PeerBox, the first fully P2P secure email system

PeerBox, because middlemen are never worth your trust

Every email you send through Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo or Proton goes through servers you don’t control. Servers that can read, analyze and store your messages. Servers that are fully exposed to court orders and data leaks. And you have zero say in any of it, because that’s the deal you signed up for when you created your account.

And what about Signal, Telegram? Same problems! Your messages travel through their central servers. So you’re forced to trust their good intentions, their privacy policy and their ability to stand up to government pressure. Well, you really shouldn’t! Because the illusion of privacy is a nasty little trap.

PeerBox tears down the proprietary model at the root

Your messages go straight from your machine to your contact’s machine. They’re fully encrypted end to end. Nobody in the middle. No server storing anything. No company analyzing anything. No account to create. No terms and conditions to accept. Just your own infrastructure, fully yours, and your contact’s.

PeerBox is a lightweight Linux program, written in Python, with automated installation for Debian and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint…). It was built from day one to be usable by anyone, with zero tech background required. Everything runs through a graphical interface, from install to full app management. One short command line to install and that’s it. The PeerBox interface is available in English, French, German, Spanish and Russian.

So how does PeerBox actually work?

PeerBox is built on two technologies that set the standard for security and privacy on the internet.

SSH is the protocol used by system administrators and security professionals around the world to lock down their communications. It guarantees that only the two machines involved can read what passes between them.

Tor is the network used by journalists, activists and government agencies themselves to protect their anonymity online. Your traffic gets fragmented and bounces across multiple relay servers around the world before reaching its destination. Nobody, not even your internet service provider, can figure out who you’re talking to.

PeerBox cleverly combines these two technologies to give you a messaging system that’s secure from end to end.

Contacts and invitations

Only your contacts can write to you. So spam is simply not possible. To add a contact, PeerBox uses a dual-channel encrypted invitation system: you generate an invitation file very easily and send it through the channel of your choice, then you pass along the 3 decryption words through a separate channel. Without both pieces, the invitation is useless. On top of that, you can set an expiration date for the invitation.

PeerBox operating modes

PeerBox adapts to how you use it. Everything is 100% flexible.

In deferred mode, it works just like regular email. Meaning your contact doesn’t need to be online when you send the message. Your contact will get it automatically once they come online.

For full control over the flow, strict P2P mode only delivers the message if both machines are connected at the same time.

In local network mode, PeerBox runs only on your local network without ever touching the internet.

The security of your PeerBox data

All PeerBox data is encrypted on your hard drive. Even if someone gets their hands on your computer, without the PeerBox password they’ll see nothing but a pile of unreadable files. This encryption relies on a file encryption system that’s recognized and audited by the infosec community.

If someone tries to access PeerBox without the right password, the system self-destructs after 5 attempts. Once that process is done, all that’s left is unrecoverable encrypted fragments. No recovery is possible.

PeerBox also includes a firewall with rule management and time-based scheduling. Everything is fully configurable through the graphical interface.

PeerBox plugins

PeerBox’s core features can be extended very widely through a plugin system. Every plugin installs and uninstalls in a few seconds from the graphical interface, without touching the core source code. Many plugins are currently in development.

Check out the plugins: PeerBox Plugins

Video Presentation

Download V 1.0 on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/NovaFuture/Peerbox

A full article about PeerBox

Want to understand the architecture, the technical choices and the philosophy behind the project in detail? We wrote a full article to walk you through it all.

Read the full article: Take back control of your privacy with PeerBox

PeerBox Support and Community

Got questions, a bug, an idea for improvement? Come join the discussion in the dedicated NovaFlow.

PeerBox forum: PeerBox – Development and Support

PeerBox is a 100% open source NovaFuture project under AGPL License