FAQ

General

What is chattor?

A peer-to-peer encrypted chat application that runs in your terminal. Each user hosts their own Tor hidden service — there are no central servers, accounts, or registration.

What platforms are supported?

Linux, macOS, and BSD. Windows is not supported.

Does chattor require a system Tor installation?

No. Tor is embedded via the arti library (pure Rust). Everything is bundled in the chattor binary.

Is chattor anonymous?

chattor routes all traffic through Tor, which hides your IP address from peers. Your identity is your Ed25519 keypair and .onion address — no real-world identity is attached.

Security

What encryption does chattor use?

Three layers:

1. End-to-end: Signal Protocol (X3DH + Double Ratchet) between peers
2. In-transit: Tor encryption for network transport
3. At-rest: SQLCipher for the local database

Can messages be sent unencrypted?

No. The plaintext fallback was removed entirely. If no Signal Protocol session exists with a peer, messages cannot be sent.

Are messages stored on any server?

No. Messages are only stored on the sender’s and recipient’s local machines, in an encrypted SQLCipher database.

Troubleshooting

Tor bootstrap is taking a long time

Initial Tor bootstrap can take 30-60 seconds. Subsequent startups are faster because arti caches state. If it takes more than 2 minutes, check your network connection.

Messages aren’t being delivered

If a peer is offline, messages are automatically queued and retried with exponential backoff (up to 24 hours). Check that both peers have active Tor connections.

How do I reset my identity?

Delete the chattor data directory:

# Linux
rm -rf ~/.local/share/chattor/

# macOS
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\\ Support/chattor/

This deletes your identity, all messages, and all friend relationships. There is no recovery.