Bitmessage - peer to peer messaging [discontinued]

[smaragdus]

[Moderator note: this is the primary Bitmessage program thread. View database entry]

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Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. It uses strong authentication which means that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed, and it aims to hide "non-content" data, like the sender and receiver of messages, from passive eavesdroppers like those running warrantless wiretapping programs.

An open source client is available for free under the very liberal MIT license.

Bitmessage links:

https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page - Bitmessage web-site
https://github.com/Bitmessage/PyBitmessage - Bitmessage project page
https://bitmessage.org/download/ - Bitmessage download page
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Changelog - Bitmessage change log
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/FAQ - Bitmessage FAQ
https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Protocol_specification - Bitmessage protocol specification
https://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf - Bitmessage white paper (PDF)
http://web.archive.org/web/201407012200 ... n-bitcoin/ - Setting up and using Bitmessage- the article is now available only at Archive.Org
https://bitmessage.ch/- Bitmessage mail gateway
https://bitmessage.org/forum/ - Bitmessage forum
https://pay.reddit.com/r/bitmessage - Bitmessage at Reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitmessage - Bitmessage at Wikipedia
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/C ... sage.shtml - Bitmessage at Softpedia

Bitmessage screen-shots:

- Bitmessage sent

- Bitmessage send

- Bitmessage settings

To make Bitmessage portable 'Run in Portable Mode' box in settings should be checked. I have tested Bitmessage- it runs fine on my Windows 8 x64 system and it seems to be fully portable. Nowadays when privacy is at risk tools like Bitmessage become more and more valuable in my opinion.

[I am Baas]

Portable, Not Stealth

\AppData\Roaming\PyBitmessage

Also stores some user information in \AppData\Local\Temp (does not affect portability)

[I am Baas]

Also writes some QT Troltech junk keys to the registry.

[smaragdus]

@I am Baas
\AppData\Roaming\PyBitmessage folder appears only on first run when 'Run in Portable Mode' is not checked, after the user checks it, deletes the PyBitmessage folder and restarts Bitmessage, the PyBitmessage folder will never be created again.

[I am Baas]

@smaragdus

That worked. Thanks.

[webfork]

I had to dig around a bit for some good info on this.  It looks like it's text-only and there are some questions about the quality of the security around it.

Fortunately the devs appear to be looking for someone to audit the code:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitmess ... ming-soon/
http://blog.anonymousbitcoinbook.com/20 ... -reviewer/

... but I can't seem to find anybody who's actually used this tool and is recommending it.

Still, it's an idea that I'd like to see come together. One of the real weaknesses of GPG (and PGP) was always around transmission not being particularly anonymous. I never could figure out the various remailers that would hide a sender address. I figured those would all just get zapped by a spam filter.

Certainly this could get combined with GPG, which would address some of the security/authentication questions.

[webfork]

New version out: 0.6.0

File Data

• 
  Filename: Bitmessage.exe
  MD5: EB9386DEF4FFC73E0E34616E8FDABEA8
  SHA1: 38B4895D7F127920C6A4C77F040DDA9E2732AA27
  SHA256: 09AA2DAE8F62767FD00C50F9A6B432DCE60F79C07E1D86012C3D092883A8318A
  VirusTotal Rating: 07/55
  VirusTotal URL: https://www.virustotal.com/file/09aa2da ... /analysis/
  

Softpedia is unfortunately only listing v.0.4.0 beta: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/C ... sage.shtml ... I'm going to go ahead and test it because the source code is available and another user here vouched for it.

Here's a quick breakdown on how to get it going that took me a little trial-and-error to determine:

Steps:

1. Download the exe and save to a folder of your choice.
2. Launch the program and select "Settings - Settings" from the menu, check "Run in Portable Mode", and click "OK".
3. Restart the program and, in the main window, click the "New Identity" button.
4. Once you've generated an identity (all you have to do is click "OK") you will have a long string of characters (e.g. BM-2cVsdfFasUaXasQVQsXiws693WpmzJejrX6pHg). This functions like an anonymous email address which you can share with other users to exchange messages.

Notes:

• Messages take some time to send (roughly 5 mins)
• While the program is running, it uses a lot of CPU
• All messages have a delay before they are destroyed, currently 28 days max

[smaragdus]

Changes in Bitmessage version 0.6.0:

0.6.0
- QT interface overhaul
- Opportunistic TLS support
- Mitigation of some deanonymisation attacks
- C (using OpenSSL) and OpenCL PoW modules
- Performance improvements (backend as well as QT GUI)
- UPnP support
- Improved bootstrapping over Tor
- Translation updates
- Lots of tiny bugfixes and some minor security improvements
- Integration of mailchuck.com email gateway

@webfork

Yes, Bitmessage is not light by any means- on my system it uses about 100 MB of RAM.
You may add a line to the procedure of making Bitmessage portable- after "Run in Portable Mode" is enabled, exit the program, delete PyBitmessage folder from \AppData\Roaming\ (created on first run) and start Bitmessage again, this folder won't be re-created once "Run in Portable Mode" is enabled.
I notified Softpedia about the latest version of Bitmessage.

[PeterSurda]

[Moderator note: this thread was split from the Privacy-Enhanced Instant Messaging thread.]

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You may also include Bitmessage which has also been discussed in the forum. I am not using the current version (0.6.0) but the previous one (0.4.4) because of the GUI changes I dislike. All Windows versions of Bitmessage can be grabbed from here.

First of all, what specifically do you dislike about the new GUI? Second, you should consider upgrading anyway because 0.6.0 has important security fixes.

Peter Surda
Bitmessage core developer

[smaragdus]

@PeterSurda

First- welcome to the forum, I am glad you dropped by.

Second- thank you for the development of Bitmessage which I use since I came upon it and I believe that it is an essential tool for anyone who cares for privacy.

Third- I once submitted Bitmessage to the forum and I was planning to add it to the database (I think it deserves to be added since it is a unique program and there is no similar one in our database) but the GUI changes discouraged me a bit. What I like in the old tool-bar (version 0.4.4) is the fast access to address book and identities. If you insist on this layout I would suggest some tiny changes:

"Mailbox" in stead of "Messages" and "New" in stead of "Send"- I think this way it would sound better.

"Identities" menu always visible in the tool-bar for easier and quicker management of identities. In version 0.4.4 it is "Your Identities"- I think that just "Identities" will be fine.-I also prefer a separate "Address Book" menu in the tool-bar for the same reason- easier and faster access.

However I agree that the new "Messages" panel is well-organized and better compared to old "Inbox" & "Sent"

I also have a question- does Bitmessage protocol support sending of attachments and if so- can we expect such a feature in the future?

Regards

Edit
I forgot one thing- when I try to download Bitmessage with my default download manager- Free Download Manager, I get 406 error permanently- it fails to download Bitmessage but gets 406.php file in stead. The problem appeared this year.

[PeterSurda]

First of all, thank you for your feedback. I'm not a usability expert and the base of the new UI was done by someone else, I focused on minor incremental improvements based on my personal use cases.

What I like in the old tool-bar (version 0.4.4) is the fast access to address book and identities.

I see. The context menus for the message list were updated so that you can now add any sender or recipient to the addressbook by right-clicking on it, and the "To" textedit now supports auto-completion from addressbook. This makes a separate addressbook less necessary.

"Mailbox" in stead of "Messages" and "New" in stead of "Send"- I think this way it would sound better.

I think a UI specialist should evaluate this, I don't know.

"Identities" menu always visible in the tool-bar for easier and quicker management of identities. In version 0.4.4 it is "Your Identities"- I think that just "Identities" will be fine.-I also prefer a separate "Address Book" menu in the tool-bar for the same reason- easier and faster access.

What exactly do you need the identities for, in other words what's the use case? I need to know that in order to figure out what to do. The address book I explained above.

However I agree that the new "Messages" panel is well-organized and better compared to old "Inbox" & "Sent"

Yes, someone made the base design and I smoothed it out.

I also have a question- does Bitmessage protocol support sending of attachments and if so- can we expect such a feature in the future?

In theory you can send attachments now, just the GUI cannot handle them, with the exception of base64-encoded inline images.

There is development for extended encoding being discussed and tested, that will allow easy portable arbitrary data structures, including messages with attachments.

I forgot one thing- when I try to download Bitmessage with my default download manager- Free Download Manager, I get 406 error permanently- it fails to download Bitmessage but gets 406.php file in stead. The problem appeared this year.

I can't reproduce this but it's possible that the website has occasional outages. I plan to move the wiki and the binaries to github.

[webfork]

Just a note to the developer PeterSurda if he's still on the site: I really like your program and would have already added it to the database, but I was waiting to see if it got a little closer to a release version (0.6.0 usually implies a fairly early beta).

My only feature request doesn't really belong on Github as it's a sort of an anti-request: a focus on simplicity, clear interface, and an introduction/explanation of features. One of the things I love about the various Tox programs I've tested is just how quick and easy they are. There's no signup or hesitation: you just transfer the code and you're talking.

As such, I'd suggest that like Bitcoin, GPG, and group messaging should take a backseat initially. I can't talk anyone (including my software-friendly, security-aware friends) into using anything that involves a lot of setup or complexity.

[PeterSurda]

My only feature request doesn't really belong on Github as it's a sort of an anti-request: a focus on simplicity, clear interface, and an introduction/explanation of features. One of the things I love about the various Tox programs I've tested is just how quick and easy they are. There's no signup or hesitation: you just transfer the code and you're talking.

I agree. Unfortunately I am not a UI expert (I'm a bash + vim sort of guy), so I focus on incremental UI changes that are based on user reports and my own use cases. Maybe once the project has some financing, it can pay for someone to review it and tell me what to do (or write it themselves).

[webfork]

0.6.1 is out:

The list of changes includes:

• Translation update and localization fixes
• Minor bug fixes
• Minor UI improvements
• Namecoin integration fixed and improved
• SMTP server and client interface
• Tor hidden service support
• C PoW builds and runs on *BSD

Windows binary:
• fixed build
• upgraded to Python 2.7.12 and OpenSSL 1.0.2h
• 64bit binary available for download
• self-built PyInstaller bootloader should trigger fewer antivirus false positives
Mac OSX binary:
• upgraded to Python 2.7.12 and OpenSSL 1.0.2h

Unfortunately I am not a UI expert (I'm a bash + vim sort of guy), so I focus on incremental UI changes that are based on user reports and my own use cases. Maybe once the project has some financing, it can pay for someone to review it and tell me what to do (or write it themselves).

Makes sense both on the bash/vim and financing sides. Maybe bitcoin integration doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Anyway, keep in mind though that you don't have to be a user interface guy to put together a solid look and feel. After all, just about everyone knows what a basic email client looks like so -- similar to how many startup managers look like the Windows Start menu -- you can mimic existing systems and do just fine.

I'm far from an expert but I'd be happy to try mocking something up in the future if you need help.

[webfork]

I've been using this too much to not add it to the database:

Bitmessage
http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2825