+Title: Jami/Ring, finally functioning peer to peer communication client
+Tags: english, debian, sikkerhet, surveillance
+Date: 2019-06-19 08:50
+
+<p>Some years ago, in 2016, I
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html">wrote
+for the first time about</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The Ring system changed name earlier this year to
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami_(software)">Jami</a>. 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
+<a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami system</a> is the first hit at
+least on duckduckgo.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<a href="https://git.jami.net/savoirfairelinux/ring-project/wikis/technical/Protocol">The
+protocol</a> 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.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth noting that while looking at Jami and its features, I
+came across another communication platform I have not tested yet. The
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_(protocol)">Tox protocol</a>
+and <a href="https://tox.chat/">family of Tox clients</a>. It might
+become the topic of a future blog post.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
projects / homepage.git / commitdiff