Send SMS all around the world with lightning!

[nullama]

Just found this application that allows you to send SMS worldwide with lightning:

https://lnsms.world

They even have an API so you could interface this with a server for automating stuff.

Checked a couple of countries, and the price was about 150 sats, not bad!

They also have unicode support.

Seems like a nice project.

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[Jawhead999]

Personally I never send SMS anymore after many people start using Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, literally you don't need to pay anything to send a bunch chat... it only consume your internet quota or even free if you use public WIFI.

Nowadays people send SMS about illegal stuffs (e.g. phishing, blackmail, begging etc) because some exchanges ask to confirm through your phone number.

[dkbit98]

Used IP addresses are logged and recorded so it's better to use Tor browser when sending SMS with this website (if possible).
This could be cool use case for Lightning Network, in case if you don't use mobile phone (rear this days but still possible) or if person who receives SMS is not using some free messenger like Telegram.
I remember that few years ago I saw some similar services that can be used for sending and receiving SMS online all for free, but I am not sure if they still work.

Much more interesting project is called Redphone (I wrote about that few months ago) that is used for communicating and talking between lightning nodes:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5353892.0

[ABCbits]

Used IP addresses are logged and recorded so it's better to use Tor browser when sending SMS with this website (if possible).

I managed to open the website with Tor Browser and tried the API with Tor (there's option to use SOCKS5 proxy on cURL) without any problem, so i guess it's possible to use Tor/Tor Browser.

[hugeblack]

I did not understand the point of the project, does it look like a paid spam service?

It would be fine if you could get a phone number from a country, receive messages, send messages, or buy a phone number using the Lightning network or make payments through it, but sending a message from a random number doesn't sound like a good idea.

On the site it is mentioned that the IP address will be registered, when will it be disposed of? What about the phone number? Will it be disposed of or will it be used in the future for spam?

[SFR10]

Checked a couple of countries, and the price was about 150 sats, not bad!

But that's not always the case:

• A single SMS to an Indonesian number costs "420 sats ^{[I only checked a few at random]}".

Personally I never send SMS anymore after many people start using Facebook, WhatsApp and Telegram, literally you don't need to pay anything to send a bunch chat...

You have a point, but there are still a lot of tech-illiterate people out there that happen to be using either a very old phone or none of those apps ^{[previously mentioned by @dkbit98]}!
a Few notes:

• There's a limit if you use the Arabic alphabet ^{[that's probably also the case with the Hebrew alphabet and similar stuff]}:
  
  • When I tried to send an Arabic sentence to a number from Afghanistan, I got "this error" but there was no issue with sending the same sentence to a number from "Albania".
    
    
• Sometimes it has problems with "determining the price ^{[tested with a few countries]}"!

[DaveF]

Does anyone know of a service like this that allows for MMS?
I was out of the country earlier in the year and needed to send some images and could not because of the way T-Mobile setup international roaming in some places.
I wound up using WhatsApp and e-mail but it was not ideal.

-Dave

[majika]

Although slightly different from SMS gateway over Lightning
There is another really cool communication app called Sphinx
About this app

Sphinx Relay turns your Lightning node into a personal communication server. Messages are end-to-end encrypted and transmitted over the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Download Sphinx on your phone from https://sphinx.chat and pair it with Sphinx Relay on Umbrel.

Communication between Sphinx Relay nodes takes place entirely on the Lightning Network, so it is decentralized, untraceable, and encrypted. Messages are encrypted using client public keys on the Sphinx app.

Back in the day when Bulk SMS spam was (is still) all the rage you could wire up a ASTERISK PaaS / open source framework for building communications applications for completely integrated communications over IP.

https://www.asterisk.org/products/software/

I have not looked into this in any great detail BUT from what I recall about running Asterisk servers/instances is that it is incredibly robust.
It could be able to integrate with the LND network to broadcast Asterisk would act like a weirdly, freakish endpoint/gateway/middleware Hybrid type Concoction with a bit of fine tuning Sphinx could act as the front end and Asterisk could provide the platform as an alternative for SMS/MMS broadcast over the Blockchain.

There are probably better more elegant solutions out there that utilises the Lightning network that is already open-sourced & has either zero usage costs/ is free or at greatly reduced cost (maybe drop to 1 sat/msg if you open up a channel size of 5,000,000 that's a lot of MMS)

**5mil Sat's Based on  ~£1.7k @ BTC spot £34800 current prices #FoodForThought

FYI:
Signal Dockerized container --> https://github.com/bbernhard/signal-cli-rest-api
I suspect there is a much simpler method to send MMS/SMS over LN - Bitcoin blockchain. Then again, I don't think Bitcoin would be the best network for this purpose as there are several other blockchain based projects which would be a much better fit for such a purpose as a MMS/SMS broadcasting messaging network.

[PrimeNumber7]

I am curious as to who their target market is. I kinda get the vibe that this person is running this website as a school project and/or a POC, rather than trying to run at scale and profit from his service.

Used IP addresses are logged and recorded so it's better to use Tor browser when sending SMS with this website (if possible).

They obviously have the ability to read the content of your message. I would presume that the average customer would probably say who is sending the message in the body of the message, so I am not sure how much additional privacy is gained from using tor.

I did not understand the point of the project, does it look like a paid spam service?

It would be fine if you could get a phone number from a country, receive messages, send messages, or buy a phone number using the Lightning network or make payments through it, but sending a message from a random number doesn't sound like a good idea.

I agree. I am struggling to think of a use case for this type of service. My first thought is that a business might need to communicate with customers, however I think it is pretty unusual for someone to need to buy the ability to send one message.

[LINKMARINE22]

It's like what Sergey said in that video released yesterday. People want end to end encryption

[DaveF]

I am curious as to who their target market is. I kinda get the vibe that this person is running this website as a school project and/or a POC, rather than trying to run at scale and profit from his service.

I see a use for it for people who travel to foreign countries and are on mobile carriers that have insane rates for some of them.
It's actually why I asked about MMS. But even some texting rates are as high as $0.50 a text and your "international internet" speed is 2G.

https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Not sure it's a BIG market but I do see a demand for it.

-Dave

[PrimeNumber7]

I am curious as to who their target market is. I kinda get the vibe that this person is running this website as a school project and/or a POC, rather than trying to run at scale and profit from his service.

I see a use for it for people who travel to foreign countries and are on mobile carriers that have insane rates for some of them.
It's actually why I asked about MMS. But even some texting rates are as high as $0.50 a text and your "international internet" speed is 2G.

https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Not sure it's a BIG market but I do see a demand for it.

-Dave

Why would someone pay for this when there are so many free alternatives? There is iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal to name a few that can all send the equivalent of a text message to a person's phone number (who is also using a similar app), just to name a few. All are free and feature end-to-end encryption, which ensures the app maker cannot see your message (which is not the case for this service).

If you are traveling abroad, you probably need some kind of data plan from a carrier, either your US-based carrier or a carrier in the country you are traveling to (or the carrier of another country). This service does not get around that.

[DaveF]

I am curious as to who their target market is. I kinda get the vibe that this person is running this website as a school project and/or a POC, rather than trying to run at scale and profit from his service.

I see a use for it for people who travel to foreign countries and are on mobile carriers that have insane rates for some of them.
It's actually why I asked about MMS. But even some texting rates are as high as $0.50 a text and your "international internet" speed is 2G.

https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Not sure it's a BIG market but I do see a demand for it.

-Dave

Why would someone pay for this when there are so many free alternatives? There is iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal to name a few that can all send the equivalent of a text message to a person's phone number (who is also using a similar app), just to name a few. All are free and feature end-to-end encryption, which ensures the app maker cannot see your message (which is not the case for this service).

If you are traveling abroad, you probably need some kind of data plan from a carrier, either your US-based carrier or a carrier in the country you are traveling to (or the carrier of another country). This service does not get around that.

Because if you are dealing with a large number of people SMS is a standard, it works on all phones, you don't have to think about who has what app.

Yes, I am a fringe case with this but I can sit in the worksite and send messages though a web client to all who need them knowing that they get it without thinking and all it costs me is $0.02 works for me.
If I can do an MMS with a picture going "How difficult is is not to route the data connections through the high voltage conduit?" even better.

International data plans are not always cheap or convenient and if there is an issue dealing with it is a pain.

-Dave

[hugeblack]

Because if you are dealing with a large number of people SMS is a standard, it works on all phones, you don't have to think about who has what app.

This service would be good if it was possible to obtain a phone number and communicate in both directions, sending and receiving messages, but the service currently works only on sending messages, meaning that it is good for those who want to promote a product or harass someone.

It also enables another problem in registering the phone number, which may lead to hacking your accounts in the future.

[PrimeNumber7]

I am curious as to who their target market is. I kinda get the vibe that this person is running this website as a school project and/or a POC, rather than trying to run at scale and profit from his service.

I see a use for it for people who travel to foreign countries and are on mobile carriers that have insane rates for some of them.
It's actually why I asked about MMS. But even some texting rates are as high as $0.50 a text and your "international internet" speed is 2G.

https://www.t-mobile.com/travel-abroad-with-simple-global

Not sure it's a BIG market but I do see a demand for it.

-Dave

Why would someone pay for this when there are so many free alternatives? There is iMessage, WhatsApp, and Signal to name a few that can all send the equivalent of a text message to a person's phone number (who is also using a similar app), just to name a few. All are free and feature end-to-end encryption, which ensures the app maker cannot see your message (which is not the case for this service).

If you are traveling abroad, you probably need some kind of data plan from a carrier, either your US-based carrier or a carrier in the country you are traveling to (or the carrier of another country). This service does not get around that.

Because if you are dealing with a large number of people SMS is a standard, it works on all phones, you don't have to think about who has what app.

Yes, I am a fringe case with this but I can sit in the worksite and send messages though a web client to all who need them knowing that they get it without thinking and all it costs me is $0.02 works for me.
If I can do an MMS with a picture going "How difficult is is not to route the data connections through the high voltage conduit?" even better.

International data plans are not always cheap or convenient and if there is an issue dealing with it is a pain.

-Dave

If you want to send some type of group text, you have somewhat of a point, as not everyone will necessarily use the same platforms. However, if you are trying to communicate with an individual, it is trivial to know if they are on a particular platform.

If you are going to communicate with anyone while overseas, you more or less will need some kind of internet package.