Overview

nymphemeral is a tool made for users searching for secure and anonymous communication on the internet.

It is a GUI client that relies on a pseudonym remailer that communicates to its users by posting messages to a shared mailbox, a Zax-type nym server. Both the server and the client apply an ephemeral encryption layer on their messages based on the Axolotl Ratchet protocol, providing forward and future secrecy to the conversation.

Features

  • Manages pseudonym actions: creation, configuration and deletion, as well as message dispatch and retrieval
  • Communicates with the new nymserv, a Zax-type nym server with forward and future secrecy
  • Uses python-gnupg and pyaxo for encryption
  • Uses aampy to retrieve messages from alt.anonymous.messages
  • Sends messages through Mixmaster, sendmail, or outputs the resulting ciphertexts to be sent manually
  • Supports End-to-End Encryption

Current Release

The current version of nymphemeral is 1.4.2, a beta, released 2016-03-21.

Limitations

Regular Zax-type

nymphemeral does not support the regular Zax-type nym server. It only supports the new nymserv, adding or expecting an ephemeral encryption layer in its messages.

Mixmaster

Although it is supported (and the use is encouraged), nymphemeral is not a Mixmaster GUI. It does enable the users to send their messages to the nym server automatically via Mixmaster, but it cannot be used to send regular email. nymphemeral is a nym client and the only way to exchange messages is to send every message to the nym server, to be processed and then remailed to the recipient. Mixmaster is just one of the output methods.

Important

nymphemeral 1.3.3 was updated to use pyaxo 0.4 that follows the latest (Oct 1, 2014) version of the protocol, which changed the order of the ratcheting. For that reason, old conversations (created with nymphemeral < 1.3.3) might not work properly after the update. We suggest that users update nymphemeral and restart their conversations by changing their nyms’ ephemeral keys. The Configuring the Nym section explains how that can be done.