Insanely Simple P2P Messenger

A lightweight, secure peer-to-peer messenger with no central servers or persistent data.

Key Features

• No Persistent Data: Messages and account data are deleted when you close the app
• No Central Servers: Pure peer-to-peer communication
• End-to-End Encryption: TLS encryption for all communications
• Simple Identity: Share your identifier once to start chatting

How It Works

1. Identity & Security:

   • Each instance generates a 2048-bit RSA key pair on first launch
   • Your identifier is a SHA-256 hash of your public key
   • All connections use TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption
   • Private keys are stored locally in PEM format and never shared

2. Peer Discovery:

   • Uses a Distributed Hash Table (DHT) for peer discovery
   • When you /advertise, your presence is announced to the DHT network
   • Other peers can find you using /discover with your identifier
   • Initial DHT connection uses public bootstrap nodes provided by libp2p

3. Connection Flow:

   • Alice starts messenger and gets her identifier (hash of her public key)
   • Alice runs /advertise to announce her presence on the DHT
   • Alice shares her identifier with Bob (via any channel)
   • Bob starts messenger and runs /discover <Alice's identifier>
   • A secure TLS connection is established between Alice and Bob

Quick Start

1. Clone this repo and build:

go mod tidy
go build -o messenger

2. Start first instance:

In terminal 1:

./messenger 1
/advertise

You'll see "Your identifier: abc123..." - share this with others

3. Start second instance:

./messenger 2
/discover abc123... # Paste the identifier from step 2

Commands

• /advertise: Make yourself discoverable to others
• /discover <id>: Connect to another user using their identifier
• /help: Show all available commands
• /exit: Close the app and delete all data