the app have many users? Any users?

The last blog post on the NewNode site was July of last year.

According to the App Store there has been three minor updates- 3, 9 and 12 months ago. No notes on the updates.

Does NewNode have a road map?

I couldn't find any write ups about the app anywhere. No press coverage.

So, why did FireChat close down?

Edit: I just completed 10 CAPTCHAs in a row.

[1] https://x.com/zyz09061682717/status/1711515687095525515

[stevenwalton]

I'm just curious, why not build ontop of another app like Signal?[0] My understanding is that there's nothing stopping anyone from using the same app and creating their own server and nodes. My understanding is that you can even hook into multiple nodes with a custom fork of the app. Wouldn't this give a big advantage of not requiring people to have a whole new app and you can work synergistically with a company with similar/compatable goals?

The thing I see is that if you really want to make a huge P2P network, you need a reason to have the app installed for reasons other than P2P. The problem I've always seen with FireChat was that I'd never get anyone to talk to me and then when there was an emergency no one would be able to download. So we need to have the features built into something with more normal day-to-day utility.

[0] https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-airdrop/37402

[martinbaun]

Not up, but most of the times it is a lot easier to build something from scratch. Signal is notoriously hard extend and use - they have a lot of custom tech. I gave up looking through their documentation. Now, the reason is that they actually have end-to-end encryption and most do not implement it in a secure and nice way. They basically had to build everything from scratch themselves.

TLDR it is often harder to reuse

[brokenbyclouds]

Can you go into any additional detail about why firechat shut down?

[guntars]

Is it open source? Will it one day mysteriously disappear from the internet too?

[squarefoot]

They have a GH repository, but it is not clear to me if it contains everything.

https://github.com/clostra/newnode

[cl3misch]

Why the snark? Even if it disappeared, that's better than never existing (helping people) at all.

[guntars]

It seems to me like they didn’t learn anything. You can’t have a business whose product is meant to overcome state censorship, unless, perhaps, you work for another government. It can work as an open source project though as there’s no legal entity to coerce, just a diffuse and ever changing group of contributors. Plus of course the trust question. As a closed source project, they could be paid or forced to add a backdoor. It’s possible that they didn’t help anyone at all.

[miguelazo]

Is the new product funded by In-q-tel as well?

[compuguy]

You do know In-q-tel has invested in things that people use in the day to day, including Google Earth (originally created by Keyhole). DARPA kick-started the semi-autonomous vehicle industry with two of their Grand Challenges in the 2000s. The US Navy helped develop what would become Tor also in the early 2000s....

[miguelazo]

Yes. What is your point, other than trying to justify the bloated budget of the security state? As if we couldn't get better outcomes by investing directly in primary research and education without spook middlemen.

[bishbosh]

Well now we can put the speculation to rest, exactly how many CIA agents visited to shut down your radical operation??

[cool_dude85]

The other option given the surprisingly one-sided list of protest movements they brag about: how many CIA agents were involved in its genesis?

[compuguy]

So 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]

It 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.

[frontalier]

this is valid, the fbi had anom for drug dealers

https://hachyderm.io/@[e-mail]/11232112693...

[blacklion]

It requires phone number for registration. Site explain this as it is unique and hard to obtain en masse.

But it is not so. Phone numbers are controlled effectively by governments if needed, they are re-used, and they cheap-dirt in some countries (like, I could get SIM card in Serbia or Laos for about 1 Euro on the street).

About re-use: When I get new number in Serbia Is tarted to get a lot of SMSes and later WhatsApp messages about my debts, from very aggressive people. It was not scam, but this number only 3 months before that was used by some local guy who got into big troubles with loan sharks. They were Ok when I explained that I'm expat with SIM card bought in the newspaper stand, but I needed to explain it something like 50 times!

Sorry, but phone number is BAD ID and SMS is TERRIBLE 2FA / confirmation media.