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.
That framing really helps - “fine for people who already trust you, formal audit before it goes wider” is a clean line to hold myself to, and it stops me from overselling it in the meantime. I’ll treat the audit as the gate for any broader claim.
Thank you for taking this much time with it. You gave me the most useful thread in here by a mile - the supply-chain point and this trust-staging both reframed how I think about it. Genuinely appreciated.