03263156de
If this option is specified in keys.dat then Bitmessage will connect to the host specified there instead of connecting to the hosts in the list of known nodes. It will also stop listening for incoming connections and the timing attack mitigation will be disabled. The expected use case is for example where a user is running a daemon on a dedicated machine in their local network and they occasionally want to check for messages using a second instance of the client on their laptop. In that case it would be much faster to catch up with the messages by directly downloading from the dedicated machine over the LAN. There is no need to connect to multiple peers or to do the timing attack mitigation because the daemon is trusted. The host is specified as hostname:port. Eg, ‘192.168.1.8:8444’.
PyBitmessage
Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. It uses strong authentication which means that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed, and it aims to hide "non-content" data, like the sender and receiver of messages, from passive eavesdroppers like those running warrantless wiretapping programs.
Development
Bitmessage is a collaborative project. You are welcome to submit pull requests although if you plan to put a non-trivial amount of work into coding new features, it is recommended that you first solicit feedback on the DevTalk pseudo-mailing list: BM-2D9QKN4teYRvoq2fyzpiftPh9WP9qggtzh