Silk Road forums

Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: Rush Limbo on March 15, 2012, 08:58 pm

Title: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 15, 2012, 08:58 pm
SWIM is an exceptional C++/Unix developer and loves the community. SWIM would love to donate time and mad skillz and develop some software for the community.

Few ideas SWIM had:

1) PGP/GPG encryption based chat client / vendor <=> buyer communication software over TOR.
2) Better version of Pidgin / chat fine tuned for Silk Road needs.
3) ???

Your thoughts? Let's start small, but functional and useful.

Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: dunk on March 15, 2012, 09:16 pm
Who the fuck is SWIM? One of your imaginary friends?
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: QTC on March 15, 2012, 09:56 pm
First rule of security: don't reinvent the wheel unless you really really really know what you're doing.
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 15, 2012, 11:56 pm
Who the fuck is SWIM? One of your imaginary friends?

What is your major malfunction?
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 16, 2012, 12:20 am
First rule of security: don't reinvent the wheel unless you really really really know what you're doing.

Been programming 23 years, since I was a kid really. Always been a hobby, and turned into a career. I've done work in data recovery and forensics, wall street (securities trading software), remote desktops, virtualization, and distributed systems (high performance computing, etc). Cryptography has been a hobby of mine, spent over a year in college creating my own crypto libraries. And lately been toying around with domain specific languages, and parser generators. So yea, I like to think that I do know what I'm talking about :-)

Anyways, I was just wondering if there's a need for some custom software around Silk Road. Doesn't have to be a chat client or anything like that. I'm just looking for ideas. I happen to have some extra cycles to burn lately, so why not help out the community.

Oh yea, SWIM is the name of the voice in my head...
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: ZipperMcGee on March 16, 2012, 02:19 pm
In all seriousness I think that the pgp/gpg chat utility would be awesome. If you have some cycles that would probably be a great project.
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: cache on March 16, 2012, 02:33 pm
OTFE for Android would be very handy, a truecrypt type utility with hidden containers and such like.
PGP encrypted Android messaging app

These are just two personal wants of my own
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Raoul Duke on March 16, 2012, 02:36 pm
Who the fuck is SWIM? One of your imaginary friends?

What is your major malfunction?

numbnuts  ;D

SWIM: Someone Who Isn't Me
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: cache on March 16, 2012, 02:39 pm
I thought it stood for Sailors Without Indigo Marmosets. Just goes to show what I know doesnt it!
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Raoul Duke on March 16, 2012, 02:41 pm
depends what neck of the woods you're from i suppose. i've also heard of Silly Wanker In Morocco
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: cache on March 16, 2012, 02:53 pm
Is that that knob Ahmed? I never liked him.
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 16, 2012, 03:17 pm
In all seriousness I think that the pgp/gpg chat utility would be awesome. If you have some cycles that would probably be a great project.

That's exactly what I've had in mind. A client server architecture. Server only for relaying messages; server never decrypts, hence knows nothing of the communication it relays between clients. Client, a simple "buddies" window with separate chat windows. Client would be required to produce a public/private key pair, or use existing keys from gpg/pgp. Client upon login would upload its public key to server. All chat messages would be encrypted with your buddies' pubic key, etc.

I would of course make it all open sources and published for the community to peer review. I, or someone else, could host the chat server on the tor network. Sounds like a fun project!

Now the key question: Windows or Linux? Or both? It would probably be much easier for me to develop the server on linux, and expose a simple XML-RPC or JSON-RPC interface. I could also provide a windows or linux client, and other developers could provide android client (I'm not a very good Android developer).

Also, the server would store your public key AND your buddy list, this way you could login with multiple clients at once, and from different platforms.

This is cooooooool!

Community, do I have your support? Will I have few volunteers to help me with beta testing as soon as a prototype is ready?
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: cache on March 16, 2012, 03:27 pm
LinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinux
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 16, 2012, 03:30 pm
In all seriousness I think that the pgp/gpg chat utility would be awesome. If you have some cycles that would probably be a great project.

That's exactly what I've had in mind. A client server architecture. Server only for relaying messages; server never decrypts, hence knows nothing of the communication it relays between clients. Client, a simple "buddies" window with separate chat windows. Client would be required to produce a public/private key pair, or use existing keys from gpg/pgp. Client upon login would upload its public key to server. All chat messages would be encrypted with your buddies' pubic key, etc.

I would of course make it all open sources and published for the community to peer review. I, or someone else, could host the chat server on the tor network. Sounds like a fun project!

Now the key question: Windows or Linux? Or both? It would probably be much easier for me to develop the server on linux, and expose a simple XML-RPC or JSON-RPC interface. I could also provide a windows or linux client, and other developers could provide android client (I'm not a very good Android developer).

Also, the server would store your public key AND your buddy list, this way you could login with multiple clients at once, and from different platforms.

This is cooooooool!

Community, do I have your support? Will I have few volunteers to help me with beta testing as soon as a prototype is ready?

Correction: clients would use their corresponding public/private key pairs to generate a one time session key used for chatting. This way clients would quickly transition from well known and established public keys to random and throw-away session keys. This way, potential attacker could monitor traffic and even if attacker captured ones machine, would still be unable to decipher past conversations, since session keys are nowhere to be found. This is similar to OTR messaging. Maximum security :-)
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: Rush Limbo on March 16, 2012, 03:32 pm
LinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinuxLinux

Lucky for you, I've used QT on linux before, and all my current development is on linux as well :D
Title: Re: Software Ideas for Silk Road Community
Post by: a_blackbird on March 18, 2012, 03:50 pm
That's exactly what I've had in mind. A client server architecture. Server only for relaying messages; server never decrypts, hence knows nothing of the communication it relays between clients. Client, a simple "buddies" window with separate chat windows. Client would be required to produce a public/private key pair, or use existing keys from gpg/pgp. Client upon login would upload its public key to server. All chat messages would be encrypted with your buddies' pubic key, etc.

Why write something like this when torchat does the majority of these things already without any need for a central server?