Deaddrop Overview

The deaddrop tool provides an anonymous, asynchronous store-and-forward mechanism using the DHT. It allows a sender to “leave” data on the network that a receiver can later “pickup” using a unique key, without requiring both parties to be online at the same time.

Unlike the cp command, which establishes a direct peer-to-peer connection between a sender and receiver, deaddrop uses mutable DHT values to store data. This makes it ideal for scenarios where the sender and receiver have intermittent connectivity or want to avoid direct IP discovery.

Key Features

• Asynchronous Delivery: Data is stored on DHT nodes. The receiver picks it up whenever they’re ready.
• Mutable DHT Storage: Uses the HyperDHT mutable_put and mutable_get operations.
• Chunked Transfers: Large files are automatically split into multiple chunks, linked together in a chain.
• Passphrase Support: Pickup keys can be derived from human-readable passphrases.
• Anonymity: No direct connection is established between the sender and receiver.
• Acknowledgements: Optional pickup notifications (acks) let the sender know when data was retrieved.

Basic Usage

Leaving Data

To leave a message or file on the DHT:

echo "Hello from the void" | peeroxide deaddrop leave - --passphrase "my secret drop"

The tool will print a 64-character hexadecimal pickup key (unless a passphrase is used). It will then continue to run, refreshing the data on the DHT to ensure it doesn’t expire.

Picking Up Data

To retrieve data:

peeroxide deaddrop pickup --passphrase "my secret drop"

The receiver fetches each chunk sequentially, reassembles the original data, and verifies its integrity using a CRC-32C checksum.

How it Differs from cp