Need C++ programmer who has time to modify source code

[Earl]

Alright, I figure the packet-sending procedure uses the randomized key to encrypt it real time.

Anyhow, I'm going to update the gui as much I can to make it look more aesthetic. This MFC is really throwing me for a spin though. I've never really used it, however I'm fairly apt at learning languages quickly.

Any other features you may want added?

@Ailos

wow, am I pleasantly surprised about your self-initiative and the speed at which you attacked this.

The program author is involved with cryptography as a business, but he developed this before broadband existed.  He was extremely conservative and used 16k bits of Diffie-Helman public key to exchange the symmetric key.  A symmetric key of 128 to 256 bits needs a 16k bit PK so that both have roughly the same security level.  I would suspect that not only is the text chat encrypted, but also the voice.

I have heard so many good things about the SPEEX open source codec, you might eventually consider using SPEEX compression for the audio instead of using WIN internal codec.  8kbs or 16kbs codec speed could be set in preferences.
http://speex.org/
It is robust against packet loss and believe it also has echo suppression built in.

If the program has originally only half-duplex audio, it would be nice to upgrade it to full-duplex audio with SPEEX and eliminate any push to talk buttons.

Best regards, Earl

[Earl]

@Ailos

it appears to me that the pgm author used WIN internal recorder to store the voice, then play it back into the program for transmission after being encrypted.

I think it would be much better to do voice in real time and in full-duplex by using a modern codec like SPEEX.  Perhaps a preliminary version release with voice like a walkie talkie, followed by a version with full duplex voice.

Best regards, Earl

[Earl]

I've been doing a little tinkering with this. I've already disabled the pesky mail-client opening process, and am now working on the audio component.

great going - glad to hear.   pesky is a good word.  This pgm was written some years ago, and although it is a cute little program, it needs some steroids to bring it up to date.

I tested it with myself (my own IP) and it seems to work great. Apologies for the ignorance, but what's the significance of a host-name? As long as you're listening on an open port, shouldn't the external IP of the clients be fine?

The significance of being able to use a host name is that it is easy to register a host name at various dynamic DNS services.  Most people have a dynamically-assigned public IP nr that changes every day.  By being able to use a host name such as me@dynDNS.org you will always remain callable by your research colleagues.  Most modern routers have dynDNS built-in and by any change of public IP, automatically notify the appropriate dynDNS provider service.

It would be nice to have either the internal capability - or a [comma-separated ??] text or xml?? file in the default directory - to store a 2-column list of friends where the first column is their name and the second column is their dynDNS host name.  A drop-down menu field window where a name from this list can be clicked on in order to call that friend.

Some few people have a fixed IP and that could be entered in the second column, in this case.  The program should be able to handle both IP nr.s and host names without crashing.

Best regards, Earl

[Ailos]

Alrighty. Yeah, the recording itself is somewhat strange in that it only plays back on the other computer once the sender has finished talking, so there is a bit of a delayed response.

If this MFC gets too annoying for me I'll have to port it to contemporary Win32 libraries, but I think I can handle it for now.

Alright, so next thing to do after sprucing up the gui is to add SPEEX on full duplex, add a catalog system (I can encrypt this if you wish so you'd need a password to open it, thus preventing any possible exposure of individual's information) for storing names, domain/host addresses, and IPs, and then any other small fixes that need doing.

Exams today though, so I won't be able to work on it 'till this afternoon.

[Ailos]

Alright, I've been doing some reading, and it looks like SPEEX doesn't really have a good development base, if any (no win32 libraries etc). I'm gonna try Vorbis instead. I figure any amount of compression is far better than PCM.

Let you know how its working later on. My last final is tomorrow, so I'll be free a little following that (but my parents are pushing me to get a job, so that may tie up some more time in a few weeks, hopefully I'll be finished by then, though).