ivartj / snakk

Playing around with the idea of a decentralized social media platform.

Basic Idea

The main goal is to create a versatile platform for a variety of decentralized social media, independent of a central authority for operation, administration or moderation of the network. Individual users should be empowered with the ability to extend the platform in order to shape their online community.

The idea is to create software for query and peering of digitally signed 'messages', that may be used in a variety of applications. If they form a forum, a message may represent a post, a reply, a revision, a tagging, a "Like", or perhaps a "Dislike". Moderation can be a collaborative process through a network of trust.

Snakk Message Format

The format starts out in the style of NNTP/HTTP/SMTP/etc headers. Messages are identified by their content, typically represented by hash value. A message ID is in the form of

scheme ":" parameter

For example,

sha256:d7a8fbb307d7809469ca9abcb0082e4f8d5651e46d3cdb762d02d0bf37c9e592

An Identity field specifies the method of authentication for the message, and the parameters to this method that are constant for the identity that published the message. Signature specifies additional parameters to this method that are specific to the message.

For example, if a message is authenticated by a GPG public key

Signature: gpg-detached-signature
sha256:14c7c0d60d938c9dc152a57f1eb3753e3aa94797d7b16f490843b65caa187d22
Identity: gpg-public-key
sha256:58694af43c75b1fe02da96d572e835e92ebc286a856835d49bad3b7c1bca2a70
Content-Type: text/plain

Hello.

Command-Line Interface

snakk verify <message-file>

Checks whether there is a digital signature in the message that can be verified.

snakk sign <unsigned-message-file>

Prepend digital signature to file which may include headers.

snakk publish <message-file>

Publish message file to configured message pools. Signs message if it is not done.

snakk extract <message-file> [ -o <output-file> ]

Removes signature and headers and outputs the contained content.

TODO / Plan

• Message format specification
• Example message files conforming to the specification
• CLI user tools
  • Message parser, printer and manipulation API
  • GPG signatures and verifcation
• Web message pool
  • Capability to receive messages and maybe also authenticate GPG signatures
  • Allow for query of messages with the following minimum querying capabilities:
    • Query latest messages
    • Query messages by a hash value
    • Query messages from identity
    • Query messages in which the Reply-To header has a specified value
    • Query messages with a given word in the Tags header