Hole chat
Message flow
(pseudocode in Bash style)
Hole receiving messages by looking for new items in "user's bin" (place where new messages arrives). Because of how freenet works, we can't just say "Hey! Do I have new messages?", we can specify messages index like: "Hey! Gimme 15th message". Thus we must remember previous message index and to receive the new message we're requesting for 16th message, if we was able to get 15th message.
That's mean, what interlocutor also have to know the last message index in our bin. But how he can know it, if there's a lot of other users who also sending messages to our bin? Of course, you can try to receive all messages from the index, you had last remembered, and next index, next, next... until you find the index which does not exist. But it's a freenet, it's take too much time;
The solution is unique Id. User creating and giving his/her unique id to each new interlocutor. And when, if interlocutor sending the message he knows, that last message to us had index $N
and sends message with index $N+1
, if be more verbose, the new message index he send to us will look like "$(ID)_($N+1)"
Hole Protocol
Process of messaging
Each user have kind of a bin among freenet network,in which anyone can put message. And for each user this bin is his USK insert
key. Each message signed by sender. And user can answer to sender, buy putting message at sender insert key if he know it.
user IDs
Each user have unique pseudonym for each user whom he communicates. Thos pseudonyms uses by user to identify who is sender end establish message flow. The "message flow" is important here.
- Probably, for each pair of each people we will not only one unique identifier but... I'm not going to do it in further releases. TODO
Message request
To receive a new message we have to send ClientGet
to our USK request
key with URI like /user_id-message_version
. As well, the identifier is consists of user_id-message_number
For example:
ClientGet
URI=USK@myMessageBinKey/messages/user5678-3
Identifier=request-user5678-3
Verbosity=0
ReturnType=direct
EndMessage
Message sending
To send a message to a friend we putting it at his USK insert
key, with URI like/my_id-$(number_of_messages_to_this_user + 1)
. And identifier like user_id-$(number_of_messages_to_this_user + 1)
For example:
ClientGet
URI=USK@myFriendBinKey/messages/user3246-5
Identifier=user3501-5
Verbosity=0
ReturnType=direct
EndMessage
Adding friend
Hole generates file, which alice have to send to bob somehow, and bob have to do the same. This file will contain unique ID and two keys
Hole Frontend API
Message type
{
message: it's a message,
date: Time,
id: Id,
fromMe: bool,
}
}
Requests
pub enum Request {
StartApp,
StopApp,
LoadUsers,
#[serde(rename_all = "camelCase")]
SendMessage {
user_id: Id,
message: String,
},
#[serde(rename_all = "camelCase")]
LoadMessages {
user_id: Id,
count: u32,
start_index: u32,
},
#[serde(rename_all = "camelCase")]
AddUser {
name: String,
sign_key: String,
insert_key: String,
}, // CreateInstance TODO v0.3
}
StartApp
Require when when client started.
{
type: "startApp"
}
StopApp
{
type: "stopApp"
}
LoadUsers
{
type: "loadUsers"
}
SendMessage
{
type: "sendMessage",
userId: "UUID_V4...",
message: "hellow world"
}
AddUser
{
type: "addUser",
name: "username",
signKey: "USK@key...",
insertKey: "insertkey..."
}
LoadMessages
Requesting count
messages from userId
started from startIndex
's message
{
type: "loadMessages",
userId: "UUID_V4...",
count: 10,
startIndex: 30
}