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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 1 month 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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[–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

Ah, you're alright mate. Like I said, I got the same guff when I posted my first project here, and it sucked. I wanted to offer my advice because I think it's brilliant that AI is opening up development to a whole new raft of people, and I'm excited to see more people building neat little software projects that fill their needs - we get to watch peoples' journeys unfold through repo commits. It's like watching someone's first Dark Souls playthrough.

I have another bit of feedback which I hope might be helpful: Everyone is building an encrypted messaging app these days. Do something new, and use your carpentry experience to inform what that something is. You have a wealth of knowledge and this thing is an incredible tool for augmenting that, see if you can solve an old hard problem with it!

See, now I want to help again 😂 What tools are you using and do you have any harnesses set up and what's your system prompt like? The beautiful thing about agents is that you can just point them at repos and have them cherrypick the useful bits. Here's a few that you may find useful:

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

    Thanks, I'll definitely use these - I'll go through them and put them to work.

    You're right that the messenger is the crowded space. The project I'm actually most excited about is exactly the "use the carpentry" one you pointed at: software for CNC and laser machines. I've got a laser at home that's made me a lot of inlays and gifts over the years, and the existing tools (LightBurn etc.) are good but kept missing the technical, specialist features I wanted - so I started building my own. It's called Nexus Studio. That's where my maker side really drives the design, not the messenger. The messenger was where I learned; this is where I solve a problem I live with every day.

    And honestly - I think you know more than I do here, and that's a good thing. I've been learning by making a lot of mistakes, and the small hooks and details I pick up from conversations like this are exactly how I get better. A person learns their whole life. People who know things are worth listening to. Thanks for being one of them.

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

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    The project I’m actually most excited about is exactly the “use the carpentry” one you pointed at: software for CNC and laser machines. I’ve got a laser at home that’s made me a lot of inlays and gifts over the years, and the existing tools (LightBurn etc.) are good but kept missing the technical, specialist features I wanted - so I started building my own. It’s called Nexus Studio.

    Ayyyy yeah that's what I'm talking about! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

    That's a really cool project dude, if it's public I'd love a link to check it out! (I tried Googling, to no avail) I have a friend who has both a CNC machine and a laser cutter (a fuckoff-huge thing the size of a desk, that can cut metal), so your work on that might be helpful to us 😊

    In any case, good luck and I hope those resources help. Drop me a DM if you want to talk shop!

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago

    Sounds like a plan - when Nexus Studio is ready I want to put it on Kickstarter too, and yeah, I'll absolutely want people on forums like this to kick the tyres and tell me honestly whether it's worth anything. That kind of feedback is the whole point.

    On your friend's machine: I can't cut metal on mine - they're optical lasers, so metal's out for me - but the real question is what controller his laser runs. Nexus Studio is built on GRBL, so if his machine is GRBL-based (or I can find out what firmware/controller it uses), I'll do my best to wire it up so he can actually test whether it works on his setup. That would genuinely interest me too - testing it on hardware that isn't mine is exactly what I need.

    So don't worry, I'll reach out. Thanks for the message.

    And if it's not too much of a privacy thing to ask - whereabouts did I reach? US, Australia, somewhere else? Just curious how far my message travelled. I'm in Germany myself (though originally from elsewhere - bit of a hybrid, you can laugh 😄).

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

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