Chitchatter
Productivity
peer-to-peer chat app
SHOW HN2022
How HN took it
4 positive, 21 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 10 critical, out of 36 comments about the project. Thread score -0.17.
Privacy: 0 for, 7 againstIdea: 2 for, 1 againstPerformance: 1 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful P2P serverless approach with browser-based rooms
From 2 comments
Excellent work. We need more of these build-it-once peer to peer serverless webpages.
porcc on HNThanks for taking a look! This is my first time hearing of Tox, so it’s hard to for me give a great answer at the moment. Based on a quick look at Tox, it seems that a key…
jckahn on HN
Ephemeral messages not persisted to disk
From 1 comment
This blog post was really helpful. Thank you blamestross! My understanding of your concern: So long as there is a static WebTorrent tracker initiating the peer connections, the…
jckahn on HN
Objections
Room UUID sharing channel is a security weakness
From 2 comments
Jeremy, thanks for Chitchatter and for bringing this up here. The first feedback I can give you is about the threat model and the associated OPSEC measures mentioned in the…
adg001 on HNThe README is a bit optimistic about it the security model. Like the parent said the room UUID is a very critical asset and should be handled as a critical secret. Sadly, users…
feb on HN
WebRTC signaling requires centralization
From 2 comments
Wouldn't that make it centralised, though, with Cloudflare being necessary for it to work?
Sophira on HNhttps://github.com/dmotz/trystero#how-it-works You always need some kind of centralization for discovery with WebRTC.
nl on HN
IP addresses visible to room participants
From 1 comment
On top of that, like every p2p service without onion routing, one's IP address is visible to every other room participant by design.
ajconway on HN
Room access can be guessed by changing URL hash
From 1 comment
I can access anyone room just simply changing the MD5 hash url Random Password protection for room may be the best feature
SquidJack on HN
Requests
Password-protected rooms
From 2 comments
I can access anyone room just simply changing the MD5 hash url Random Password protection for room may be the best feature
SquidJack on HNFWIW, there is a plan to support password-protected chat rooms: https://github.com/jeremyckahn/chitchatter#project-roadmap
jckahn on HN
Show whether connection is P2P or relayed
From 1 comment
Thanks for the post, nice to see new apps. In my experience with webRTC, a lot of the time the p2p connection does not get fully achieved, and the connection falls back to the…
laserfly on HN
Public key based initial key exchange
From 1 comment
Initial key exchange via public private keys would be an amazing addition!
DreamFlasher on HN
Markdown support, room names and QR codes
From 1 comment
Specific suggestions: Make it clear you can use markdown Have a max size of message (noting that MD can make short messages take a lot of space) Allow rooms to have names QR Code…
nl on HN
Questions
Why not use Tor for peer connectivity
From 1 comment
Cool project. I'm curious why you don't use Tor to provide peer-to-peer connectivity? It gives you NAT hole-punching and encryption for free. It seems the obvious choice. For an…
jstanley on HN
How does it compare to Tox
From 1 comment
I know this is an MVP but it seems unclear what meaningful structural improvements you're making over more feature-rich alternatives like Tox?
cjtrowbridge on HN
Alternatives named
Burnernote
From 1 comment
Butnernote.com could be a good way to share the room URL over generally insecure channels. After MVP, maybe an ephemeral room link could be created using the code from burnernote…
kornhole on HN
Yopass
From 1 comment
Or Yopass: https://yopass.se
yamrzou on HN
Tox
From 1 comment
I know this is an MVP but it seems unclear what meaningful structural improvements you're making over more feature-rich alternatives like Tox?
cjtrowbridge on HN
Briar
From 1 comment
Tox is distributed but your IP is visible. You can use Tox inside Whonix which forces Tox to go through Tor. Briar is distributed but runs over Tor so your IP is hidden. You…
timbit42 on HN
Ricochet
From 1 comment
Cool project. I'm curious why you don't use Tor to provide peer-to-peer connectivity? It gives you NAT hole-punching and encryption for free. It seems the obvious choice. For an…
jstanley on HN