[HN Gopher] Show HN: Discuo - Anonymous discussions with infinit...
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Show HN: Discuo - Anonymous discussions with infinite branching and
24h lifespan
I built Discuo, a unique discussion platform that combines: -
Infinite thread branching: conversations evolve naturally in
multiple directions - 24h post lifespan: all content auto-deletes
after 24 hours - No account needed: just start posting or
commenting instantly - Complete anonymity: no tracking, no personal
data collection - Minimalist design: distraction-free, focused on
pure discussion Originally created for developers to share
progress and discuss code, it evolved into a platform covering
various topics while maintaining its minimalist essence.
Author : drdruide
Score : 41 points
Date : 2025-01-01 16:53 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (discuo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (discuo.com)
| newaccountman2 wrote:
| It seems cool, but why the mandatory 24 hour auto-delete?
|
| edit: I guess if it took off, you'd incur storage costs
| :thinking:
| drdruide wrote:
| I just like this concept of ephemeral post!
|
| Thanks!
| curtisblaine wrote:
| Like 4chan, ephemeral posts create a different kind of
| community. I wonder how this plays out legally (i.e. don't you
| have obligations of log persistence in case a crime is
| reported?)
| drdruide wrote:
| UPDATE: I've removed the 24-hour message deletion function.
| Posts will now remain on the platform.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Don't fall into the trap of audience capture:
| https://www.neuroscienceof.com/human-nature-blog/audience-
| ca...
|
| Do your thing and ignore some randoms replies online.
| Including this one.
| drdruide wrote:
| For sure, thanks for this advice!
| drdruide wrote:
| UPDATE 2: I may add an option to decide if you want your
| posts to be deleted within 24 hours. For the moment, no more
| deletions at all.
| curtisblaine wrote:
| To be fair, I like the ephemeral post message board style.
| I was just curious of the legal implications of deleting
| content. I am not a lawyer, and there could be none as far
| as I know.
| curtisblaine wrote:
| This is a beautiful platform. Care to describe the tech stack
| you're using?
|
| UX nit: "post anonymously" looks like a button, and I pressed it
| a couple of times before understanding it's just a switch.
| drdruide wrote:
| Thanks a lot! I used nextjs, tailwind, prisma all deployed on a
| vps :)
|
| Thanks for your comment, I'll fix it
| l0b0 wrote:
| Great idea! Some feedback:
|
| - The 24 hour horizon means you could get away without namespace
| functionality like categories entirely, especially when self-
| hosting for a small-to-medium-sized group.
|
| - It's tiring to read sites with all monospace fonts. I can see
| how it might be useful if most posts contain a lot of code,
| though.
|
| - Do you expect this to be open sourced?
| drdruide wrote:
| As I said below, after several returns I've updated the site
| and removed the automatic deletion feature after 24h but I'm
| thinking of adding an option when creating a post. Thanks for
| your feedback, and I don't think it will be open source for the
| time being! If the site is doing well and there's a lot of
| demand for it, why not rethink!
| imska wrote:
| Wow, been thinking about creating the same thing for a while
| now. What did you build it with? I'd definitely love to see
| some of the code!
| curtisblaine wrote:
| Tbh the 24 hour horizon also means that you can do without a
| persistent db and store everything in memory (as managed db are
| typically the most complex / expensive part of the stack)
| thih9 wrote:
| Only if you're ok with an empty page after server restart.
| treprinum wrote:
| Bad idea for social marketing - by the time a post becomes
| popular, it disappears.
| drdruide wrote:
| (I've removed the 24-hour message deletion function. Posts will
| now remain on the platform.)
| bernCs wrote:
| Discuo just killed 4chan. #4chanIsdead
| Bancakes wrote:
| Sooo modern day 4chan.
| osamabinladen wrote:
| *modern day 4chan without the impossible to solve captcha
| drdruide wrote:
| Haha, that's true! Thanks!
| Bancakes wrote:
| The infinite fire hydrants one?
| bashauma wrote:
| Yeah I remembered same thing. btw Futaba channel (mama 4chan)
| has different lifespans to drop thread on each board. (ex.
| img.2chan.net drops thread in 1hour). Just an idea.
| drdruide wrote:
| Thanks for the idea!
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| If your unique attribute is the 24hr auto delete, and you drop
| that because some HN people don't like it, you've removed your
| unique attribute. Probably not the right call.
| drdruide wrote:
| Not at all, I'm planning to make it optional and I'm listening
| to people. Not just from here. I launched the project 3-4 days
| ago and I've had quite a few private messages [with arguments]
| which have led me to think that it's pretty fair.
| tux3 wrote:
| Another thing with the 24h autoclean is it kills slow boards.
|
| The fastest rapid fire message boards are also the most chaotic,
| with the lowest signal-to-noise. There's a certain comfyness in
| smaller places, outside the containment imageboards, that you
| won't have if you just clone slash pol slash and force the
| conversations to be even shorter and meaningless that they
| already are over there.
| drdruide wrote:
| Thanks for your feedback and just to respond to you: As I said
| below, after several returns I've updated the site and removed
| the automatic deletion feature after 24h but I'm thinking of
| adding an option when creating a post.
| Jaxan wrote:
| What about the reverse: a post only shows up after 24h after
| submission? :-)
| nixpulvis wrote:
| You might actually be on to something here...
| Forbo wrote:
| Until a bunch of people try to find a thread about _insert
| newsworthy event here_ , only to find there isn't one,
| create their own, and suddenly a day later there's hundreds
| of dupes.
| edelbitter wrote:
| The subtitle says "a minimalist discussion platform" yet the form
| is inert without Javascript.
| dreis_sw wrote:
| Luckily there's an easy fix, enabling JavaScript like a regular
| human being :p Honestly curious though, do you generally browse
| the web without JavaScript?
| tliltocatl wrote:
| Developers should stop using javascript everywhere things can
| be done without it. Point.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Why?
| grayhatter wrote:
| For the same reason you shouldn't rent or buy or use a
| backhoe when it's a shovel of dirt. For the same reason
| you shouldn't stand up multiple 8U rack mount servers to
| run your homeassisstant instance that would be happy on a
| raspi zero.
| Forbo wrote:
| I would love it if web devs would stop externalizing the
| costs of their bloated apps onto their users. Make web
| devs care about resource utilization. How much bandwidth,
| electricity, and time is wasted on poorly written
| applications?
| tliltocatl wrote:
| More like you shouldn't use a backhoe and charge passing
| people for its fuel and put your backhoe in the middle of
| the walkway. It brings negative value to the end user. If
| you don't care for your end user - fine, but then you
| can't expect them care for you or your product either.
| grayhatter wrote:
| Yes, I do. The day uMatrix finally stops functioning will be
| an awful day. Excluding cute PoC sites, and demos; sites that
| function without javascript are objectively superior every
| way to sites that can't function without js. Though I admit
| that's correlative more than causative.
|
| Also, the point isn't to be a regular human being, it's to be
| a hacker, or engineer, or, [other]. Why be boring (regular)
| when you can be good at something instead?
| dreis_sw wrote:
| Interesting, and completely agree with both your remarks,
| but how does it relate to disabling JavaScript? What are
| you getting out of it, other than making the web less
| usable for yourself?
| grayhatter wrote:
| You mean other than the reduced risk of compromise from
| the latest js engine exploit? Or that it also prevents
| some xss injection? Or that often many sites will still
| function with most external scripts disabled, i.e. it
| disables spyware that many sites don't need to install,
| but still do?
|
| Besides all of that, it makes the web more usable in most
| cases. Not more functional, more usable. I don't want
| your site to hijack my browser scroll, nor do I want your
| modal popups to interrupt me. Plus, I like knowing the
| level of competency of the site's developers. If it
| doesn't function at all without enabling a half dozen
| external scripts/sites, even if I still _want_ to use
| your site. Which is then unlikely, I know to lower my
| expectations about how much I can trust you or your site.
| jvan wrote:
| Ads. Tracking scripts. Interface hijacks. Dynamics that
| change the page as I read it. A myriad of other poorly
| executed ideas that someone who considers themselves
| "very clever" thought were good at the time but only make
| my experience worse.
| mouse_ wrote:
| How are you going to avoid all the problems - moral, legal, and
| ethical - that other image boards face?
| drdruide wrote:
| A moderation system has already been set up and used for
| several bans, and it works well. If there are more and more
| visits, I'll recruit someone for 24/7!
| Forbo wrote:
| This is a pseudonymous system, not anonymous. The "anonymity" is
| entirely dependent on the salt. Unless you literally have no way
| of complying with a court order to hand over a user's IP, making
| any claims of anonymity is just flat out irresponsible. I hope no
| whistleblowers attempt to use this platform without a lot more
| consideration and countermeasures taken.
|
| Sorry for the rant, I just really hate how much of a buzzword
| anonymity has become when nearly every claim of it falls on its
| face.
| drdruide wrote:
| I'm open to discussion on how to improve the system if you have
| any ideas or suggestions.
| Forbo wrote:
| Don't call it anonymous if it isn't actually anonymous.
| drdruide wrote:
| It's anonymous.
| Forbo wrote:
| So if you were served a technical assistance order you
| would have no way of complying with that? How are you
| using a salt that you have no way of
| knowing/observing/recovering? What protection measures
| are employed to prevent the salt from being recovered
| from memory or otherwise dumped via some other exploit?
| Please be detailed, as matters of anonymity can usually
| be boiled down to life changing consequences for those
| involved.
| drdruide wrote:
| The system is designed with multiple layers of privacy
| and security: - IP Hashing: One-way SHA-256 hashing with
| environmental salt ; Original IPs are never stored, only
| hashes ; Even with server access, original IPs can't be
| recovered; Server memory only processes hashes, never
| stores raw IPs - Per-Category Anonymity: Different poster
| IDs per category using separate salts ; Double-hashing
| mechanism: first for global ID, then for category-
| specific ID ; Cross-category correlation is
| mathematically impossible ; Each context generates a
| unique, unrelated identifier - Technical Assistance
| Compliance: I can provide hashed data and salting
| mechanisms; I can track specific hashed IPs if required;
| I can ban users without knowing their real IPs; But I
| technically cannot reverse the hashes to original IPs
|
| The system balances legal compliance with user privacy -
| I can assist investigations through hash matching while
| maintaining technical inability to reverse-identify
| users. This is not about avoiding compliance, it's about
| responsible data minimization. The architecture ensures I
| can't provide what I don't have, while still maintaining
| effective moderation capabilities.
| Forbo wrote:
| How has the server been blinded from the hashing
| mechanism? Is this happening on different hardware, or
| facilitated through API calls to another server or
| something?
|
| Genuinely curious as I think anonymous discussions are
| awesome but hate the kind of stuff that comes along with
| other anonymous image boards. Truly hope this is
| successful and results in a wonderful thriving community.
| hiatus wrote:
| IP space is not huge, if you use the same salt for each
| IP it is trivially reversed.
| Forbo wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately until IPv6 adoption increases this
| will be a problem. Even the currently utilized IPv6 space
| is probably small enough that sufficiently motivated
| corporations/nation states would probably be able to
| crack it given the resources available, assuming it's
| important enough for them to care about.
| bflesch wrote:
| Looks nice.
|
| Some thoughts:
|
| - I'd fix the breadcrumbs so it's not /ai but /tech/ai.
|
| - Seeing the crowdflare captcha gives me the ick. There should be
| different GDPR-compliant solution other than giving crowdflare
| all our info.
|
| - Maybe tie the 24hr deletion period to the number of upvotes for
| a certain post. If a post gets many upvotes, add another day to
| its lifetime and so on
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(page generated 2025-01-05 23:00 UTC)