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Bitmessage / PyBitmessage

Reference client for Bitmessage: a P2P encrypted decentralised communication protocol:
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page
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[Suggestion] Bitmessage as a plugin for Thunderbird #828

Open fabienb4 opened 8 years ago

fabienb4 commented 8 years ago

This is just a suggestion, you may close it if you are not interested.

We have all seen in the past few weeks how Signal (Android/iOS encrypted messaging app) has grown in popularity (between 1 and 5 million downloads on Android at the time of this writing). I think the fact that it still allows, within the same app, to access and use the "old feature" (in this case, texts) played a big role in its success. Not everyone is using Signal, and having the possibility to still send messages to users who don't, without having to change app is the key.

Bitmessage is a great idea, but it lacks this possibility to send messages to people who haven't (yet) switched to it. My first thought was obviously some kind of integration with Thunderbird. People would still use a software they are familiar with, but they could also send encrypted messages to others who can receive them.

I don't know enough about Thunderbird inner workings to say if it is even possible with a plugin, but I think it would be a big step in making Bitmessage more popular, and allow people to use it without the inconvenience of having to maintain 2 separate programs. We all know how it goes, when something requires extra work, and it is not absolutely necessary, people just give it up.

This is just my 2 cents on the matter. I think Signal did it right, and it obviously paid off. :dart:

wangguoqin1001 commented 8 years ago

Personally I think your suggestion is feasible, but there's some consideration on using practice. As you may have known, Bitmessage requires the client to stay running and accessible to the Internet to receive the messages, otherwise messages won't be available after two days without retrieving. I'm not sure about the habits of most users using Thunderbird, but I think this might be critical to people with no experience on Bitmessage. Also the client may consume more system resources (CPU usage & memory) than the email clients themselves, so this should also be notified to the users.

jaromil commented 8 years ago

IMHO the best place to run Bitmessage is a buffed up home router / fileserver. So a MUA plugin would just provide connection to BM via its protocol in addition to the usual IMAP/POP.

Not for the large public, but perhaps providing a good proof of concept, such an implementation is in the TODO for my own Mutt based MUA (console terminal only). Will post here when ready to try.

PeterSurda commented 8 years ago

@fabienb4 First of all, I don't think that a Thunderbird plugin is a bad idea, however I don't have resources for that and I also don't think it's a high priority. Kagami has been working on a javascript implementation of Bitmessage: https://github.com/bitchan, so maybe that can serve as a base for the thunderbird plugin.

@jaromil Bitmessage requires more storage than a normal router can handle. Something like a Raspberry Pi is in my opinion a better choice. But there's still the question of PoW. Such devices can't realistically PoW, you'd still have to do it in the client.

Also, I don't know if you noticed, but for some time I've been providing an email gateway for Bitmessage: https://mailchuck.com. So you can use your BM client to communicate with people who use email.

jaromil commented 8 years ago

ACK. Very nice mailchuck! I did not knew it.

On the local setup: is there a way to separate the PoW from the running Bitmessage instance, getting blocks and filing results to it, through some sort of stratum protocol? would that help at all with the issue of availability of non-retrieved messages?