Portable identities about ricochet HOT 7 CLOSED

You can copy the 'config' folder between computers. It should be portable even between platforms.

However, keep in mind that:

1. You will have to copy it back whenever you change your contact list
2. Results are undefined if you try to run it from more than one place simultaneously
3. I've never tried

This should probably be documented, but there isn't a set of user documentation anywhere yet. Improving on this is probably out of the near-term scope, at least.

If you don't mind the inconvenience, and revealing to your contacts where you are, you can of course use separate addresses.

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Cool. I'll experiment with this. The idea was just to add the issue as something to be tackled at some point, but I'm not sure if it's conventional use of Github Issues. Are you ok with keeping them open under a "someday"-type milestone?

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I'm still getting used to github issues. Not particularly a fan.

My reason for closing this (which I should've elaborated on before) is that it would require significant changes from the current design to allow truly portable identities. There aren't any low impact ways to do it. Aside from needing to have keys and only being able to publish from one place at a time, the problem is that lots of important state (contact list, etc) is stored only locally, and the user would have to keep that in sync too. Excluding syncing to some remote server - definitely out of the current project scope - I don't see a realistic implementation of portable identities.

If you have other ideas, or think it's valuable to keep this open and discuss, please do! I don't mind having long-term issues around, but they should be roughly within the project's scope.

There is a related feature that would be more immediately possible, though: a UI method for backup/restore of configuration. That could also serve as import/export for people who are willing to tolerate the inconvenience of keeping data in sync. Probably worth a separate issue for that. Thoughts?

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Backup/restore and portable identities can converge with filesync solutions like Dropbox. Rough outline I was thinking about:

• Have a "sync" option that asks for a folder where data should be kept. User points to whatever Dropbox/Google Drive subfolder they want;
• Ask user for password, encrypt everything in /config and store it in the syncdir;
• When opening Ricochet, ask for password and decrypt syncdata (maybe offer to save password to local keyring);
• Check if syncdata has lock file. Yes? Say it's running somewhere else, offer to shut down remotely ("you'll lose logs on the other machine!"). No? Start normally, publish new introduction points.

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Should I open a new issue for this? Lack of portable identities has been the main complaint I get (including from diplomatic staffers who travel a lot). I think it's important to deal with this at some point, even if that just means making it easier for the user to handle sync themselves as you said.

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I was wrong to close this before. Someone else opened a similar issue on #99 and I explained some of the options there - let's discuss it over there.

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It'd be nice to have some sort of Import/Export identity button. Exported 'identities' contain the private keys and contacts and should be encrypted using a password.

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