How about a encrypted short messenger?
The other day I was talking to a buddy of mine, he's a father at the same school as Lily. As he was smack-talking the regular social media, I skillfully dropped the "HIVE-Bomb", and he got interested pretty quickly. While I was trying to not get too excited and overwhelm him with all the nitty gritty (well, not all, the little I know), he asked me if there was an encrypted messenger as well.
So, I remembered that little brain-fart-like-thing in the upper right corner of PeakD that nobody ever clicks on.
That one. I had actually written to a few people there before I found them on Discord, and most of them either never replied, or weeks later with a "Bro, I thought you were a scammer" or a "Yeah, nobody uses this."
As far as I understand, that direct and community messenger - by the way, does anyone know the name? - uses private and public memo key to encrypt messages. I just looked in there, the newest message is on the PeakD main-community-server and is 7 days old. Most of those messages are way, way older. Some communities don't have any.
Why let such a cool resource go to waste?
Please remember that my knowledge about HIVE is not that extended, yet. I hope to learn a lot in your comments, though!
It seems like it has been abandoned, which I (and my encrypto-message-buddy) think is quite sad. I often would like to chat with folks here, without having to switch to Discord. Yes, Discord works fine and has a lot of perks, but I'd prefer to have it all-in-one. It's one less tab open.
And one more use case for HIVE.
@meno has already developed a pretty cool app that works with Snaps , a front end for the same mechanism. What if we had that for that brain-fart-chat-thing?
Chatting is a universal thing, and many people are worried about all their chats being unofficially used to gather as much data as possible, train LLMs, sell advertising, and so on. And even the ones that are not officially owned by big tech are still somewhat sketchy, and everything is owned by someone with the intention to make money.
HIVE is not owned by anyone, but everyone. Offering a chat app would be another easy gateway into the Hiverse, because once the account is created, all the other perks come automatically - HQ content, snaps, transactions, 3speak, ... It's all right there.
Privacy is important, and since HIVE does not need any personal data, but runs of a username, it's easy to protect that privacy. The adjacent posting key could be used to secure the chat in a front-end.
Use cases
One thing that I'm missing in Splinterlands for example is a chat. If a chat based on the HIVE chain is established and working, then SPL and other games could probably latch on to that and include it into the game as well, as they run on the blockchain, too, and use the same keys.
It might be possible to integrate it into the Snaps-App as well. Unfortunately, Snap-Chat is already taken, and we don't want @snapie to be sued, so a different name has to be invented. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem, we have a creative community that will come up with something catchy, if wanted.
And then, as mentioned, an argument to get more people on board. I never mentioned the potential payment for quality content on the platform to my buddy, all I did was tell him about the (almost) complete freedom, the attached responsibility, and the decentralization. That was enough. He'll be happily surprised when he finds out that he can swap his HBD for my bread... Having an encrypted, nicely working chat is just another argument to get on the chain.
What are the risks?
As always. People can abuse of the privacy, as it's a little dark-web-like. And no, I have no idea how to prevent that. I'm not a programmer, unfortunately, and as mentioned, my knowledge of how exactly the blockchain works and if filters are in place and such is minimal at best.
Besides that, the risk is the same as always when giving people unchecked freedom. In posts and comments, yes, there's some balance through muting and down-voting, but in private chats? There is no control at all, as far as I can see.
Getting keys stolen gives the thief access to all messages. But those are usually more interested in getting the tokens, not the messages, and everyone should
People who want to abuse and take advantage will always find a way.
That said, what do you think? Is there an upside potential in an app like that, helping the hive to grow? Would you use a hive-based messenger?
That little thing few people click is called STING CHAT, and yes, the DMs there are encrypted. It is a plug-in to PEAKD. But, there is also a way to send encrypted messages on Layer1 of the Hive blockchain via transaction memos, visible on Hive.Blog and Ecency as well as PEAKD. I could send you 0.001 HIVE with the memo:
#eofios930reooisiffde9we0s0pd9d8ifwhich you could decrypt with your Memo Key and see that I sent "We strike at dawn!" 😁
Encrypted transaction memos have been used to send people entrance codes to the yearly Hivefest event, among other things. And only the person with the proper private Memo Key can decrypt the message.
0.001 hive is a small price to pay per message for privacy. Not for every message!
I was going to comment pretty much exactly as you did, just without an example :P
Well, people could be allowed to choose which one to use :-)
So THAT's the name! Thank you! I can't really see "Sting Chat" in the logo, but nice to know the name :-)
As to the messaging, I got some of those memos, too, sometimes necessarily with the key (e.g. a master key for a new account), sometimes a normal message via a smooth running messenger would've been enough (for example as a thank you for voting on a witness).
Maybe in a front end messenger people could decide which one they want to use. For regular chatting, just the regular function, and if they really want to make it secret, a transaction memo.
And how do I decrypt that? Is there a program? In my transactions, there is usually a button to click on... Here, I only see the code.
I don't see the name "Sting Chat" in the logo, either, but I remember the name of the plugin when PEAKD posted about it in 2023 when it was added. The example encrypted message I shared, above, was only an example of what one might look like; it's not a real message you can click to decrypt.
oooh okay, I thought there was an easy way to decrypt that :-D Thanks for responding and clearing some things up!
The chat is underused. I know it's available in a few dapps. It can be a bit slow, so people will tend to use Discord, but some will want something more secure. I have used it with a few people.
Thank you for your input! 🙃 I agree, as mentioned, that there's potential, and a good front end would probably help.
Sting Chat I think it's called. I've used it occasionally, but i don't get notification of messages on the usual Hive front end notification feeds. I only use it usually to send an invite to a (better encrypted) messenger such as matrix protocol, SimpleX or XMTP. There are groups on matrix used by some Hivers.
Ecency also has a chat function btw
But if it was simpler, and worked nicely with notifications and such, just like other "regular" social media messengers - do you think there would be use for it?
Sure, most hivers are not so privacy minded as I am, so I do think it has a place. It's sure better than centralised censorsing dickscord!
Seems like you really know something about all that, so I hope you don't mind me asking more...
Do you think there is a way to make HIVE messages better encrypted? Or is using the private/posting key combination not enough? There is the idea to implement the higher security with the memos costing 0.001 HBD per message, which could be offered as an option in the chat.
My understanding is that a chain without full encryption (always on) is less secure than chains with full encryption, I think because there is known data to compare with. And the only part of Hive which is encrypted (if chosen) is the memo field, not all the data, so I would assume that makes it even easier to crack the encryption.
Furthermore, for person to person encrypted messages, putting the message on chain adds it (encrypted or not) to all the nodes available to be hacked by anyone. I think p2p messaging rather than on chain is far better.
But I am no expert, although I do read a lot about this stuff.
Re.Paying the 0.001 Hive to send a message, I'm pretty sure that does not increase the security.
Depends on you risk level, how important is it that no-one except me and the receiver ever see the message?
I think the main concern of my buddy is big tech and companies reading and using information for commercial purpose or government data collection/abuse. Not so much that it's impossible for anyone to read the messages.
So, on-chain communication is somewhat hidden, it would have to be cracked on purpose to read the data. That adds some layer security in favor of my buddies intents. And does establish that it's not that secure, so any criminal activities might look for other channels.
Thank you for the extra information on encryption! Very interesting indeed :-)
Good question, what is this chating service an PeakD called? 😂
A chat on Hive would be great. I dont have any knowledge about programming, but I think if you just keep it easy (like basic whatsapp) it wouldn't be too hard to program.
It's called sting chat! That's what I already learned from the comments here, pretty cool. Meno said he might be able to pull it off, so we'll see! He just got his last project funded, which is well deserved, so maybe that gives him even more motivation than he already shows :-D