https://sendwyrd.com/w/hSRYpR29huivOT9L#3nFeyyH8anJTcmgeLxwzjovn-cBN0JWtQtT1Rw9Mcwg
Spent a little over a day building this tool, which is an identity-less and platform-less social messaging protocol and service. It is sort of a wrapper on messages, so that messages become objects that are platform agnostic. "Isn't this just...?" Yes, this is not some mind-boggling new thing, but it has some subtle nuances to the design that seemed interesting to me. Maybe you will find it useful?
The thing that I think is particularly neat is you can begin using it today, unilaterally, on any and every platform that allows posts/messages, so there is no network bootstrapping required for usability.
More detailed philosophy/about section on site: https://sendwyrd.com
I like that the decryption key is in the URL fragment that means the server literally can't read your messages since browsers don't send the # part. That's a clean way to handle it. How does the expiration work on your end? Does the server just delete the encrypted blob after a set time, or is there something built into the encryption itself? And I'm guessing there's no real way to stop someone from just copying the text before it expires right?
Yeah. The server will delete after a fixed amount of time that the user sets (default is 90 days), or if they request a burn. There is also an option to never delete. This could be neat for nostr since deletion on nostr doesn't really work. Correct, anyone can copy it while it's live -- my thinking was this replicates human interaction in terms of social discretion around things like rumors, strategy, etc.
I considered briefly letting people run their own hosts, and that might be next step. Open sourcing the protocol, maybe even all code, so anyone who wants can run their own, and allowing them all to be cross compatible.
So far it seems no one is really interested in the idea though, so might just hold off. I am not a developer, so I thought it was cool to be able to put together a working product with Claude in just a couple days! I'm not sure what the future of cyberspace / coms will be, but it seems everyone has the sense that human computer interfaces are about to become rather different than the way they are now.
The self-hosting angle is worth exploring if you get around to it. Even if the interest isn't there yet the idea of ephemeral encrypted messages with no accounts is solid, most people just don't know they need it until they do. The nostr deletion point is interesting too since yeah once something is on relays its basically permanent. And don't take the low interest personally there is just so much new stuff coming out right now that its hard to get people to stop and look at what you built
Thank you, I appreciate that... I have had a tendency in my life to discard things quickly when they do not immediately garner attention, but I realize this is a bit foolish and self defeating. I have zero software background so I imagine that even things that do pick up, are obscure for a long time, and especially now as you say.
I am just going to make the source available since now it is so easy for a thing to be copied, there is nothing to really defend in just the concept. Also having a protocol spec, which then can allow anyone to make their own copy in 10-20 minutes with guidance via AI.
Nostr can uniquely render the content of the message, which twitter and other apps will not modify (at least, not early), so that's where something slightly interesting might happen. After reading Nietzsche and Linked by Barabási, and seeing the insularity of people, I am quite interested in how cyberspace itself may shift to allow richer human connection globally across more domains.
I think the world today is actually tied to physical locality, and that the highest types of humans are suppressed, but the internet will soon allow them to properly cooperate in more domains. Perfect money is great, but I think there is still something missing in the dynamics of the world. Maybe this can evoke some ideas that play a role in such a restructuring. Proper money is of course critical, but it is not, nor can the set of all digital tools, in and of themselves, be the only element of human coordination!
This is cool. It's a different form factor than I'm used to thinking about with messaging (Anyone with the link can read, only people with the link can read).
It would be kinda cool if this was trivial to host, so anyone could use the same code, but send links from a domain they control.
I considered briefly letting people run their own hosts, and that might be next step. Open sourcing the protocol, maybe even all code, so anyone who wants can run their own, and allowing them all to be cross compatible.
So far it seems no one is really interested in the idea though, so might just hold off. I am not a developer, so I thought it was cool to be able to put together a working product with Claude in just a couple days! I'm not sure what the future of cyberspace / coms will be, but it seems everyone has the sense that human computer interfaces are about to become rather different than the way they are now.
I might leave it alone for a bit, maybe annoy various friends by using it unilaterally and see if anyone else starts playing with it.
Really neat approach to solving the network bootstrapping problem. Excited to see how those subtle design choices play out in practice