Anonymous Encrypted Instant Messaging With Torchat

Martin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:23:19 +0000

The Onion Router (TOR) was designed to help against network surveillance by utilizing a network of secure tunnels. Tor is used by individuals to access blocked websites and communicate freely on the Internet by routing the connection through a series of secure tunnels where each tunnel only knows the previous and next in line.

Torchat utilizes the power of the Tor network to create a peer to peer instant messaging system, effectively a secure anonymous and encrypted instant messenger that runs right of the box. The software program is fully portable and can be run from external drives or local hard drives.

One limitation of the current version is that the listening port cannot be changed unless the user is doing it in the source which would mean that it would have to be compiled again. The author promised to add a configuration option to change the listening port of the application in a later version.

Once started the user is greeted with a window similar to the one on the above screenshot with the difference that no other contacts are added obviously. To add users one needs their Torchat ID which is a series of random chars, a nickname to identify the person and a initial message. The easiest way to exchange these would be by email, website, phone or other Instant Messengers. Paranoids will probably exchange them during a real-life meeting.

The author has some plans for his Instant Messenger. He plans multi-user chats, file transfers, customization options and block lists among other things. One to look out for.

Tags: anonymous instant messenger, encrypted instant messenger, instant messenger, the onion router, tor, torchat

gHacks technology news » torchat

Anonymous Encrypted Instant Messaging With Torchat

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