This is a nice little write up and I kinda feel like the author (sensibly) chose centralization just on a smaller scale. I also think that the algorithm is pretty similar to the og textsecure2[1] protocol signal used (and still uses?) in terms of key generation. It's different in that messages are in a distributed hash table instead of sent through a server and also that there's less cross-verification by chat members, but I'm not sure the author would lose any of their goals by using the signal approach (with distributed storage).

[1] https://signal.org/blog/private-groups/

▲

Realman78 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The issue with that is that when there is no "leader", there is also no way to guarantee kicking someone out. Signal didn't have the kick option for years, and they only added it once they moved the group state management to the server. Now, is "kicking" a good enough justification to go with the leadership route? That is up for debate...

	▲	thaumasiotes 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> The issue with that is that when there is no "leader", there is also no way to guarantee kicking someone out. Why is that an issue? It's a fundamental fact about the world that your software will never address. No matter what options you purport to provide, you can't stop people from telling other people what messages they received. In a decentralized system, messages are sent to a list of recipients. If you don't want someone to receive your message, you can take them off the list of recipients that you send to. But if you send a message to party B, and they recommunicate it to party C, there's nothing you can do about that. The only solutions are (1) to stop communicating with people you don't trust; or (2) to have the guy you want to kick out of the chat group kicked out of the world.