Hi! Sharing. Mitar -------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Ron Steinherz <ron(a)denovogroup.org> Subject: [internet-freedom] Murmur (formerly Rangzen) is live! To: internet-freedom(a)lists.berkeley.edu Dear all, De Novo Group is excited to announce the launch of Murmur (formerly Rangzen)! Murmur is a free, open-source, anonymous messaging Android app that does not require an Internet connection. Messages are not sent in real-time like with other messaging apps that rely on the Internet and have a central server, but instead spread directly from one device to another (forming a delay-tolerant peer-to-peer network) without user intervention using Bluetooth and WiFi Direct. The more devices the faster the message spreads and if no device is around, the message is queued in the feed to be sent later. Users control their anonymity and decide what information to share. Lastly, Connection Scores help users filter spam messages and Restricted Messages limit the audience to their friends. The motivation for the project originated in the days of the Arab Spring when a need to help citizens of oppressive regimes circumvent government-imposed communication blackouts was identified . Our implementation followed the tenets laid down in the UC Berkeley EECS research paper called “Rangzen: Circumventing Government-Imposed Communication Blackouts”: - Infrastructure Independent: A mobile mesh that easily scales without compromising users’ safety - Trustworthy: Leveraging social connections to resist attack and infiltration - Private: Providing strong anonymity guarantees to users to preserve their privacy More background information about the project can be found here: http://denovogroup.org/main/rangzen-project/ The project initially was based on a rather restrictive user model or extreme thread model as laid down in the research paper, but since then has evolved to cater to a broader audience than just activists in blackouts and include also ordinary folks looking for alternative ways of communication using decentralized, device to device communication on the go, with little to no fixed infrastructure. The motivations for the latter vary from prohibitive data costs, lack of Internet infrastructure, fear of surveillance and more. To download the app go to the Google Play page (as of Sun 1/31 night PST it was still updating so give it a few hours if you get an error): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.denovogroup.murmur The project is hosted on the public Git repo at: https://github.com/casific/murmur We welcome your feedback and involvement and want to deeply thank all of the core team and everyone that has helped us along the way. Best regards, Ron -- http://mitar.tnode.com/ https://twitter.com/mitar_m _______________________________________________ mesh mailing list mesh(a)lists.sudoroom.org https://sudoroom.org/lists/listinfo/mesh