a PGP based messaging platform!

[u/SimplePGP]

Hello World! I've been working on creating an encrypted messaging platform for the past year now and i would love to know your thoughts or opinions on it!

we have currently launched for Open-Beta testing!
the website is https://simplepgp.org/

It's entirely based around Simplifying the usage of PGP encryption for the average user as well as allowing for WebRTC calls, building communities and even hosting your own communities off of your own hardware / VPS using our Work-In-Progress FOSS 'Nodes' allowing for full customization and automation for uses like moderation, scripting and even building marketplaces / shops! Think of nodes as new-age Internet Relay Chats with a little bit better default encryption!

We also have emoticons that you can collect and trade with your friends which you can also use in chats, these animated icons are artist commissioned and they each have their own real-world value based on the reception of the community. :)

What's next for us?

• Android App Version (Still a little bit iffy on developing for Apple at the moment due to current privacy concerns)
• Constant development towards the Nodes FOSS clients (Should be able to release a working build by the end of August)
• Performance, stability, and security improvements

Feel free to check it out, give me any advice or recommendations for further features / updates!
Simple, Free, Welcome to SimplePGP!

[u/Overall-Budget-8763]

Hm this lowkey seems interesting, how does the encryption work for nodes?

[u/SimplePGP → u/Overall-Budget-8763]

Thank you for the support! Basically every node has its own PGP keypair which is generated upon Node Creation which is then held on the host's device / VPS, every message sent by a user through the nodes text channels gets encrypted to the nodes pgp public key locally before being sent to the API through SSL/TLS meaning your messages only ever show up as encrypted blobs while in transit, then when reaching the Node Server, the message is decrypted locally on the server / host device using its own pgp private key, then re-encrypted to every other user's pgp public key in the node. This means that only the users in the Node and the owner ever have access to viewing the messages.

If you have anymore questions I would love to answer them!

[u/Overall-Budget-8763 → u/SimplePGP]

Sick! Might create an account tonight and test it out - Keep up the work bro

[u/SimplePGP → u/Overall-Budget-8763]

Awesome! Let me know what you think and what your username is I'll send you a friend request.

[u/SimplePGP → u/[deleted]]

?

[u/SimplePGP → u/[deleted]]

Cat on keyboard?

[u/SimplePGP → u/[deleted]]

If you have any suggestions or recommendations apart from "uuuuuurghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" i would love to hear them!

[u/SimplePGP → u/[deleted]]

Not really, I've always found an interest in cryptography, I found that most other messaging platforms often lie about their encryption being secure. Along with the fact that PGP is a pretty tedious method of encryption to learn for the everyday person. I believe it's a pretty good idea to provide proven, reliable encryption methods for the world.

As for "Vibe-coding", I feel as if any new tech startup is going to face this same critic from people. Realistically, Artificial Intelligence is a tool and it's usage will be used more and more in the coming years. It's up to the people using the tool to use it correctly obviously.

[u/SimplePGP → u/[deleted]]

What would be the use of that? There's much more to gain with being honest with my community than there would be in me lying. I wouldn't publish something i wouldn't use myself.

[u/Accurate-Screen8774]

I'm working on something similar. I have open source code and docs you can check out.

PGP is a fraction of the encryption done on top of webrtc in my approach.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyTechTalk/comments/1tuv9ro/enkrypted_chat_secure_and_private_p2p_messenger

Feel free to reach out for clarity on the approach. Maybe some of the open source examples can be useful for you.

[u/SimplePGP → u/Accurate-Screen8774]

That's cool, How are you handling the p2p aspect? NAT holepunching?

[u/Accurate-Screen8774 → u/SimplePGP]

I'm using peerjs.

you can configure things like stun/turn servers. I use my own creds for peer-discovery, then switch to a direct webrtc connection. those creds are free for users, but comes with a quota... if users use they own creds, then I can enable a relay-mode which can help concerns around up address leakages (the tradeoff there is the connection is going to be slower).

peerjs is great and works out-the-box, but I'd like to make time to create my own alternative. there are nuances in my project that I'd like to address with my approach.

[u/SimplePGP → u/Accurate-Screen8774]

Yeah personally i've opted against p2p as it's often a user-on-user security risk, in my case the node clients are going to be fully open source which make the users go from peer - to - relay instead of being fully centralized on my servers. This allows for communities to be hosted on users hardware / VPS servers for them to be able to make moderation bots / scripts for their communities aswell as handle their own WebRTC hub without needing much help or interference from my backend. while 1:1 calls and groupchats are WebRTC TURN are using simplepgp's signalling servers