When it comes to communicating with someone, one issue is all the metadata that both parties leave behind. Unfortunately, metadata is currently retained for 2 years in Australia.
Retained metadata can be correlated with each other to link jornalists and information sources together
This walkthrough is showing the installation process of Ricochet. At the end of this guide, you will have Ricochet installed on your PC. You will be able to share your Ricochet ID on Twitter, so others can contact you anonymously.
Ricochet operates through the Tor network in a decentralised manner, so metadata is not retained anywhere.
- First, head on to https://ricochet.im to download Ricochet
- Install Ricochet like any other application
- Now launch Ricochet from the Start menu
- Press the 'Connect' button to connect to the Tor network
The Tor client is already built-in to Ricochet, there is no need to run the Tor browser
- Wait for the application to connect
- Once Ricochet is connected to Tor, the contact list is displayed
- Once the contact list is displayed, click on the '+' sign. Your Ricochet ID should be shown on the screen.
You need to publish your Ricochet ID, so others can find you on the Ricochet network. Twitter is a good public platform for publishing your ID.
- Write a Tweet with your Ricochet ID
- The person who wants to chat with you need to visit your Twitter profile for retrieving your Ricochet ID
- The other party presses the '+' button in his/her client and adds your Ricochet ID
- Once the other person adds you to the contact list, the partner request is pending
- A pop-up should notify you of the incoming partner request
- Once you added your partner, it should be displayed on your contact list
- The other person will see once the request is accepted
Any of the parties can now initiate chat with each other. In the following case, the other person is dropping a line to the journalist.
- The other person double-clicks on your user name. A message window shows up where the other person can enter the messages.
- The message will be displayed in a chat window on your computer
- If you send something back, it will appear on the other end
Ricochet cannot send or receive files. Have a look at our guides file exchange techniques that leaves no metadata behind.