Show HN: s@: decentralized social networking over static sites
This project introduces s@, a novel protocol for decentralized social networking built entirely on static sites, eliminating central servers and relays. It's designed for small, private networks where users own their data and rely on mutual following. Hacker News finds this appealing for its technical ingenuity in achieving true decentralization and user data control.
The Lowdown
The s@ protocol pioneers a new approach to social networking by leveraging static websites for user data storage and client-side operations for feed aggregation and publishing. Unlike traditional platforms, it's explicitly designed for small, private groups, emphasizing self-reliance and direct user-to-user interaction without any intermediary servers or relays.
- Decentralized Architecture: Each user maintains their own static website (e.g., on GitHub Pages) that hosts their encrypted social data. The client, running in the browser, handles all data aggregation and publishing.
- Identity and Discovery: A user's identity is their domain name, authenticated via HTTPS. A standard
satproto.jsonfile on their site provides discovery information, including their public key. - Robust Encryption: All user content is stored in encrypted JSON format. Post data is encrypted with a symmetric content key, which is then encrypted individually for each follower using their public key (X25519 and libsodium sealed boxes).
- Self-Reliant Data Management: Users can recover their data and publishing access using a
_self.jsonfile, which stores their content key and publishing secrets, sealed with their own public key. - Mutual Following & Privacy: To see another user's posts, both parties must follow each other. The system includes a key rotation mechanism, where unfollowing a user generates a new content key and re-encrypts all posts, making previous data inaccessible to the unfollowed party.
- Client-Side Feed Aggregation: The client dynamically builds a user's feed by fetching and decrypting posts from all followed users, merging them chronologically. Replies are handled as flat threads, visible only if the original author is followed, serving as a spam prevention mechanism.
s@ represents a significant technical exploration into truly serverless and private social networking, emphasizing individual data ownership and direct, encrypted communication within a trusted circle.