comm-gtk

comm is a peer-to-peer instant messaging protocol designed to be resilient to censorship. comm-gtk is a GUI client built on the comm library. To try it out, start the app. In the configuration window, enter a secret phrase, a bootstrap node (IP:port pair), and a local port to listen on (e.g. 6669). For a bootstrap node, try 165.227.114.200:6667 (or any other node's IP address if you know one). Click connect to join the network.

Grab your address by clicking the copy button in the lower-left corner and share it. Strike up conversation with a friend by putting their address in the "New Conversation" input. Start new conversations by clicking the button towards the upper-left corner.

This instant messaging network is likely to be a lonely place, but you can try messaging me at my address:

fe980ce10a89da42ddb0c2d5f35b5d2e2a10c65b

Installation

Grab a release from GitHub, or if you want to build it yourself:

MacOS

make app

Everyone else

cargo build --release

And then, whatever you people do to run an executable. cargo run is also a good bet.

What in tarnation?

The gist of it is that everyone relays messages for everyone, with some fanciness for delivery so as to not flood the network with traffic, to store messages for participants until they can receive them, and to alert senders of receipt. For a more detailed explanation, check out the comm library repo.

All of this is written in Rust.

Why, though?

Writing weird code is my therapy.

What next?

I have all kinds of ideas. Implement libsignal for end-to-end encryption, model threats and freeloaders, mitigate threats and freeloaders, add more network transport mediums (it's not married to UDP), improve NAT traversal. Sharing images? Idk. Want to help?.