Self-Guaranteeing Promises
stephango.com
stephango.com
I manage an app that Serves an extremely privacy-focused demographic. I won't use push notifications or PassKeys, because each requires that the server store information that can be linked to a user. We do require a valid email account, and that's it. The email account can be a throwaway, but it needs to be able to receive email. Other than that, the user can choose to do things like mention their location (even then, we "fuzz it," at the server level), and maybe a couple of strings that can be anything they want.
Even with that, I still find that I need to constantly assuage doubts.
I know that not taking information is heresy, hereabouts, but, if I don't have it, it can't be leaked, and I can't be compelled to divulge it.
Or at least it should be, if companies were putting users first (a naive thought, I know).
I have a small mobile app for recording expenses (receipts). The usual strategy would be for users to create accounts and store and sync data with my service. Potentially useful data (behavior, spending), which I don't want to touch with 10ft pole.
Instead, I keep all the data local (user's device). No registration at all. Nothing to store on the server.
Slightly more inconvenient for the users (to move to a new device, you need to export and import the local db), but cheaper and zero-stress for me.
There's often a good reason to keep the data (marketing, product, etc), which when weighted against the potential liability, usually wins.
In my experience, in my role, we often forego collection of this data because there usually isn't an obvious upside that makes it worth it. If nothing else it's a ton more privacy and security reviews.
It would be difficult, but AI has suddenly made difficult things a lot easier.
With PassKeys and push notifications, there’s no way to do that.
It's unfortunate that passkeys have been such a disaster. Attestation should never have been part of the spec, it should never have been presented as a replacement for hardware U2F keys, and a private key file format should have been defined on day 1. But there is useful functionality buried under all the noise and confusion.
I suspect that many people's Passwords apps are littered with dead passkeys.
And that's another thing: if you use a 3rd party e-mail service then you have to trust a 3rd party not to abuse that. If they have control of that email address they can take over your account. If it's a temporary address, who's to say when that address gets reused?
If you don't use a 3rd party service then you have to have your own domain for that e-mail address, that domain name can then also be traced back to you.
If you want it to be anonymous, you shouldn't use e-mail at all and only allow passkeys.
The issue is that the demographic we Serve (recovering drug addicts) is a very privacy-sensitive one. Another demographic (that we don't serve) is non-hetero/cisgen folks. Both of these demographics can mean persecution, and even death, in some places, so we are not casual at all about the privacy of our end-users.
At the same time, too much security can render the app useless, so we need to find a balance. The issue with information, is that once it's out; it's not so easy to put back in the bottle, so we tread carefully.
The PassKey is a bit better, because there’s no need to go through a broker server, like you do with push notifications, but the key is still connected with an individual user and device, so an association can still be established, with some difficulty.
If you don’t have the key or the ID stored on a server, then even that is not an issue.
Am moving to Emacs, org, plus self-built elements, however. With much pain.
You see, what is /not/ self-guaranteeing about a full Obsidian life-organising workflow is the necessary reliance on plugins and their quirky configs. I felt as locked in to the ecosystem as I ever did with services that ‘merely’ used a proprietary storage format.
I know others in the same boat. Obsidian’s long-term legacy may well be primarily as a market-maker for Emacs.
both can be postured as a labor-saving measure, exposing user data to users is an additional burden on developers. Designing an extension system that is easy for other products to use is an additional burden on developers (& developer relations! And marketing! Other products won't just adopt your extension system willy-nilly)
But switching from obsidian to something else is so much easier on a file-level than say, google docs or whatever other super-proprietary system that's being used.
I'm very wary about adjusting my workflows to depend on flimsy or proprietary ecosystems. I don't really use vim with any plugins. I don't really use obsidian with any plugins, although I'm slowly trying to ease up to using a couple that would be big QOL improvements.
Striving for standard interfaces/workflows is a good thing, but I don't think emacs is that. vim isn't that. They've just cemented themselves as the de-facto.
I'm using vim bindings in obsidian, for what it's worth. I'm not re-learning a whole other set of keyboard shortcuts (although obsidian's is quite lacking)
On the one hand, the stainless steel example can be generalized to materials. Gold, for instance.
On the other hand there is plenty of fraud in materials. There are different grades of stainless steel and different methods of production that yield differing qualities.
Maybe “immutable, buyer-verifiable” would be stronger? Once you buy and own and verify the gold you bought, it can’t be retroactively degraded by the seller. But at the time of purchase, it’s not at all a sure thing.
In the example of stainless steel it is "stainlessness" that is the promise, and that only requires water to test.
Not really.
304 stainless is pretty stainless with fresh water. Not so much with saltwater. 316 is stainless in saltwater at normal temps, but not high temps. 400 series is both more stainless and less stainless than 300 series depending on conditions. And then there are the exotic ones.
And if all we're verifying is stainless after immersion in water, aluminum counts.
"Self-guaranteeing promise" is just a confusing way of saying "immutable properties after measurement".
I don't think the average person is going to understand what you mean by "immutable properties after measurement", though I'll concede "self-guaranteeing" is probably equally confusing.
"Verifiable and non-reversible" seems clear enough, but a bit long.
Syncthing is probably the closest bet. It doesn’t require servers, so it can be free. But it isn’t really a full Dropbox replacement.
In the privacy case enterprises need to ask for customers consent before changing policies. This includes changing prices too. But usually they take them for granted.
The promise that Bluesky will always be compliant with the spec, or that the spec won’t ever change to disallow this isn’t self-guaranteeing, but you could say something similar about any of these self guaranteeing promises. For example the promise that Obsidian will always use markdown isn’t self-guaranteeing.
True, but Obsidian doesn't make that promise. The promise is "file over app": you control the files you create. In this way the promise is not reversible, and self-verifiable.
"...will always use markdown" is not something any app can guarantee. At best an open source app can guarantee it for a specific version (assuming it doesn't require a connection, or the user can self-host the server).
Yeah, but whoever buys you or executes your bankruptcy probably will. Much better for you to never have it in the first place.
"You will change your mind, but I won't change mine."
Why I give crap data to everyone unless there is absolutely no other way.
Facebook thinks I live in a ghost town in Utah, and I'm 121 years old.
Also why most of my accounts that want a street address contain an address-line-2 like "JOEBLOW.COM SOLD OUR DATA," so they can't hide.
Piss in the well, y'all.
"We want to know who asked stupid questions in support so we can fire them!"
I saw you coming 30 years in advance, asshole.