u4u - a first draft

From 2019-2022, we developed u4u, a static React webapp where you create messages with a user interface based on the seven shapes called the "semantic screen." Messages are shared with other peers on the hypercore network. A trust system inspired by TrustNet lets you mark other peers as "sources," "blockers," and "blocked." When searching, you get messages from your sources, and depending on how many "hops" out you go, you also download from your sources' sources and their sources' sources. Blockers are used in a similar way to determine a blocklist of peers from whom you don't want to download messages. This dynamic blocklist gives you total control over your network of sources without the tedium of blocking every spammer. We also created an interactive trust graph visualizer so you can see how you connect to all of your sources, blockers, and blocked peers.

It eventually became clear that the semantic screen design does not work well with branching conversations. Now, we're changing the interface and the runtime environment (from web browsers to Emacs).

Ushin's first foray into p2p with u4u was fruitful! In working on u4u components, Mauve Software pioneered advances in p2p database indexing. It's possible that we will reuse u4u's trust interface in the future, but for now it's a good prototype for our Emacs work.

Check out our current projects!