Enabling Telnet for ssh-chat

[leifle]

Hi everybody!

First of all this is a great tool. Nothing to complain about. I have never used the language used in ssh-chat, so I most likely search for a weekend fro the point, but maybe somebody can help me how to make ssh-chat into telnet-chat. I know this sounds weird, but just to have something that has no encryption and is open to absolutely everybody would be great. The simplest of the simple. Any idea how I can do with with this project.

Thanks

[sleibrock]

Hello,

ssh-chat itself is made from the language Go, and relies on a few upstream libraries in order to function, mostly network and openssh related. The convenient standard library is what made Go appealing to develop ssh-chat, as well as the simplistic language and concurrency model.

Telnet, is a protocol from 1969. It has serious problems and isn't really used by anyone anymore for just about anything; legacy products will still incorporate Telnet-based solutions, but those are serious security vectors at best. Go does not provide a Telnet library, and the only thing I can find is this.

To mimic the functionality of ssh-chat, you would have to spend a whole weekend reading through Golang source code to understand how ssh-chat functions (receiving connections, handling messages, freeing assets). Then you have to apply those principles to work with the Telnet protocol itself. Then users would have to use Telnet to connect to your new Telnet-based server and interact.

If any of that sounds interesting, go right ahead and start hacking away at your telnet-chat.

[shazow]

@leifle What are your goals? ssh clients are more widely available than telnet clients these days, and ssh-chat supports open rooms that anyone can connect to (like ssh.chat).

I respect the love for ancient protocols, so you're welcome to draw inspiration from ssh-chat to build a telnet-chat if that's what you're into. :)

[leifle]

Thanks for the answers from @shazow @sleibrock
The reasoning behind it is not that I want to do something on my old HPUX machines that I have to maintain because nobody rewrites that code.
The use case is more academic as we have east of us at the moment two countries in a terrible situation. My worry in the beginning was that first the Internet will go on either side and I thought about ways with household means to still communicate with loved ones.
Assuming the IP level is as redundant as it was designed even a small hole will let a little through. I am well aware that both countries have pressure tested their network over the years by looking for holes like this.
So the DNS is gone and every package in their country will clog up at that hole. So the best would be to use the least amount and live with lost packages. The handshaking of keys and the extra layer in ssh might make a difference.
I don't care if somebody reads what I chat. Pure pragmatically I would like to get a simple "Hello" through the line.

I am aware morse coding would work, but then we are beyond household means and sending real Watts out is not going to make everybody happy. The easiest would most likely be Lora via Satellite, but even with these power levels one shows up on heat maps, even though it would be as big as a pack of cigarettes.

As I said it is only a thought of absolutely minimal. Maybe there is a way with curl that sends only one package and receives only one package.

But I have to say ssh-chat is made perfect for a minimal chat and I don't need more to be honest.

[shazow]

I'd recommend just using IRC v2 then, without TLS. It's just a few short text characters per command, roughly equivalent to telnet chat.