AIMnon server-grown messaging
Panetière · research transmission Read the Panetière draft

Self-hosted · Panetière · AIM / ICQ

Old signal. New roots.

AIMnon lets Pidgin bring AIM and ICQ back on a network you run, carried over Panetière: a low-latency anonymous broadcast protocol with no auction.

Protocol dashboard Launch web demo Choose a client
Lunar network map Pidgin carries AIM and ICQ through orbiting nodes into a growing plant. PIDGIN AIM ICQ / DESKTOP / OSCAR / 5190 PUBLIC AIR LOCAL SOIL

Manifest / 01 keep it short

Public air. Private roots. Old protocols. No permanent center.

Signal path / 02 Panetière transport

Many send. One signal.

The public carrier is Panetière, an anonymous broadcast protocol that can be parameterized for different trade-offs between liveness and privacy. Every configuration assumes that at least one server is honest.

  1. Bridge / prepare

    Seal the words

    Direct messages are signed and encrypted for an account in the operator’s local PKI before they leave the bridge. The bridge remains trusted; this is not client-held-key, cross-operator end-to-end encryption. Group messages are intentionally public, but their sender field stays blank.

  2. Gateway / submit

    Enter directly

    The adapter stages one encoded payload for Panetière. There are no bids, weights, or winner-selected slots between the message and the broadcast path.

  3. Panetière / carry

    Keep it moving

    Panetière carries the payload through its shared anonymous broadcast path until the round completes.

  4. Bridge / confirm

    Deliver on return

    Only the exact payload returning in a completed broadcast releases the OSCAR acknowledgement. The local bridge then opens direct envelopes for the intended recipient or delivers senderless group text.

OSCAR bridge what changes here

Old messages, another seal.

01 / Direct words

Sealed for local roots

Before broadcast, direct messages are Ed25519-signed and sealed with ephemeral X25519 + ChaCha20-Poly1305. The backend receives ciphertext without account names or a stable recipient-key ID. Direct delivery stays inside one operator’s local PKI. Panetière can mix envelopes from multiple OSCAR servers, but their trusted PKIs remain separate; this is not cross-server key federation or client-to-client end-to-end encryption.

02 / Group rooms

Public by choice

Room names and group text travel in plaintext, while the sender field stays deliberately blank. Private whispers are refused on this path.

03 / The boundary

Metadata remains

Timing, ciphertext length, envelope IDs, and ephemeral public keys remain visible. Local disk holds private keys and decoded deliveries; the host, browser, and vintage client are inside the trust boundary. Retention is a ring, not an archive; messages are not retried. File transfer, rendezvous, and ICQ authorization events are refused.

Field notes / 03 two client paths

Get connected.

Path / 01

Classic AIM

Windows / macOS

Install and configure a classic AIM client with the step-by-step guide in the AIMnon GitHub repository.

Open GitHub guide

OR

Path / 02

Pidgin + RetroPRPL

Pidgin desktop setup

  1. Install Pidgin

    Download Pidgin and install it on your computer.

  2. Install RetroPRPL

    Get RetroPRPL and install its OSCAR plugin for AIM and ICQ.

  3. Connect your account

    Add an AIM or ICQ account and set the login host to net.flashbots.net on port 5190. To register, choose a new screen name and a fresh password, then sign in. If you are the first to use that screen name, it will be reserved for you. Password changes are not supported, so do not forget your password.