Alexandre Erwin Ittner
e4f66475d8
Add a protocol and the APIs to straightforwardly support user avatars in client applications. The protocol is designed to transfer avatars in background, between friends only, and minimize network load by providing a lightweight avatar notification for local cache validation. Strict safeguards are imposed to avoid damage from non-cooperative or malicious users and to limit network usage. The complete documentation is available in docs/Avatars.md and sample code is available in testing/test_avatars.c. Code and documentation are released under the GNU GPLv3 or later, as described in the file COPYING.
With the rise of governmental monitoring programs, Tox, a FOSS initiative, aims to be an easy to use, all-in-one communication platform that ensures their users full privacy and secure message delivery.
Website | Download | Wiki | Blog | FAQ | Binaries | Clients | Compiling | API | IRC: #tox@freenode
The Complex Stuff:
UDP vs. TCP
Tox must use UDP simply because hole punching with TCP is not as reliable. However, Tox does use TCP relays as a fallback if it encounters a firewall that prevents UDP hole punching.
Connecting & Communicating
Every peer is represented as a byte string (the public key [Tox ID] of the peer). By using torrent-style DHT, peers can find the IP of other peers by using their Tox ID. Once the IP is obtained, peers can initiate a secure connection with each other. Once the connection is made, peers can exchange messages, send files, start video chats, etc. using encrypted communications.
Current build status: 
Q&A:
What are your goals of Tox?
We want Tox to be as simple as possible while remaining as secure as possible.
Why are you doing this? There are already a bunch of free Skype alternatives.
The goal of this project is to create a configuration-free P2P Skype replacement. Configuration-free means that the user will simply have to open the program and without any account configuration will be capable of adding people to his or her's friends list and start conversing with them. There are many so-called Skype replacements and all of them are either hard to configure for the normal user or suffer from being way too centralized.