Product question - standard mesh only option?

Product feedback & support
1

I’d love to be able to config my gotenna to only mesh with non-jailbroken devices.
Any chance of offering this option in a future software release?

2

Could you explain why this would be necessary? All hacked Mesh devices still only work with our protocol.

1 Like
3

One of the big selling points of gotenna is the privacy of texts moving through the system.

I trust gotenna - your rep to sell more units is on the line.

I don’t trust random meshers jailbreaking devices and rigging them to gather larger volumes of traffic than other nodes. I assume some of them may be interested in seeing the data folks would like to keep private by using gotenna mesh.

I can keep my gotenna devices powered off unless there’s an emergency - they’re still worth buying.
But if I could access the more secure (original) proposition of gotenna mesh, I’d instead have them powered on and in use every day.

Am I missing something? Would gotenna warranty that jailbroken devices can never be rigged to look like the message recipient…therefore having access to read the messages before forwarding them on?

4

what are you referring to, public shout messages or encrypted messages?

5

I am not discussing Shout.

I’m referring to private encrypted messages that must pass through one or more other nodes before reaching their recipient.

I know the message will be encrypted in transit.

My concern is regarding the time when the message passes through the interim nodes, on the way to it’s intended destination.

6

@NoahgoTenna
@Rahul_Subramany

Any insights to share?

7

I feel quite confident my encrypted messages are safe going over the Gotenna network. If your message becomes compromised it will be far more likely that happened because you or the recipient has malware on their phone. You should focus your concern on on your mobile devices.

How the encryption works is difficult to explain. I know because I gave a presentation about encryption to lay people and it was tough to explain in a meaningful way. Gotenna is using elliptical curve encryption. A device in the middle can not read your Encrypted messages even if it pretends to be you. They are using good security algorithms. If you want to understand the encryption there are great videos out there that can explain how it works.

Keep in mind all of the information is going over public airwaves. Other then encryption there is nothing to stop me from intercepting and reading your message with an SDR dongle and a computer. That’s the nature of using radio waves and Gotenna can do nothing about that. I could intercept your cell phones calls, text messages, and data more easily then I could intercept your encrypted Mesh messages.

Edited for clarity and Typos.

1 Like
8 
 @giqcass, thanks for your thoughts. 
  I notice that gotenna has not responded to my warranty question.
9

Robin having worked for one of the worlds largest manufactures (and to be clear I do not work for GoTenna) I can confidently say no manufacturer is going to warranty anything that a user might do with their product that is out of the manufacturer’s care and control.

As stated above they are using a form of encryption that would not simply allow someone to pretend to be you and therefore they have protected your information to the best of the limits of the technology.

A Gotenna unit would not be required to intercept the signal and attempt to decrypt the message.

Any encryption can be broken with enough effort, time and computing power and therefore any warranty would be meaningless.

2 Likes
10

Thanks, you’ve made my point better than I:
Bottom line -
Meshing with standard gotenna devices is not the same as meshing with random jailbroken devices.
Gotenna cannot vouch for the behavior of devices they didn’t design or build.

The resulting network will be a great backup emergency communications system, charged up and ready in my bugout bag.

1 Like
11

Meshing has nothing to do with this problem. Once you broadcast a signal you have no control over where it goes. There is no need to “Mesh” in order to listen. There is no need to own or to even know what a Gotenna is to listen.

Gotenna provides an SDK. If you really feel privacy is an issue you can use your own encryption. You could use pre-shared secrets and digital one time pads. Not even the NSA could break that in your lifetime as long as it’s implemented properly.

Are you using Signal on your phone?

3 Likes