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Tc9d1d9******************

Tc9d1d9What is Reticulum?

Tc9d1d9******************

Reticulum is a cryptography-based networking stack for building both local and

wide-area networks with readily available hardware, that can continue to operate

under adverse conditions, such as extremely low bandwidth and very high latency.

Reticulum allows you to build wide-area networks with off-the-shelf tools, and

offers end-to-end encryption, forward secrecy, autoconfiguring cryptographically

backed multi-hop transport, efficient addressing, unforgeable packet

acknowledgements and more.

From a users perspective, Reticulum allows the creation of applications that

respect and empower the autonomy and sovereignty of communities and individuals.

Reticulum enables secure digital communication that cannot be subjected to

outside control, manipulation or censorship.

Reticulum enables the construction of both small and potentially planetary-scale

networks, without any need for hierarchical or beaureucratic structures to control

or manage them, while ensuring individuals and communities full sovereignty

over their own network segments.

Reticulum is a complete networking stack, and does not need IP or higher

layers, although it is easy to utilise IP (with TCP or UDP) as the underlying

carrier for Reticulum. It is therefore trivial to tunnel Reticulum over the

Internet or private IP networks. Reticulum is built directly on cryptographic

principles, allowing resilience and stable functionality in open and trustless

networks.

No kernel modules or drivers are required. Reticulum runs completely in

userland, and can run on practically any system that runs Python 3. Reticulum

runs well even on small single-board computers like the Pi Zero.

Tc9d1d9Current Status

Tc9d1d9==============

**Please know!** Reticulum should currently be considered beta software. All core protocol

features are implemented and functioning, but additions will probably occur as

real-world use is explored. *There will be bugs*. The API and wire-format can be

considered stable at the moment, but could change if absolutely warranted.

Tc9d1d9What does Reticulum Offer?

Tc9d1d9==========================

T79c0ff* Coordination-less globally unique addressing and identification

T79c0ff* Fully self-configuring multi-hop routing

T79c0ff* Complete initiator anonymity, communicate without revealing your identity

T79c0ff* Asymmetric encryption based on X25519, and Ed25519 signatures as a basis for all communication

T79c0ff* Forward Secrecy by using ephemeral Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman keys on Curve25519

T79c0ff* Reticulum uses the Ta5d6ff`Fernet Tffd700<https://github.com/fernet/spec/blob/master/Spec.md>Ta5d6ff`_ specification for on-the-wire / over-the-air encryption

T79c0ff* All keys are ephemeral and derived from an ECDH key exchange on Curve25519

T79c0ff* AES-128 in CBC mode with PKCS7 padding

T79c0ff* HMAC using SHA256 for authentication

T79c0ff* IVs are generated through os.urandom()

T79c0ff* Unforgeable packet delivery confirmations

T79c0ff* A variety of supported interface types

T79c0ff* An intuitive and developer-friendly API

T79c0ff* Efficient link establishment

T79c0ff* Total bandwidth cost of setting up a link is only 3 packets, totalling 297 bytes

T79c0ff* Low cost of keeping links open at only 0.44 bits per second

T79c0ff* Reliable and efficient transfer of arbitrary amounts of data

T79c0ff* Reticulum can handle a few bytes of data or files of many gigabytes

T79c0ff* Sequencing, transfer coordination and checksumming is automatic

T79c0ff* The API is very easy to use, and provides transfer progress

T79c0ff* Authentication and virtual network segmentation on all supported interface types

T79c0ff* Flexible scalability allowing extremely low-bandwidth networks to co-exist and interoperate with large, high-bandwidth networks

Tc9d1d9Where can Reticulum be Used?

Tc9d1d9============================

Over practically any medium that can support at least a half-duplex channel

with 500 bits per second throughput, and an MTU of 500 bytes. Data radios,

modems, LoRa radios, serial lines, AX.25 TNCs, amateur radio digital modes,

ad-hoc WiFi, free-space optical links and similar systems are all examples

of the types of interfaces Reticulum was designed for.

An open-source LoRa-based interface called Ta5d6ff`RNode Tffd700<https://unsigned.io/rnode>Ta5d6ff`_

has been designed as an example transceiver that is very suitable for

Reticulum. It is possible to build it yourself, to transform a common LoRa

development board into one, or it can be purchased as a complete transceiver.

Reticulum can also be encapsulated over existing IP networks, so there's

nothing stopping you from using it over wired Ethernet or your local WiFi

network, where it'll work just as well. In fact, one of the strengths of

Reticulum is how easily it allows you to connect different mediums into a

self-configuring, resilient and encrypted mesh.

As an example, it's possible to set up a Raspberry Pi connected to both a

LoRa radio, a packet radio TNC and a WiFi network. Once the interfaces are

added, Reticulum will take care of the rest, and any device on the WiFi

network can communicate with nodes on the LoRa and packet radio sides of the

network, and vice versa.

Tc9d1d9Interface Types and Devices

Tc9d1d9===========================

Reticulum implements a range of generalised interface types that covers the communications hardware that Reticulum can run over. If your hardware is not supported, it's relatively simple to implement an interface class. Currently, Reticulum can use the following devices and communication mediums:

T79c0ff* Any Ethernet device

T79c0ff* WiFi devices

T79c0ff* Wired Ethernet devices

T79c0ff* Fibre-optic transceivers

T79c0ff* Data radios with Ethernet ports

T79c0ff* LoRa using Ta5d6ff`RNode Tffd700<https://unsigned.io/rnode>Ta5d6ff`_

T79c0ff* Can be installed on Ta5d6ff`many popular LoRa boards Tffd700<https://github.com/markqvist/rnodeconfigutil#supported-devices>Ta5d6ff`_

T79c0ff* Can be purchased as a Ta5d6ff`ready to use transceiver Tffd700<https://unsigned.io/rnode>Ta5d6ff`_

T79c0ff* Packet Radio TNCs, such as Ta5d6ff`OpenModem Tffd700<https://unsigned.io/openmodem>Ta5d6ff`_

T79c0ff* Any packet radio TNC in KISS mode

T79c0ff* Ideal for VHF and UHF radio

T79c0ff* Any device with a serial port

T79c0ff* The I2P network

T79c0ff* TCP over IP networks

T79c0ff* UDP over IP networks

T79c0ff* Anything you can connect via stdio

T79c0ff* Reticulum can use external programs and pipes as interfaces

T79c0ff* This can be used to easily hack in virtual interfaces

T79c0ff* Or to quickly create interfaces with custom hardware

For a full list and more details, see the Te6edf3:ref:Te6edf3`Supported Interfaces<interfaces-main>` chapter.

Tc9d1d9Caveat Emptor

Tc9d1d9==============

Reticulum is an experimental networking stack, and should be considered as

such. While it has been built with cryptography best-practices very foremost in

mind, it has not yet been externally security audited, and there could very well be

privacy-breaking bugs. To be considered secure, Reticulum needs a thorough

security review by independent cryptographers and security researchers. If you

want to help out with this, or can help sponsor an audit, please do get in touch.