Briar is an

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

communication technology, intended to provide secure and resilient

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...

communications with no centralized servers and minimal reliance on external infrastructure. Messages can be transmitted through

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

, over the internet via

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...

or removable storage, such as USB sticks. All communication is

end-to-end End-to-end or End to End may refer to: * End-to-end auditable voting systems, a voting system * End-to-end delay, the time for a packet to be transmitted across a network from source to destination * End-to-end encryption, a cryptographic paradigm ...

encrypted. Relevant content is stored in encrypted form on participating devices. Long-term plans for the project include support for distributed applications such as crisis mapping and collaborative document editing. The initial target audience for Briar includes "activists, journalists and civil society" with plans to make the system "simple enough to help anyone keep their data safe." As the ability to function in the absence of internet infrastructure may also make the project valuable to disaster response and aid organizations, the developers are working with the Open Humanitarian Initiative and Taarifa. Ultimately, the developers aim to create a system which is "as simple to use as WhatsApp, as secure as PGP, and that keeps working if somebody breaks the Internet." It is possible for a mobile to download Briar from another mobile which already has Briar installed. Briar's source code is published as

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

and the mobile app is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later license, while the desktop version is released under the

Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License (Affero GPL and informally Affero License) is a free software license. The first version of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv1), was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and based on the GNU General Pu ...

. Briar Desktop runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Briar Desktop will also run on true Linux (non-Android) mobiles, running operating systems like

Manjaro Manjaro ( ) is a free and open-source Linux distribution based on the Arch Linux operating system that has a focus on user-friendliness and accessibility. It uses a rolling release update model and Pacman as its package manager. It is developed ...

PureOS PureOS is a Linux distribution focusing on privacy and security, using the GNOME desktop environment. It is maintained by Purism for use in the company's Librem laptop computers as well as the Librem 5 smartphone. PureOS is designed to include o ...

and

postmarketOS postmarketOS (abbreviated as pmOS) is an operating system primarily for smartphones, based on the Alpine Linux distribution. postmarketOS was launched on 26 May 2017 with the source code available on GitHub before migrating to GitLab in 2018. I ...

, once it has been adapted to mobile form-factors. Briar was audited by

Cure53 Cure53 is a German cybersecurity firm. The company was founded by Dr. Mario Heidrich, a client side security researcher. After a report from Cure53 on the South Korean security app Smart Sheriff Smart Sheriff ( ko, 스마트보안관) is a Sout ...

and spoken highly of in a report delivered 20 March 2017, and was recommended to be given a second audit after development completes. As of 2018 the project received $361,100 of funding from the ''

Open Technology Fund The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is an American nonprofit corporation that aims to support global Internet freedom technologies. Its mission is to "support open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship, and ...

''. Briar uses the Bramble protocol suite (Bramble Handshake Protocol, Bramble QR Code Protocol, Bramble Rendezvous Protocol, Bramble Synchronisation Protocol, Bramble Transport Protocol) that is specifically designed for delay-tolerant networks. These protocols are currently (as of January 2023) not implemented by other messengers; Briar can only talk to Briar.

References

External links

*
expert review (2015)
{{Cryptographic_software Internet-related activism Mesh networking Communication software Instant messaging clients Tor (anonymity network)

See also

References

External links