Building a RAM-Only, End-to-End Encrypted Chat for the Terminal (Python)

Source: Dev.to

Overview

I built cmd-chat, a peer‑to‑peer chat application that runs entirely in the terminal and leaves no trace on disk. The core idea was to explore how much privacy and security you can get with:

• zero servers
• zero persistence
• a minimal CLI interface

What it does

• End‑to‑end encrypted messaging
• Secure authentication using SRP (passwords are never sent)
• All messages and keys live in RAM only
• Pure terminal/command‑line UX
• Written entirely in Python

When the process exits, everything disappears.

Why I built it

This started as a learning experiment around:

• authentication without trusted servers
• minimizing attack surface
• ephemeral communication by default

It’s not meant to replace Signal or Matrix – it’s intentionally simple and infrastructure‑light.

What I’d love feedback on

• Threat model assumptions
• Crypto choices and protocol flow
• CLI UX improvements

GitHub repo: https://github.com/diorwave/cmd-chat