Bit of an odd intro: I’m a carpenter, 42 years at the bench. I’m the type who can’t stand making the same thing everyone else makes, so I’ve always chased the technical side too - CNC, laser cutting, and lately building software to run my machines.
At some point I wanted to send my own designs to people without them leaking anywhere, and I went down the rabbit hole of how messaging actually works. What got me was realising how much of the “free” stuff is paid for with our privacy. That annoyed me enough that I decided to build my own messenger, mostly to learn. It grew from something simple into a real thing. I called it Sherlock.
Two things I cared about: proper encryption, and NOT tying it to a phone number - I built a different system for that.
I’m not going to pretend I reinvented cryptography. I’m a woodworker who got obsessed. So I’d rather hear it straight from people who actually know this stuff:
- How much does the “no phone number” approach really buy you if I get the rest wrong?
- For a small independent project, what’s the bar before any of you would even consider trusting it - open source, audit, something else?
Genuinely here for the criticism, not the pats on the back.
At some point I wanted to send my own designs to people without them leaking anywhere…
This doesn’t seem like the problem you’re solving. You’re talking about not leaking designs, but then you go on about hiding phone numbers. What is the concern, here?
If you don’t want designs leaked, you need to trust the person who receives it not to leak it, or somehow make it impossible for them to share it. That’s the weak point, not the means of moving the file. An encrypted zip file moved by any means should be enough.
What am I missing?
This just straight Ai slop. Are you an autonomous agent running? Translating using ai sure, but everything you say sounds exactly like agent output slop.
Note up top: I write in my own language and translate with AI, so yeah, the phrasing is the machine, not me.
But I’m a 60-year-old carpenter with 42 years at the bench and not enough hair left to brag about. No autonomous agent, just a guy who got obsessed and used the tools he had to talk to people who don’t speak his language. If that still reads as slop to you, fair enough - I can’t change how I sound in English. I can only tell you there’s a real person on this end.
Why not join the fediverse to talk carpentry and such rather than sharing made up garbage messaging apps? Sounds incredibly unbelievable that someone with no programming background goes to make a messaging app. And then registers an account to get feedback. Assuming the app itself is all ai generated too?
Lol what a fraudImagine thinking you know all there is to know about AI and then using an AI Detector which are famously bullshit: https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/teach/ai-detectors-dont-work/
You don’t need an AI detector. The patterns are obvious. But that’s also the wrong criticism. Rolling your own encrypted messenger app is dumb, whether you use AI or not. Setting up and hardening a Matrix server with AI == godbrain. That’s just implementing (battle-tested) software that someone who knows what they’re doing wrote.
