Connecting Quantum Bits
For sure you’ve heard of these quantum computers that are about to get useful soon and that are expected to destroy the security of large parts of the cryptography we’re using today. As part of my bachelor’s thesis in physics, I worked on quantum cryptography or quantum key distribution which offers a secure alternative to do cryptography even in the presence of large-scale quantum computers. While publishing my thesis as part of this article for anyone interested in reading it, I also want to use this chance to tell you a little bit about the problem of today’s cryptography and quantum computers, and which solutions currently are being worked on.
Interview: With Briar against censorship and surveillance (German)
As part of our funding of Briar Desktop, Sebastian and I talked with the people of Prototype Fund:
Adiós, Briar GTK — Hola, Briar Desktop
It’s time to say goodbye to Briar GTK — my first attempt to bring Briar to desktop and mobile Linux devices and a project I’ve been working on in my spare time since 2019:
Diving deep into Briar at the XMPP Meetup Berlin
Having been invited to the XMPP Meetup Berlin, I presented my talk “Diving deep into Briar - a closer look at its internals”. After shortly introducing Briar and talking about the features it offers, I showed how Briar works on the lower levels and how it makes use of the Bramble Protocols.
Confronting Briar with disasters
Unlike popular messaging apps Briar doesn’t rely on the Internet in order to keep working. Due to its peer-to-peer nature it can make use of various so-called “transports” to send messages even if the Internet connection is cut. Those transports can be virtually anything that you can use to send 0s and 1s, though currently only Bluetooth and Wi-fi are supported beside the Internet.
You can see quite some sunspots today (Spanish)
I wrote a report about our experiment involving the sun on Spanish.
Third beta release of Briar GTK: multi-line input and re-adding contacts
This third beta release of Briar GTK is just a minor release, yet it brings quite some useful new features. Besides allowing composing messages with multiple lines and adding support for re-adding contacts, it also features new translations into Burmese and Romanian. Especially Burmese users please keep in mind that Briar GTK so far only supports private chats via the Internet/Tor.
Using Briar GTK at a distance
Until a proper Briar mailbox is available, you can hack your own always-on Briar node with devices like the Raspberry Pi. The official binary provided by The Briar Project only works on Linux x86 devices so far, but at the end of the article you can find a Git patch to build your own binary that runs everywhere.
Briar GTK goes international: 2nd beta release
With this second beta release, Briar GTK goes all international. Thanks to the amazing Localization Lab Translation Teams, Briar GTK is now translated into more than 20 languages.
First Beta Release of Briar GTK
Almost half a year after releasing the first alpha release of Briar GTK, today marks the day of its first beta release. Much has happened in the meantime and many people, including me, were able to test Briar GTK and use it in regular occasions. Let’s have a look at how this first beta release looks like: