Bitcoin Forum

I've communicated with my friends in Turkey about Bitmessage.org and they seem to be very excited about the possibilities offered by Bitmessage in terms of private encrypted communications. Bitmessage however currently runs just on your desktop, it would be truly incredible if it could be ported to Android so that people can use it mobile and have access to encrypted communications anywhere they go.

I'm starting a bounty to port Bitmessage to Android. I would add the caveat that there should be a system added so that a person  needs to log in each time they use it so that if the phone is taken by the police, they can not simply just gain acces to the phones messages (thus rendering it more a tool of incrimination). I'm not entirely sure how such a system would work, but I think that would be key to having it ported to android so that it didn't become a dangerous piece of evidence.

I start by pledging 1BTC!

There is already a project going on:
https://bitmessage.org/forum/index.php/topic,1661.0.html

Maybe it's a good idea to not disperse forces :)

EDIT:
I'm not saying that I'm against the bounty! ;D

I had the same idea some days ago and already talked a little with the developer of this project.  He's designing it as a client-server architecture, where the phones would be running only a "light" client that communicates with a supporting server.  The intention behind this is partly to make it a more interesting academic project, and I believe it would be feasible for modern phones to run a full client including PoW, in particular if implemented in native code on Android instead of Python on the desktop client.  Then maybe even the Android version is faster than the Python one....

He also showed interest in adding a "full node" option, but that's not first priority and it of course depends on his time and interests after satisfying his supervisor for this project.  So I'm not sure whether or not this will provide really a useful alternative, and in particular do not believe it will come shortly (such as being useful to Turkey at the moment - but possibly in the future at similar protests).

I'm interested myself in working on that (and also offered my help), and also volunteer to help with other efforts building a client ... however, I do think the community should indeed organise such efforts well, because I don't want to invest my time just to find in the end that "my" project is superfluous and some other client becomes more widely used.  Instead it would be much better if all interested persons could combine their efforts to build an even better client.

Good point! I wasn't aware of it, although the user in that forum plans to release by the end of the summer- maybe not the timeframe we are looking for here to help with the political situation in Turkey.

Shouldn't that also apply to your PC at home? ie. data file encrypted and unencrypted by password, just like the bitcoin client

How much bandwidth does the client eat up?

there is this bounty as well for this

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=246692.0

and also this

https://bitcoinstarter.com/projects/98

You can follow Frog on his Blog http://blog.frog.li/  .

and that rhymes!

Hey crazy_rabbit,

If you're prepared to honour the bounty then I'd like to claim it. I've written an Android client for Bitmessage called 'Bitseal' (it's the same project referenced earlier in the thread). The app is open source + freely licensed, and comes with a large body of automated tests:

https://github.com/JonathanCoe/bitseal
https://github.com/JonathanCoe/bitseal-tests
https://github.com/JonathanCoe/bitseal-server

The latest release (0.5) includes local encryption of the app's databsase, using SQLCipher. This means that if someone seizes your device while the app is locked, they will not be able to access any of your sensitive data without the password.

The app can be downloaded either directly as an APK file (see https://bitmessage.org/forum/index.php?topic=4155.msg9750#msg9750) or through the beta testing facility of the Google Play Store. There's a group for people testing it here: https://plus.google.com/communities/115838283581504499326.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Jonathan

Wow, I had totally, totally forgotten about this. I want to be good on my word, but can I compromise with you on the amount? Since then a lot has changed for me personally and I'm totally not in a place where I can spend money/bitcoin as easily as I could in June 2013.  Could you consider an offer .33 BTC? I know it's not a whole BTC but even $100 is not easy on me these days.

you know to be honest dude people coming up 18 months later to claim bounties with no messaging in the meantime is a little ridiculous and highly unprofessional....

for me, if i don't here shit for 45 days the deal is off the table.

so don't feel bad about it.

i know the other poster might hate me for saying this...

hey i even change the terms of my offers when i realize i screwed up and forgot something.

you have to feel satisfied with the product... waiting 18 months.... not so much...

Of course! I've absolutely no wish to claim anything that would be difficult for you to pay. If .33 BTC works for you that's great, if not then please don't worry about it. If I were doing this for the money then I would have picked another project to work on :) Whatever works for you is fine.