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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] -7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

You might be right. I can see there are a lot of people here who simply don't like AI. I talk in my own language and AI translates it - I just read it and decide whether to send it or not. So when it comes out sounding like AI wrote it, fair enough - but the thoughts are mine, and I stand behind them.

I won't argue with you. Honestly, all these negative takes only make me stronger. It's a school too - it tells me to keep going my own way and reach my goal. That's the good part: a person shouldn't give up just because they hear a lot of negativity. I go my own way and I'll get there - and in some things, I already have.

Thanks for what you wrote, genuinely. Have a good day - or evening, I don't know where in the world you are.

(English isn't my first language - AI helps me translate.)

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  • [+] 2 points 4 months ago* (1 child)
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  • [–] [S] -3 points 4 months ago

    Yeah, you're right - you can tell any AI to write in a certain style. But look, the "problem" we're solving here is just: I translate my own language into English with AI. I could use Google Translate instead - and that's not a bad thing either. Tons of companies build online translators, earbuds that translate live calls in your ear - they all use AI too. Does that bother anyone? No.

    Sure, I could tell the AI to talk like a teenager, or like a shepherd up in the mountains herding sheep. But come on. I came here to talk about an actual topic, not to spend every reply proving how I'm allowed to talk to you.

    So honestly - let it go. If it bothers you that much, just don't write with me. Maybe someone will turn up who doesn't care whether I use a translator or AI or whether I'm just good at English. Maybe someone wants to talk in Portuguese or Luxembourgish - no problem. But that's not what this forum is even about.

    I respect that you wrote to me, I do. But I came home from work to check for new replies, doing my own computer work in between, and honestly - this is a riot. You're solving a problem that isn't a problem. Not for me anyway. I genuinely do not care who translates my language into English. What matters is that I'm talking about something real. Instead we keep circling the same thing: AI, am I a bot, should it be this way or that. Ah well. Ah well.

    (English isn't my first language - AI helps me translate. Still. :))

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    There's translators like deepl that are good enough at keeping tone, or at least structure. This sounds more like giving an LLM the input to formulate a message that says a list of things, not translating a message written by you.

    Also, I assume this is your website - https://sherlockprivate.com/. A lot of functions flat out don't work. Links in your footer are broken. You don't have a privacy policy. You use Gmail as your main address. It all reads like a sales pitch for people who don't know a lot about privacy or encryption. It's also, subjectively, not very pretty. None of this inspires any confidence.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 months ago

    Thank you for pointing it out. With all the work going into this, I genuinely hadn't caught those - easy to go blind to your own site. I'll fix them, over the weekend or right after at the latest. Thanks again.

    (English isn't my first language - AI helps me translate.)

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