this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
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Onionphone - E2EE PTT Voice and Chat (media.piefed.social)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Used_Gate@piefed.social to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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Onionphone is a native Android application for anonymous, end-to-end encrypted push-to-talk voice and text communication over the Tor network. No servers, no accounts, no phone numbers — your .onion address is your identity.

Cross-platform compatible with Terminalphone — call between Android and Linux/Termux using the same protocol.

Optionally use your connection as a relay for ephermeral group channels.

Find the release page for version 1.0.2 which supports custom bridges for accessing censored networks.

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[–] QuantumCheap@libretechni.ca 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I love the idea of the app! I must ask though, to what degree or extent was AI/LLM used in coding this project?

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 9 points 2 days ago

I see an em-dash on a comment in MainActivity.kt on line 278, so I'm guessing it was used extensively. Also, a "→" character on 291.

[–] Andres4NY@social.ridetrans.it 60 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@Used_Gate I suggest getting this in f-droid if you want to see more usage.

Also, it looks like the actual development happens in private and then is thrown over the fence; https://gitlab.com/here/_forawhile/onionphone/-/commit/2c4afc462a42852f0d54dda0b333db9019f3d69e

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yes, I am seeking that out to put it on fdroid and actually tried but ran into a few roadblocks.

I am tracking changes since v1.0.0 in the changelog. From here on out the changes are all public. The initial commit has no history because it was brand new, and the architecture was forked from terminal phone for cross compatibility.

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

How can I contribute?

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I need ideas for what everyone wants. Features and niceties to make the expirence more polished. I have a limited set of devices that I can test on so finding bugs and edge cases is something I can fix, but limited to my environments/devices.

I've played with the ability to have a dedicated secure database built in for contacts but unsure if it's really needed and worth implementing.

[–] in_my_honest_opinion@piefed.social 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Sounds good. I'll pull the latest build to my graphenOS test mule.

I'll target a secured db as a vault for contacts. That's a really good idea.

[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

A matrix bridge would be nice and could open up a large user base.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 38 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is sick! Thanks for sharing your project with us! I would have never guessed you could do voice over TOR but PTT was a clever solution. Its like the old nextel phones that had PTT. I wonder if its possible to remap the volume button to be a hardware PTT button.

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 21 points 3 days ago

Happy to contribute! So, currently (only while in the app for now) you can activate the mic with a double pressdown on volume if the setting is enabled.

My attempts to trigger the mic while outside the app came with a few unwanted side affects so I removed it for now until I find a solid way to do that.

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago

Impossible. Signal said they have no choice but to use AWS for this kind of thing.

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What a small world! I made a TOR P2P messaging app using symmetric encryption as a POC in college! I was just getting around to re implementing it into something more polished!

Not sure if I have a reason too now!

Old college app, new project doesn't have much progress

https://github.com/Givlucas/noctua-messenger

[–] fccview@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago

This is stupidly cool omg

[–] Everyday0764@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

why go with tor and not with i2p?

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago

I would like to test a garlicphone varient. I'm not opposed to i2p, I am just alot more familiar with Tor integrations than i2p.

Onionphone uses prepackaged binaries from the guardian project. https://github.com/guardianproject/tor-android.

I would basically need to find the same thing, but for i2p.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

tor is actually a bit more secure than i2p from my understanding. mostly it has to do with the routing, which is both the strength and weakness of tor.

[–] night_petal@piefed.social 8 points 3 days ago

This is extremely cool.

[–] shellington@piefed.zip 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wow so awesome going to try it out.

[–] shellington@piefed.zip 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Nice a real step forward for private communication.

Would be awesome if it ever has a messaging section without having to make a call, still, an awesome start!

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 9 points 3 days ago

I've put some thought into this. The biggest roadblock to P2P is 24/7 persistence. You have to be online.

I think the most straightforward path to this is having the ability to setup a mailbox sort of how the relay works but on a machine that's on a 24/7 stable connection. Because it's already cross compatible with Linux systems, it would make the most sense to have a dedicated mailbox there, and have it forward your messages that were missed while you were offline.

Once the mailbox is set up, it's just a matter of tieing the separate mailbox identity to forward messages to you once your online. Ideally integrate tors built in authorized client protocol to ensure only one person is authorized to the mailbox.

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Omg! I was just looking for a walkie talkie type app!

[–] 0485919158191@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Super cool!

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 7 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Probably a bad idea to congest the limited bandwidth of Tor with voice chat.

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 81 points 3 days ago

The bandwidth is low by design. I've excluded files and images to keep it down as well. You could talk 24/7 only use MBs.

If we want Tor to grow we need useful applications useful for everyone. I doubt this will be widely adopted.

I've contributed a large amount of bandwidth to the network so why can't I use some?

[–] grue@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Creating more mainstream use-cases is how you get people to donate more bandwidth.

[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How does a regular person donate bandwidth?

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

By partaking in it.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Plain speech can be compressed pretty well. I'm not an expert by any means, but I suspect latency would be the bigger issue.

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 34 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Latency is a huge issue, but it goes away with the PTT model. I tried full duplex on initial prototyping but it was trash.

PTT solves this by simply forcing the listen, digest, then respond. You can expect about 2-3 seconds of delay from when you release the ptt, to when the other side hears it.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

That makes sense. Thanks, I was still half asleep and didn't register the PTT.

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[–] ddssazsa@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What's the selfhosted component of this?

[–] Used_Gate@piefed.social 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Self hosting your own private P2P voice service.

Optionally use your device as a Audio relay for group calls, in which case you become the 'server' to all connected clients.

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