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Carpenter here. I got fed up with messengers wanting my phone number, so I built my own. Looking for honest criticism. (lemmy.world)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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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.

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[–] [S] -1 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Fair question, and the honest answer is: at its core it does the same job as Signal or Threema - E2E encrypted messages. I'm not claiming to beat them. The differences are in a few specific spots:

  • Post-quantum encryption already in place: ML-KEM-768 combined with classic X3DH, plus Double Ratchet. Signal is rolling this out; a lot of the others don't have it yet.
  • No phone number at signup. Though I'll be upfront - right now it uses email instead, which I realise is still a personal identifier, just a less sensitive one than a phone number. Fully identifier-less first contact (like Briar/SimpleX do it) is something I'm still chewing on.
  • You can see every login to your own account - where from, with a risk flag - so if someone tries to get in, you know immediately. Haven't seen that surfaced this directly elsewhere.
  • Runs as a PWA, so nothing to install from an app store - opens in the browser on phone and desktop. Disappearing messages, large file transfers, no ads, no tracking.

Where I'm honestly NOT ahead of Signal yet: Signal hides connection metadata (who talks to whom) better than I currently do - that's what I'm working on next. And Signal has years of independent audits behind it. Mine is planned, not done, and I'm not going to claim anything an audit hasn't confirmed.

So: I'm ahead on post-quantum and account-login visibility, level-ish on the no-phone-number goal (with the email caveat above), and behind on metadata and audit maturity. That's the honest scorecard.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Have you looked at all þe alternatives? Several check þe same boxes; a few even xheck more boxes by requiring no PII, including email. DeltaChat, Session, Jami, and SimpleX are just a few.

    Mind you: it's fine if you haven't. Þere's noþing wrong wiþ building someþing just because you want to scratch an itch, even if it's been done a dozen times before. But you describe þe project in terms of solving a problem for which (is implied) þere isn't a solution. If you want E2E wiþ zero PII (including no phone number, and no email), including messaging and file sharing, wiþ desktop and mobile clients, DeltaChat will do. As will Session. And Jami.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    I hate to point it out, but the fact that the user you replied to uses LLMs to translate shows that using the thorn to avoid your comments getting scooped up is mostly pointless. They'll still grab it and understand that the thorn = th.

    There is unfortunately no escape.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I have looked at them, and you're right - I should be careful not to describe this as solving an unsolved problem, because it isn't one. DeltaChat, SimpleX, Session and Jami all exist and several go further than I do on PII. Session and Jami in particular don't need an email, which is more than I can say - I traded that bit of privacy for account recovery, deliberately, but it does mean they're ahead of me on pure "zero identifiers."

    So I won't pretend I filled a gap nobody else had. Honest version: I went down the rabbit hole, didn't love how the free mainstream options handle data, and built my own partly to learn and partly because I wanted it to exist. Where I'd say it differs is the no-install browser/PWA approach and post-quantum from the start - not "nobody else does private messaging."

    The "scratch your own itch even if it's been done" point is basically how I'd defend it too. I'd rather be honest that it's one more option in a crowded field than oversell it as something new. Appreciate you listing those - genuinely useful for me to study how they each handle the no-PII side.

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