Blitter is a self-hosted, decentralised Tor-based microblogging platform where every user is their own server.
Think of it as a federated Twitter in the dark—only you control your identity, your content, and who you follow. No account. No centralised servers. No ads. No cancellation. No manipulation.
- 🧱 A minimalist microblog engine. Anonymous and secure.
- 🔒 Anti-fragile and censorship-resistant by design.
- 🧅 Tor-native, hosting each user's feed as a v3 onion service.
- 📡 Federated, with each instance pulling updates from subscribed peers.
- 🧬 Source code consists of a single Python file for simplicity, deployability and easy auditing.
- Self hosted Blitter server: your 'username' is your 56 character onion address (with custom nicknames)
- You can broadcast status updates or Bleets, which are available to anyone visiting your Blitter site.
- Other users can subscribe to your feed to receive it aggregated into their own timeline.
- You can subscribe to other Blitter feeds to aggregate them into your own timeline.
- You can also send Blats (direct private messages), which are end-to-end encrypted, to any Blitter user suscribed to your feed.
- No account - not even a username/password; just six memorable words to log in remotely from anywhere in the world
- If you leave it running on your Linux, MacOS or Windows device, you can log in from any other Internet-connected device using the Tor browser.
- You run Blitter and it spins up a Tor hidden service with a unique .onion address.
- You visit your own Blitter site using the Tor browser.
- You publish updates (called Bleets), which are visible to any visitor to your Blitter site using its .onion address.
- You can subscribe to other Blitter sites (by .onion address), and your node will fetch their feeds periodically and integrate them into your site's timeline.
- As well as Bleets, you can securely send and recieve direct encrypted messages called Blats with other Blitter users.
- That’s it. You’re on your own dark microblog island, linking arms with others.
- ed25519 secret keys are used, along with a changeable secret word to generate a pass phrase for authenticating the Blitter user, who acts as the sole user and administrator of their own site.
- Bleets are fetched by way of regular timed pulls from subscribed sites, directly over tor socks proxy.
- Blats are negotiated using a public key derived from the site's identity and a Diffie-Hellman exchange ensures secure end-to-end encryption.
For quickstart, check the releases to see if there's a prepared binary-based package for your platform.
If so, check quickstart.md for the quickstart guide. The application executables are fully portable and do not require a full installation process.
In other words, unzip and run. Remember to run the included keygen once before running blitter.
sudo apt install tor
pip install flask stem requests[socks] cryptographygit clone https://github.com/KF-R/blitter
cd blitterBefore you can launch Blitter you'll need to generate a key. You can just run the included keygen or you can try to generate a custom vanity address. Note that a dedicated low-level tool like mkp224o will generate keys much faster, making slightly longer vanity prefixes viable.
Before you can use the included keygen, if it was manually installed, you'll also need to install PyNaCl via pip. This step is unnecessary if using a Quickstart release:
pip install pynacl
Run the script from the command line. Either run keygen or python keygen.py depending on whether you are using a quickst
8000
art release or a manual Python installation.
For a custom vanity prefix, use the --prefix command-line argument, e.g. keygen --prefix noob or python keygen.py --prefix noob.
If no prefix is specified, your .onion address will be randomly (and immediately) generated.
--prefix: Desired vanity prefix (max 8 Base32 characters). Leave empty for a random address.--key-dir: Parent directory to create the onion service directory (default:keys).--workers: Number of worker processes to use (default: the number of CPU cores).
- Key Generation: Each worker process generates Ed25519 key pairs.
- Address Calculation: Computes the Tor v3 onion address using the public key.
- Prefix Matching: Workers check if the onion address starts with the specified prefix.
- Progress Reporting: The main process aggregates per-worker metrics and prints overall and individual key generation rates.
- Service Setup: Upon a match, the script creates a dedicated service directory and writes out the
hs_ed25519_secret_keyfile.
If you use an alternative ed25519 (tor v3) keygen, like the aforementioned mkp224o for example, simply drop the resulting xxx...xxx.onion directory containing the key files in <your blitter directory>/keys/.
Note that if multiple key directories are found, the first found will be used, so manage your keys directory appropriately.
Either run the Blitter executable if using a release, or run python blitter.py if using a manual installation.
- A Tor onion service key will be required (see above).
- You’ll get a six word passphrase derived from your key and a local secret word.
- Your Blitter site will be available (using the tor browser) at something like:
http://bleetmsropwd4542scsvoep3odcqof5hxgvt42heqw5zbsjxatcmxnyd.onion
- Use the six word passphrase to log in and start broadcasting your Bleets.
Each node:
- Exposes a v3 onion service on port 80.
- Publishes messages in a plaintext feed format (
/feedendpoint). - Responds to
/aboutwith basic profile metadata and pubkey for private messages. - Periodically fetches posts from subscribed nodes via Tor SOCKS5 proxy.
- Uses secure Diffie-Hellman exchange to transfer private messages directly.
Messages use a structured bar-delimited string:
|PROT|SITE|TIMESTAMP|REPLY_ID|EXPIRATION|FLAGS|LEN|CONTENT|
Example:
|0002|abcdef...56chars|0173fcabc...|000...:000...|ffffffffffffffff|0000000000000000|012|hello world!|
- PROT: Protocol version (e.g.,
0002) - SITE: Onion address of this message's origin (56 chars)
- TIMESTAMP: Nanosecond-precision timestamp in hex used as a unique message identifier
- REPLY_ID: Optional
site:timestampthis message replies to - EXPIRATION: Reserved for future TTL
- FLAGS: Reserved
- LEN: UTF-8 byte length of content (max 512)
- CONTENT: The actual message
- SQLite DB with three tables:
profiles: nickname, description, email, etc.posts: all bleets, indexed by site + timestampblats: all blats, outbox, sent, received and read
Add other Blitter .onion sites as subscriptions:
- Blitter fetches
/aboutand/feedover Tor. - Bleets are verified, parsed, and stored locally.
- Feeds are merged in the UI, sorted by timestamp.
- 🔑 Six word passphrase-based login derived from the same unique secret Tor key that unlocks the site's .onion address.
- 🔐 End-to-end encryption for private messages.
- 🔁 Fully offline-capable (local-only viewing possible).
- 🔂 Threaded replies.
- 🔍 View raw message format for transparency.
- 🧱 Entire app in one file for auditability and deployment ease.
- 📦 Minimal external dependencies.
- 📛 Markdown support (italic, bold, links)
- Blitter tray: an optional universal inbox for guests
- Image support
- Optionally automatically sending a Bleet when adding a Blitter subscription
- Custom backgrounds and avatar support
- UI improvements, themes, & customisation
- Expand markdown
- Graph-based network visualiser
- Crypto co-signatures
- File drop
- Journalists
- Whistleblowers
- Dissenters
- Organisers
- Democracy defenders
- "Annexation" defenders
- Nerds with taste
- You
This is an experimental project. It’s built for resilience and independence. Use responsibly.
Blitter is proudly open-source under the GPLv3 license, promoting transparency, freedom, and collaboration.
- Tor Project (for the incredible onion routing platform)
- Bitcoin project (for the BIP-0039 word list)
- OpenAI (o3-mini-high greatly accelerated development, RIP)
- The Internet (for still being broken enough to inspire projects like this)
- You, for resisting authoritarianism, imperialism, oligarchs and warmongers
If Blitter fails to connect to Tor, ensure that your /etc/tor/torrc config file contains these lines:
ControlPort 9051
CookieAuthentication 1