What is "briar"

Briar \Bri"ar\, n. Same as Brier.

Brier \Bri"er\, Briar \Bri"ar\ (br[imac]"[~e]r), n. [OE. brere, brer, AS. br[=e]r, br[ae]r; cf. Ir. briar prickle, thorn, brier, pin, Gael. preas bush, brier, W. prys, prysg.]

1. A plant with a slender woody stem bearing stout prickles; especially, species of Rosa, Rubus, and Smilax.

2. Fig.: Anything sharp or unpleasant to the feelings.

   The thorns and briers of reproof.
   --Cowper.

   Brier root, the root of the southern Smilax laurifolia and Smilax Walteri; -- used for tobacco pipes. See also 2nd brier.

   Cat brier, Green brier, several species of Smilax ( Smilax rotundifolia, etc.)

   Sweet brier ( Rosa rubiginosa). See Sweetbrier.

   Yellow brier, the Rosa Eglantina.

see brier (n.1).

Etymology 1 n. 1 Any of many plants with thorny stems growing in dense clusters, such as many in the ''Rosa, Rubus'', and ''Smilax'' gener

1. 2 (context figurative English) Anything sharp or unpleasant to the feelings. Etymology 2

   n. 1 The white heath, (taxlink Erica arborea species noshow=1), a thorny Mediterranean shru

2. 2 A pipe for smoking, made from the roots of that shrub.

1. n. Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leaves and bright pink flowers followed by scarlet hips [syn: sweetbrier, sweetbriar, brier, eglantine, Rosa eglanteria]

2. a very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries [syn: bullbrier, greenbrier, catbrier, horse brier, horse-brier, brier, Smilax rotundifolia]

3. evergreen treelike Mediterranean shrub having fragrant white flowers in large terminal panicles and hard woody roots used to make tobacco pipes [syn: tree heath, brier, Erica arborea]

4. a pipe made from the root (briarroot) of the tree heath [syn: briar pipe]

Briar is an open-source software mesh networking technology, intended to provide secure and resilient peer to peer communications with no centralized servers and minimal reliance on external infrastructure. Connections are made through bluetooth, WiFi, or over the internet via TOR and all private communication is end-to-end encrypted. Relevant content is stored in encrypted form on participating devices. Long term plans for the project "including blogging, crisis mapping and collaborative document editing".

The initial target audience for Briar includes "activists, journalists and civil society" with plans to make the system "simple enough to help anyone keep their data safe". The ability to function as a mesh in the absence of internet infrastructure may also make the project valuable to disaster response and aid organisations, the developers are working with the Open Humanitarian Initiative and Taarifa. Ultimately, the developers aim to create a system which is "as simple to use as WhatsApp, as secure as PGP, and that keeps working if somebody breaks the Internet".

Briar's source code is published as free software and is distributed under the terms of the GPLv3 license.