Some years ago, in 2016, I
-wrote
-for the first time about the Ring peer to peer messaging system.
-It would provide messaging without any central server coordinating the
-system and without requiring all users to register a phone number or
-own a mobile phone. Back then, I could not get it to work, and put it
-aside until it had seen more development. A few days ago I decided to
-give it another try, and am happy to report that this time I am able
-to not only send and receive messages, but also place audio and video
-calls. But only if UDP is not blocked into your network.
-
-
The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
-Jami. I
-tried doing web search for 'ring' when I discovered it for the first
-time, and can only applaud this change as it is impossible to find
-something called Ring among the noise of other uses of that word. Now
-you can search for 'jami' and this client and
-the Jami system is the first hit at
-least on duckduckgo.
-
-
Jami will by default encrypt messages as well as audio and video
-calls, and try to send them directly between the communicating parties
-if possible. If this proves impossible (for example if both ends are
-behind NAT), it will use a central SIP TURN server maintained by the
-Jami project. Jami can also be a normal SIP client. If the SIP
-server is unencrypted, the audio and video calls will also be
-unencrypted. This is as far as I know the only case where Jami will
-do anything without encryption.
-
-
Jami is available for several platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX,
-Android, iOS, and Android TV. It is included in Debian already. Jami
-also work for those using F-Droid without any Google connections,
-while Signal do not.
-The
-protocol is described in the Ring project wiki. The system uses a
-distributed hash table (DHT) system (similar to BitTorrent) running
-over UDP. On one of the networks I use, I discovered Jami failed to
-work. I tracked this down to the fact that incoming UDP packages
-going to ports 1-49999 were blocked, and the DHT would pick a random
-port and end up in the low range most of the time. After talking to
-the developers, I solved this by enabling the dhtproxy in the
-settings, thus using TCP to talk to a central DHT proxy instead of
-
-peering directly with others. I've been told the developers are
-working on allowing DHT to use TCP to avoid this problem. I also ran
-into a problem when trying to talk to the version of Ring included in
-Debian Stable (Stretch). Apparently the protocol changed between
-beta2 and the current version, making these clients incompatible.
-Hopefully the protocol will not be made incompatible in the
-future.
-
-
It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
-came across another communication platform I have not tested yet. The
-Tox protocol
-and family of Tox clients. It might
-become the topic of a future blog post.
-
-
As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.
-
