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The idea was to launch the proof of concept with public URLs, then if I discovered people were interested, create private URLs. Thing is private URLs require an authentication system, which is fine, but I didn't want to overdevelop the proof-of-concept.

I fixed the link. Thanks! :)

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You can just use a 128-bit random string as a group key. That's how "private" photos are implemented on most photo sites, for example.

I think that's the way to go for the public URLs. I'm going to leave it up to the user to come up with a unique group name though.

I like the flexibility, but I would suggest you add a "generate GUID" button when choosing the group name in case the user does want a random URL, which seems quite likely.

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