Using Retroshare to create a secure communications channel
During the last days, Catalunya has been experiencing demonstrations and street protests.
To facilitate them, a group called Tsunami Democratic (Democratic Tsunami) is using an app to organise their actions. The app uses Retroshare as their base network/framework.
I decided, with the limited information that I have, to have a go into creating a secure communications channel for groups.
I will try to avoid, as much as I can, any political remarks on this article.
Retroshare
Retroshare is an open source project that has been going for over a decade (since 2006). It is a friend to friend network that uses GPG, P2P and Tor or I2P networks to ensure sharing of information is secure, anonymous and decentralised.
It generates a key pair (GPG) and uses OpenSSL to ensure an end-to-end encryption between you and your friends.
You can only see your friends and what your friends want to share with you, but can introduce other friends and/or subscribe to channels (depending on the privacy level that you and your friends set-up)
It uses a distributed hash table (DHT) to provide decentralisation in the same way as BitTorrent, Freenet and IPFS do (to mention a few).
Getting Started
The first thing to do is to install Retroshare. It is available for multiple OS. In my case I am going for the lazy option and download the AppImage package.
Download the file and change the permissions to make it executable.
chmod 750 restroshare-gui-...Execute it
./retroshare-gui...This will open a UI similar to the one you can see here:
I will recommend clicking the advance options. Selecting the node type as Hidden node (over Tor) and the Very high encryption. Choose a channel name (in my case mytestchannel) and click Go!
This will then start connecting to the Tor Network. After a bit of time, it should open that app with a message showing that you need to add friends.
That is it, you got a secure channel. Your channel will be as secure as the way you share it (and the people are in it).
Retroshare provides many services to help with communication including, one2one chat, mail, public and private chat lobbies, forum (anonymous or authenticated), file sharing, share links, VoIP and Video calls.
The documentation on how to use it is good and extensive. The UI feels dated but does the job.
I didn’t look into the option of running Retroshare in headless mode.
What about the app?
I have been only able to download the app, start it but not activate it. The next section is a set of guess and assumptions.
The app is a client to facilitate people to connect to their Retroshare channel/network. It requires a QR for you to get into the network. That QR will, more than probable, be the public key of one participant in the network.
I am only to assume that once you get a certain trust; they allow you to invite other users to the network. If they find a bad participant, it is possible to remove a node without affecting most of the network.
Conclusion
My only concerns are:
- Because of the decentralised nature of the network, it is difficult to remove the shared information in Retroshare. I will be careful what you post/upload in it. I assume that is why they when with the app to limit what can a user upload.
- The app needs of Internet to communicate. Governments can shut down Internet and even simpler, there is a limit in the number of users a Mobile networks can support. In big demonstrations it might not be possible to pass information as participants cannot get the message. Using B.A.T.M.A.N. protocols is gaining momentum in that area.
- My biggest concern is the secrecy on the back of it. I can only assume they want to take the necessary steps to ensure they share no participants information with bad actors.
The people from Tsunami Democratic have done an incredible work in facilitating democracy in difficult times.
In my opinion, the technology choice and the app itself are excellent and trust they will take the right decisions.
Hopefully, they can avoid censorship and enable people to organise themselves without the Big Brother watching over their heads. I will try to do my best to help on that endeavour on whatever I can contribute.
Anims i força.
