Show HN: Tlx – E2E chat over SSH under 500 lines of code | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Tlx – E2E chat over SSH under 500 lines of code

github.com

5 pointsachempion7 comments

This is a reference implementation of encrypted chats for small trusted groups.

It runs SSH server in a container that acts as a mailbox for opaque encrypted blobs (145 lines of code).

SSH keys serve as an identity.

Then a local demon syncs and decrypts these blobs into SQLite database (321 lines of code).

I wanted to make crypto as simple as possible and have only widely used and well audited components.

Relay server and sync demon are implemented in standard Python without any extra dependencies.

I've chosen Python as it ships with SQLite client in standard library. Could have used go/rust, but wanted to keep reference implementation as simple as possible with minimal dependencies.

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I've prepared a quick demo on how to run relay locally and connect two demo users: https://github.com/achempion/tlx#demo

Nice. I wonder if you could get it shorter with Ruby, or Lisp. And what it would look like with Rust or Go. Should be easy to port I reckon. Maybe I'll give it a try.

Thanks, I considered ruby initially and it's possible for the relay (even bash would work :)).

For the local sync, I needed sqlite and python comes with sqlite client in a standard lib, ruby requires a gem.

I wanted core parts of the infra (relay and sync) to be implemented with zero external language dependencies. I didn't want to have a relay in ruby and sync in python. TUI example uses textual, so everything fits in a single language.

I never thought about standard library versus external dependencies in that way. I wonder why. Do you think there is a relevant difference?

I think it comes down to trust and maintenance cost. I wanted to minimise external dependencies, so the whole implementation is under 500 lines of code using only standard tooling.

The implementation depends on OpenSSH, Python, Docker and age. Highly trusted / audited / scrutinised / maintained code. This fits well with e2e messaging infra.

Nice. what the use cases and groups of people you see that are going to use it?

I'll share a quote from a readme

> Communicate with people you trust, away from the eyes of modern surveillance and large corporations.

I hope this answers your question.

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