Bridge

BRIDGE IS NOT IMPLEMENTED YET

There are two parts for bridges: Server and Clients.

Server

Bridge server provide a way for nodes to communicate anonymously to each other. To provide a bridge server to the network the server needs to open a port for incoming connections.

Enable your node as a bridge server in the settings.yml file:

node -> bridge -> server -> enabled: true

Client

If you want more anonymity enable your node as a bridge client. On default no node is a bridge client. Using a node as bridge client presumes that you trust the bridge server.

Do use your node as a bridge client at least one bridge server must be known to your node. If no bridge server is available no connection to the network can be established. No messages will be forwarded to other nodes if no bridge server is known.

Enable your node as a bridge client in the settings.yml file:

node -> bridge -> client -> enabled: true

Offline messages will be forwarded to your node even if someone else has your node contact informations. Also incoming connections and talk request can be made if some other nodes has your node contact informations.

Network schema

In this example node_A and node_B communicate via a brige (server) to each other:

node_A <-> bridge <-> node_B

A bridge server can also be a bridge client. In this example node_A and node_B communicate through bridge_C and bridge_D. Contact informations of node_A are not known to node_B if there was no connection in the past.

node_A <-> bridge_C <-> bridge_D <-> node_B

Anonymity

• Consider that your identity can be uncovered even communicating through a bridge server. A fake bridge server can forward your contact informations (IP address and port) to other nodes. By design PHPChat bridge server doesn't provide any informations to other nodes about nodes registered as bridge clients.
• A bridge server will still forward Node IDs and Public Keys to all other nodes. This is necessary to provide a point-to-point encryption even using the bridge system.