Thanks for the detailed review, really appreciate it — this is exactly the kind of feedback the project needed before a public release.

You were right on two of the three points, and I've just pushed fixes to Codeberg (commit 93b8985):

GPG: you nailed it. config.py was silently reusing the user's personal ~/.gnupg keyring if a key was present, which is obviously wrong for an identity-isolated app. Fixed: PeerBox now uses a dedicated keyring at system/gpg/ with --homedir enforced on every gpg call. Existing users get their key auto-migrated on next config.py run so contacts don't break.

Dependencies: install_pysocks() was calling pip install --break-system-packages at runtime, which is indefensible. Removed entirely — it was actually dead code (never called) but still a trap. Documented PySocks in the README as a required pip dep alongside cryptography and pywebview. The broader venv/lockfile refactor is a bigger chantier, planned for phase 6.

SSH keys: here I have to push back a bit — ssh_setup.py does generate a dedicated id_rsa_peerbox key, never reuses id_rsa or id_ed25519. BUT you indirectly uncovered a real bug: request_creator.py had a silent fallback reading id_rsa.pub / id_ed25519.pub if id_rsa_peerbox.pub was missing. That's gone now too.

Quill 1.3.7 → 2.0.3: fair point, on the roadmap for this weekend. Non-minified too for auditability.

Seriously, thanks for taking the time to read the code and call out what needed calling out. This is what keeps small projects honest.

Ha, fair point! You're not wrong. PeerBox uses the email paradigm because that's how most people think about asynchronous messaging, but under the hood it's fully P2P with no email protocol involved. And yes, deferred messages wait locally until your contact comes online, then get delivered automatically. Your Delta Chat comparison is pretty spot on actually, it's the mirror image.

PeerBox doesn't send emails to the clearnet and that's by design. The whole point is to stay fully P2P with no server involved at any point. Sending to clearnet email would mean going through external infrastructure, which defeats the purpose. As for I2P, Tor was chosen because it has a much larger network of relays, which means stronger anonymity and better reliability.

Good question! The core difference is that Delta Chat still relies on email infrastructure (SMTP/IMAP), so your messages go through centralized servers you don't control. PeerBox is fully P2P. Your messages go straight from your machine to your contact's machine. No server in between, no account to create, no middleman. It combines SSH for encrypted transport and Tor for anonymity, so not even your ISP can see who you're talking to. It also works in deferred mode (like regular email, your contact gets the message when they come back online), strict P2P mode, or local network only. Contact management uses a dual-channel encrypted invitation system, so spam is simply impossible. And all local data is encrypted on disk with a self-destruct mechanism after 5 failed password attempts. It's a lightweight Python app for Linux, fully open source (AGPL).

You're right, it's a trade-off. PeerBox was designed with maximum privacy as the priority, and that does mean giving up some of the convenience of traditional email. But that convenience is exactly what makes email so vulnerable to spam, phishing and surveillance in the first place. PeerBox isn't trying to replace email for everything, it's built for people who need communications that no one else can access or intercept.