Brave Talk

Open Source Applications

11th September 2023.

Updated 12th September 2023: Tried to clarify about the difference of desktop and phone functions.

This is the first review of a series of open source video conferencing applications that focus on privacy.

What defines a privacy-focused application?

A privacy focused application, is an application that focuses on keeping the customers data confidential, and won’t sell it to other businesses. A good privacy-focused platform contains many, although not necessarily all of the following properties:

• Open Source Code; a must-have criteria. This is to have transparency about what the platform actually is doing with your data.

• Paid subscription ensures that there is little to no incentive for the platform owner to betray their customers by selling their data to third party.

• Decentralized infrastructure prevents legal entities to enforce policies that could harm customers privacy. It also means that you don’t have put all your trust into one company. A good example of decentralized infrastructure is if the platform is based on a blockchain concept, where nodes are run by volunteers.

• Strong community support makes sure that the product keeps maintained.

• Strong encryption algorithms for security and confidentiality.

• Peer-to-peer communication makes sure that there is no middlemen that can eavesdrop on the communication

• Possibility to run the platform in-house, to have complete ownership of the data. This is the opposite of having a cloud service, where the data is being stored on somebody elses computer.

Properties of Brave Talk

Brave Talk is a browser-based, centralized platform and is developed by Brave. The Brave company is based in the U.S.A. and is famous for their privacy focusing browser, which I absolutely recommend.

Brave Talk is built on the open source platform Jitsi, by 8x8. It supports most functions you would expect from a video conferencing tool:

• Recording

• Screen-sharing

• Moderator functions

• Call owner can mute everyone

• encrypted calls (experimental?)

Brave Talk does not support taking control over somebody's computer. That means it is not an optimal tool for technical support but works sufficient for meetings.

Since it is browser-based, only the host needs to initiate the call on the brave-browser. Participants can join the call from any browser.

A full list of functions can be found here:

https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/4409911973261-How-do-I-use-Brave-Talk-

Web3 Token Gated Access

One of the more noteworthy functions of Brave Talk is that it is the first platform to support token-gated access using Ethereum or Solana NFTs. It has some limitations though:

• It supports connections with Brave Wallet, Extensions like Metamask or Hardware wallets.

• It does not support the wallet connect function, at least not yet.

Brave Talk Testdrive

Token-Gating

First I wanted to test the NFT token-gating function. At first it didn’t work as expected. Participants were able to join regardless if they had the required NFT or not. After updating the brave-browser software, it worked as expected; concluded that it is important to have the latest version of Brave installed.

I tested Web3 Token gating with metamask extension. This is how it looks once you are about to start a web3 call:

It’s quite self-explanatory:

1. Your Avatar NFT is the picture displayed when you are in the call. Maybe you purchased some digital art from Opensea that you like to use?

2. On Require an NFT Collection, mark all NFT’s that are required to enter the call

3. Optionally have a special moderator NFT for Moderator NFT Collection

4. Start a Web3 Call

Note: When I was about to select the required NFT for joining the call, I noticed that I had a lot of junk NFTs in my metamask wallet:

I have now turned off NFT autodetection in metamask. I have yet to find a way to remove all this junk. I tried to connect to Opensea.io but not even there I can see the same junk NFTs. It’s only in Brave Talk, very strange.

This is how it looks from the participants point of view, he/she only requires to choose an avatar:

Call experience

Secondly we tested regular functions like audio, video, screen-sharing and recording.

• Reactions with sounds (applauds and such) is quite entertaining. Sounds can be turned off for everyone by the moderator.

• When recording starts, a popup with link to recording shows up in the lower left corner. You enter that link into another tab in your browser and you can download it from there.

Note: If you miss that popup, you can retrieve recent recording after ending the call:

First we tested with desktop/laptop:

• Video quality is not great but OK in my opinion.

• Share screen have 3 options; Show browser tab, Show window or Show entire screen.

Overall good experience on laptop/desktop. On an android phone it can be a little bit of a hassle to make it work:

• It works on android but needs to be a supported browser

• Client issues can occur (participant was not able to get sound out of his phone’s speaker, only earpiece). This may or may not have anything to do with brave talk.

• Brave talk won't work in brave browser unless brave shield is turned off.

• Limited capabilities. Share screen does not work for example.

Note: I have not tested on iPhone.

Security Options

• Lobby not turned on by default. Anyone with the meeting link can join. When turned on, the moderators get’s notified when someone wants to enter the call.

• Password can also be set.

• E2EE = End-to-End Encryption is not turned on by default. When turned on, you will notice that there is a green lock-symbol next to the timer:

Note: switching between E2EE encryption and unencrypted during the call can cause many kinds of issues and is not recommended. Especially when turning it off.

• Any participant can join from any browser but for E2EE to work, it requires a supported browser. Therefore it is recommended that everybody uses the brave-browser, either on phone/handheld device or laptop/desktop.

Pros and Cons

1. 1. Pros

• Brave Talk is very user-friendly since it doesn’t need any additional software

• $7 a month for premium is a bargain in my opinion, considering that only the host needs to pay for it.

• Web3 Token Gated Access can be a big benefit for a community.

1. Cons

• Not possible to pay the subscription in crypto currency.

• It’s centralized, meaning you have to rely on Brave that the service is working and the encryption keys remain safe. As an example of possible dilemmas: Protonmail, another centralized privacy-based platform, had to give in to a court order to give out information about a user’s IP address and mail correspondence. While the emails themselves remained encrypted, it could be a matter of time before encryption becomes illegal or useless in the EU.

• While the encryption algorithm is one of the best available for browsers, there are some alarming limitations to the encryption capabilities. The most notorious ones are:

  • Only E2EE up to 20 participants

  • If recording is activated, encryption keys are sent to Braves partner 8x8’s video bridge server. Recordings are stored on the server for 24 hours.

For more information, read the FAQ section from this page: https://brave.com/talk/

More privacy information: https://brave.com/privacy/browser/#brave-talk