Chat-tails: Throwback terminal chat, built on Tailscale (opens in new tab)

(tailscale.com)

103 pointsnulbyte3mo ago22 comments

22 comments

Looking forward to hearing Tailscale getting forced to do age verification and banning use of this to people under 16 years old in Australia under their new social media rules...

wkat42423mo ago

Don't worry, VPNs are next in line to be banned anyway due to their big evasion potential of all this age verification nonsense

wkat42423mo ago

ps just as I wrote this the English had to prove my point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780

1 more reply

LeoPanthera3mo ago

Things like this make me wish there was a sort of public version of Tailscale where everyone got a routable IP address to everyone else no matter what kind of firewall they were behind. Like the old days of the internet, I guess.

c45y3mo ago

https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ for the most part enables this - otherwise I2P and Tor for the most part facilitate this with the bonus encryption element.

We might one day have it natively with ipv6 adoption increasing.

theknarf3mo ago

https://veilid.com/

VikingCoder3mo ago

I think Tailscale shares is what we currently are supposed to use?

You share some "semi-public" host with all of your friends...

And then you're not necessarily chatting with famous people, but you can have a near-and-dear-social network of people you actually know...

jwrallie3mo ago

When I was a kid people were either there willing to communicate or AFK, the dynamic was completely different, and so were the expectations.

I enjoyed messaging much more although it would be impractical for me nowadays due to moving to a different time zone.

asim3mo ago

Kept trying to build it in a variety of ways. Ultimately its a Dev niche thing which maybe in the hands of tailscale will gain adoption but really struggled otherwise. There's definitely room for private ephemeral conversations but I think that can also be a more public utility. Who knows, maybe it lays the foundation for that.

dmd3mo ago

You may also enjoy https://typeto.me/ (discussed 15 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 ), a web version of talk/ntalk/ytalk

lorenzo953mo ago

I'm gonna need an app for that . No, I just tried it. Works as advertised. Thank you for the dockerfile. Using putty, the formatting is messed up.on the banner/help. Must be some dynamic end of line thing. Still works so.

jmole3mo ago

This is great, I've been looking for an easy to use local chat app for me and my kids, and Adium on Bonjour has been flaky with my VLAN setup at home. Will have to give this a try...

theknarf3mo ago

Looks fun, but couldn't you just host an actual IRC server behind Tailscale?

webdevver3mo ago

irc has a very low return on investment. crazy amount of tinkering for what is ascii characters vaguely thrown in your direction. it clearly has cultural staying power (and it does act as a strong filter for technically-minded people), but a oneliner chatroom in your terminal is a fun option for both newbies who get easily intimidated, and pros who dont have much free time anymore.

acheong083mo ago

IRC with Ergo + Soju is pretty easy and pleasant. Barely spent 20 minutes setting up a server, bridge, and bouncer. Has been really helpful where bandwidth was an issue (I am writing as I stay in a city with only 500kbps internet where Discord and other heavy webapps straight up refuse to load)

cl3misch3mo ago

I don't want to be that guy, but I have to ask: this is ephemeral, unauthenticated chat for a handful of people over netcat. Why does it pull >1GB of dependencies?

kunley3mo ago

Looking at the go.mod, tailscale lib seems to be the offender

misterthp3mo ago

this reminds me of gopher chats

pmdr3mo ago

So IRC, but with easier to set up severs?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

22 comments

bigiain3mo ago

Looking forward to hearing Tailscale getting forced to do age verification and banning use of this to people under 16 years old in Australia under their new social media rules...

wkat42423mo ago

Don't worry, VPNs are next in line to be banned anyway due to their big evasion potential of all this age verification nonsense

wkat42423mo ago

ps just as I wrote this the English had to prove my point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46294780

1 more reply

LeoPanthera3mo ago

c45y3mo ago

https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/ for the most part enables this - otherwise I2P and Tor for the most part facilitate this with the bonus encryption element.

We might one day have it natively with ipv6 adoption increasing.

theknarf3mo ago

https://veilid.com/

VikingCoder3mo ago

I think Tailscale shares is what we currently are supposed to use?

You share some "semi-public" host with all of your friends...

And then you're not necessarily chatting with famous people, but you can have a near-and-dear-social network of people you actually know...

jwrallie3mo ago

When I was a kid people were either there willing to communicate or AFK, the dynamic was completely different, and so were the expectations.

I enjoyed messaging much more although it would be impractical for me nowadays due to moving to a different time zone.

asim3mo ago

dmd3mo ago

You may also enjoy https://typeto.me/ (discussed 15 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2916453 ), a web version of talk/ntalk/ytalk

lorenzo953mo ago

jmole3mo ago

This is great, I've been looking for an easy to use local chat app for me and my kids, and Adium on Bonjour has been flaky with my VLAN setup at home. Will have to give this a try...

theknarf3mo ago

Looks fun, but couldn't you just host an actual IRC server behind Tailscale?

webdevver3mo ago

acheong083mo ago

cl3misch3mo ago

I don't want to be that guy, but I have to ask: this is ephemeral, unauthenticated chat for a handful of people over netcat. Why does it pull >1GB of dependencies?

kunley3mo ago

Looking at the go.mod, tailscale lib seems to be the offender

misterthp3mo ago

this reminds me of gopher chats

pmdr3mo ago

So IRC, but with easier to set up severs?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse