ircd: Strong Anonymity P2P Chat

In DarkFi, we organize our communication using resilient and censorship-resistant infrastructure. For chatting, ircd is a peer-to-peer implementation of an IRC server in which any user can participate anonymously using any IRC frontend and by running the IRC daemon. ircd uses the DarkFi P2P engine to synchronize chats between hosts.

Benefits

Encrypted using same algorithms as Signal.
There are no identities. You cannot see who is in the chat.
Completely anonymous. You can rename yourself easily by using the command /nick foo. This means all messages are unlinkable.
God-fearing based CLI without soy gui shit.
p2p decentralized.
Optionally run it over Tor or Nym for network level anonymity.

Therefore this is the world's most strongly anonymous chat in existence. Nothing else exists like it.

Installation

Follow the instructions in the README to ensure you have all the necessary dependencies.

% git clone https://github.com/darkrenaissance/darkfi.git
% cd darkfi && git checkout v0.4.1
% make ircd

Installation (Android)

This is for Android 64 bit (which is most phones).

Setup Docker on your machine which may look like:
1. Install docker and docker-buildx packages.
2. Enable the docker daemon service.
3. Add your user to the docker group and refresh the session (either with su -c $USER or logout/login).
Run cd bin/darkirc/ && make docker-android. The resulting file will be called darkirc.aarch64-android. Copy this to your phone.
Install Termux and RevolutionIRC on F-Droid.
You can access the phone storage from /sdcard/ and copy the file into the Termux home.
Run termux-wake-lock. This stops Android suspending the daemon.
Run the daemon. You can open new Termux sessions by swiping from the left to bring up the sidebar.
Connect the RevolutionIRC frontend.

Logs

The public channels have logs available, and additionally there is a mirror on telegram @darkfi_darkirc channel. You can also message @darkirc_bot with "sub" to avoid doxxing your username. Use "unsub" to unsubscribe.

Usage (DarkFi Network)

Upon compiling ircd as described above, the preconfigured defaults will allow you to connect to the network and start chatting with the rest of the DarkFi community.

First, try to start ircd from your command-line so it can spawn its configuration file in place. The preconfigured defaults will autojoin you to several default channels one of which is #dev where we have weekly meetings, and where the community is most active and talks about DarkFi development.

% ./ircd

ircd will create a configuration file ircd_config.toml by default in ~/.config/darkfi/ you can review and potentially edit. It might be useful if you want to add other channels you want to autojoin (like #philosophy and #memes), or if you want to set a shared secret for some channel in order for it to be encrypted between its participants.

When done, you can run ircd for the second time in order for it to connect to the network and start participating in the P2P protocol:

% ./ircd

Clients

Weechat

In this section, we'll briefly cover how to use the Weechat IRC client to connect and chat with ircd.

Normally, you should be able to install weechat using your distribution's package manager. If not, have a look at the weechat git repository for instructions on how to install it on your computer.

Once installed, we can configure a new server which will represent our ircd instance. First, start weechat, and in its window - run the following commands (there is an assumption that irc_listen in the ircd config file is set to 127.0.0.1:6667):

/server add darkfi localhost/6667 -notls -autoconnect
/save
/quit

This will set up the server, save the settings, and exit weechat. You are now ready to begin using the chat. Simply start weechat and everything should work.

When you join, you will not see any users displayed. This is normal since there is no concept of nicknames or registration on this p2p anonymous chat.

You can change your nickname using /nick foo, and navigate channels using F5/F6 or ALT+X where X is the channel number displayed.

Channels can be moved around using /buffer move N where N is the new position of the buffer in the list. Use /layout store to save the current layout of the buffers.

Network-level privacy

Nodes have knowledge of their peers, including the IP addresses of connected hosts.

DarkFi supports the use of pluggable transports, including Tor and Nym, to provide network-level privacy. As long as there are live seed nodes configured to support a Tor or Nym connection, users can connect to ircd and benefit from the protections offered by these protocols.

Other approaches include connecting via a cloud server or VPN. Research the risks involved in these methods before connecting.

The DarkFi Book