The ongoing Colonial Pipeline situation once again shows that legacy infrastructure cannot be relied upon. Whether it be cyber attacks, natural disasters or censorship, the decentralised topology of Beechat means you will be able to depend on it when you need communications the most. In this specific example of the Colonial Pipeline, we can also see the need for decentralised energy sources (OpenCrank and OpenJuice). Head over to our GitHub to learn more: https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd

Beechat Network cryptography stack:
- kyber: as the post-quantum key establishment and key encapsulation mechanism;
- dilithium: as the post-quantum signature scheme for verifying authenticity, integrity and non-repudiation of messages;
- ChaCha20: as symmetric encryption/decryption algorithm once the key has been established;
- BLAKE2s: as the cryptographic hash function.

We'll soon be releasing a Peer-to-Peer Internet-based chat with the same cryptography as the Beechat Buzz.
Features will include post-quantum file sending & chat.
The username & keys will be portable to the Beechat Buzz once we launch the radio network.
Stay posted!

Update on the current state of Beechat:

Electronics: done ✅
Software: done ✅
Firmware & OS: done ✅
Post-quantum crypto: done ✅
IP68 waterproof case design: 🔜
Electronics board prototypes: ordered (should arrive in 1-2 weeks) ✅
CE Certification & testing: 🔜

Hmm if only tech that allows mobile communication without traceable SIM cards existed... 👀

https://www.rt.com/news/526262-punjab-pakistan-sim-card-vaccine/

Born in 1874, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless communication technology. He became interested in radio waves as a young man and experimented with electromagnetic waves hoping to send information without wires. In 1899, he made the first wireless transmission across the English Channel. The use of wireless communication became known as radio. The technology freed people from the monopoly on wired telegraphy owned by large corporations and allowed anyone to communicate wirelessly [1].

In the 1980s, the Internet was born. It was a project developed by the US military in collaboration with Universities. It relied almost exclusively on landline communication, controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex [2]. Through the 1990s, both NSA and the GCHQ doggedly fought Public Key Cryptography which posed a threat over their control of information. The Clinton administration came up with the idea of the so-called ‘Clipper Chip’, a small device in every computer that the Government could directly access to bypass any encryption used by the owner. However, it was soon shown that this device was easily disabled [3]. The Establishment, in their search for control over the population, came up with an even better idea: connect every device to the Internet, thereby being able to read and see all messages sent even if encrypted. What good is encryption of a message if the Government can see a live feed of what is being shown on your screen? All information is visible to the Government unless proven impossible for them to reach [4].

Inspired by Marconi’s intentions of decentralisation, Beechat was developed. Beechat is not software nor hardware. Beechat is a defense against the Military-Industrial Complex that allows users to communicate in an Internet-disconnected manner. Beechat contains two main communication functions: the first one is the encrypted peer-to-peer chat, whereby only the intended recipient can decrypt the message. The second function is the public broadcasting function, which allows any node to broadcast a message to the entire network giving unbannable freedom of speech. The only way for Beechat to survive is for the software and hardware to outlive the group that founded it through the necessity of the community behind it. Beechat is a technology that decentralises the use of communications and gives the power of privacy back to the general population.

[1]= Sonneborn, Liz, Guglielmo Marconi: inventor of wireless technology
[2]= The Guardian - How the internet was invented - Web https://archive.is/oRaOI
[3]= Richard J. Aldrich - GCHQ
[4]= GNU - Microsoft’s Software is Malware - Web https://archive.is/WNGkG

🐝Development update🐝

We are currently working on the "Beechat Clip", which is different to the Buzz. The Buzz acts as a router to which multiple devices can be connected to access the network.

The Clip is a new radio device that clips on to your phone, plugging into the charging port and provides access to the network. Some users might prefer having a device attached to their phone, and others might prefer to have a separate device connecting wirelessly.

We decided to launch the Clip before the Buzz, due to shorter development time. The hardware has been published on our GitHub under CCSA 4.0.
https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/BeechatClip

We have also published the alpha pre-release version of the Beechat Android App under GPLv2 on our GitHub:
https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/BeechatNetwork-Android

Post quantum cryptography update: We have ported the code to Android of kyber-JNI (encryption) and dilithium-JNI (authentication). The next step is to integrate them into the Android App.
You can test (1) creation of keys, (2) encryption, (3) decryption, (4) signing and (5) authentication with post quantum cryptography by installing the APKs we will post shortly. You can also build the APKs by yourself by following the build procedure on the GitHub repos.
https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/kyber-JNI/
https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/dilithium-JNI/

🐝 Clip development update 🐝
We finally received our first batch of prototypes for the Clip. We conducted successful range tests with low-efficiency antennas, and will replace the antenna for a high efficiency AVX Ethertronics part 1002436. We are now waiting for the enclosure/case to arrive as we ordered it today. We published the designs of the case today on GitHub. We are actively looking for a better solution to the current cable we are using.

GitHub link to the Clip case files: https://github.com/BeechatNetworkSystemsLtd/BeechatClip/tree/main/Step%206%20-%20Enclosure%20case

With the Beechat Clip in late stages of development, we would like to invite everyone to share their questions and comments in our Telegram chat. See you there! https://news.1rj.ru/str/joinchat/BqWmuLmQ9LcxOTk8

🐝 Conducting some tests on the Demo App with our prototype Clips on 868 MHz 🐝

MJF 3D printed cases are arriving soon, and then we can start range tests.

Another day, another Big Tech hack/outage. The decentralized, agorist architecture of Beechat makes it a network you will be able to depend on. We aim to launch soon, so tell everyone you care about, so that they can be free from the dependence and control of Big Brother.

The Beechat Clip enclosure has finally arrived! Here's a sneak peek picture of it on an ungoogled Pixel phone. The granular texture is due to the 3D printing method, MJF. The final product's enclosure will be produced using injection molding providing a smooth finish. 🐝🐝🐝

For those with a deeper interest in cryptography: How Beechat uses cryptography to encrypt data and prevent man-in-the-middle attacks

🐝cybersecurity & performance update 🐝

Our application development strategy involves developing the Android app on one front, the cryptography layer on another, and merging them together in the end product app. This allows us to develop the app at a faster speed without stretching ourselves thin. We have made many achievements, including porting the post quantum cryptography algorithms Kyber and Dilithium to Android. While implementing our Entity Verification System, we found that BLAKE3 was recently launched, however there is no Android port for it. The performance increase is orders of magnitude larger than all other existing hashing algorithms and we wish to implement it into Beechat. So, just like with Kyber-JNI and Dilithium-JNI (which are already available on our GitHub), we will be porting BLAKE3 to Android through a JNI wrapper and we hope by making it open source, other developers will find it useful in their projects.

Article on BLAKE3:
https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/01/blake3-fast-crypto-hash/

Slight addendum:

In Beechat, as specified in the document we posted last week, hashing is used in the process of verifying another user’s identity in a decentralised manner. This will mean faster verification, and if we ever decided to make our own cryptocurrency, we will be using both the most advanced cryptographic key generation (Kyber + Dilithium), and most advanced hashing algorithm (BLAKE3).