Building a Socially Aware Internet
We’re the OpenSeed team and we’re on a mission to build a more socially aware internet. We believe that Steem was built to be the backbone of this socially aware internet, but there’s also a lot more to a body than a backbone.
The Connective Tissue
Our goal for OpenSeed is to be that body. The soft “connective tissue” around that incredible backbone that can help people connect, communicate, and collaborate, all while maintaining complete control and ownership of their information and having that information protected by strong encryption.
Vote on our Steem.DAO proposal if that’s all you need to hear
Is the Internet Working?
The internet was not designed to connect people, or unearth truth, it was designed simply to connect computers and the deficiencies of this design are becoming painfully obvious to everyone. People are more anxious, depressed, and disconnected than ever and the line between real and fake information is vanishing at an alarming rate.
Impossible Problems?
What makes us think we can solve such difficult problems? One major advantage we have is that we aren’t starting from scratch. The Steem blockchain has already solved the really tough problems and OpenSeed relies heavily on Steem as a distributed database capable of storing public information and digital assets. But just because Steem has solved so many important problems, that doesn’t mean it can, or should, solve every problem.
Steem
Steem is the most advanced protocol in terms of tokenizing the web, and its ability to publicly store human-readable text was a brilliant way to bootstrap an open and decentralized database intended to power web applications. But Steemit’s stated mission has never been about content or social interactions.
Steemit’s vision for Steem is to deliver the best protocol for powering web applications and distributing stake to everyone who contributes value to a community; what they call “tokenizing the web.” We respect that vision and want to build on it by creating a new layer that adds all of the additional features people want from their Steem applications, but that Steem is not ideal for delivering.
Storing Private Information
When it comes to powering web applications, Steem’s content storage capabilities are all about posting information publicly on a database that can never be altered or taken down. That is an incredibly valuable feature, but the vast majority of features used by applications involve sharing private information.
Even seemingly simple features like customizable passwords require private databases. But just because the databases are private does not mean that you can’t have just as much control over your information. In fact, OpenSeed is all about giving you a way to store and communicate information privately so that you can retain total control over it.
The Power of The Message
Instead of starting from the point of posting everything publicly and working backwards in an attempt to add features Steem is not built to deliver, OpenSeed starts from the basis of one simple concept; the private message, and then builds every other feature on top of that.
If you want to share information with one person, and one person alone, you can do that through an encrypted message on OpenSeed. If you want to share that message with a group of people, you can do that through an encrypted group chat. If you want to share it with a Steem community, but without sharing it with the entire world, you’ll be able to do that through private communities hosted on OpenSeed.
Guest Posts and Comments
You can even share information with everyone on Steem, without posting it to the Steem blockchain. That’s right, OpenSeed can be used as a cross-platform solution for guest posts and comments.
Best of all, if you no longer want that information to be available to anyone, you can always delete it from the database, forever. If, on the other hand, you want to share it with the public on a censorship resistant blockchain, OpenSeed will make it easier than ever to share on Steem.
Vote on our Steem.DAO proposal here.
Connecting People
OpenSeed is built around people and their connections to one another. You still retain ownership and control over your information. You’re still protected by strong encryption, and leveraging the backbone of the social web (Steem) will be easier than ever.
In short, OpenSeed is an open protocol designed to connect people so that they can communicate and collaborate while being protected by strong encryption at the foundational level. That’s what we mean when we say that we’re building a socially aware internet.
A Toolbox
While this might sound like a lot, we haven’t even scratched the surface of what OpenSeed could be used to do. Think of OpenSeed as a toolbox. These features are only the first set of tools that we are putting in the toolbox because these are the tools that Steem app developers, and their users, need yesterday.
Beyond Steem
We’ve already begun work on other features designed to help all open source application developers, not just Steem developers, bootstrap their applications and generate revenue. Any feature that can provide value to open source developers and benefit from cross-platform functionality, could theoretically be added to OpenSeed. That’s why we continue adding tools to that toolbox with the goal of accelerating the adoption of open source technology, not just blockchain technology.
You can also help by letting us know which of these features excite you the most, or what features you think we should add next, in the comments section below. If you would like to talk with us directly, all are welcome in our discord server.
Previous Posts
- Steem.DAO Proposal
- OpenSeed: Cross-Platform Off-Chain Solutions for Steem Apps
- OpenSeed News: Fully Open, Updated Wikis, Community
The more I see of this project, the more I like it.
This is really going to be something special for Steem. It is really exciting to see another moonshot project to go along with SMTs and the RC pool.
I am always looking forward to learning more about this project. The plan is ambitious.
...If you want to share it with a Steem community, but without sharing it with the entire world, you’ll be able to do that through private communities hosted on OpenSeed.
That line is beautiful!
I’ve resteemed this for a wider audience.
Thanks for such great initiative.
You have my vote
Thanks for the feedback! This is one of those features that people might not realize they want, but once they have the option, they'll choose it 99% of the time. Thanks for commenting!
I already feel like that I am sharing my blog posts with a private community, because I rarely receive human comments. And many people are in the same shoes. There are a lot of blog posts without real human comments (or even any other comment) on the Steem blockchain. Even if they comment, they often write one or two words spam-like comments.
I wonder how often people are using the guest comment option, if most of the the users on the Steem are not even using the built-in comment section. This project at OpenSeed is really ambitious, but the majority of the users on the Steem blockchain are not grown up to it socially. Yet. I hope that they will.
Anything that helps create more awareness when it comes to open sourced software or other open projects is fully supported by MintDice. We openly suggest to our users to find such types of programs like those listed on PrivacyTools on our account FAQ. As such, donating a full upvote in solidarity brothers :)
Is this really possible to delete something from the steem blockchain forever? If someone steals my Artworks and post them , can I claim it and get removed that art completely. I am really concerned by it. And the idea of encryption with group chat and communities is really gonna be great.
No one can remove anything from the Steem blockchain. That being said, images are not stored on the blockchain, and they can theoretically be taken down, for example, if a DMCA request is submitted to the front end developer. Glad you like the encrypted group chat feature, that's going to be one of the first features we release!
Ok for images I understand but what about the content if it is stolen, can that also be taken down like the images?
As of... last year, I think it was hardfork 20, a user can edit their post on steem as often as they like, and in practice that means the owner of the post can delete the contents of the post. Likewise a frontend can opt to not show a users posts. However, neither of these actions remove the post from the chain.
But editing posts does not delete the old posts. The front end show the edited post, but the old one is still on chain you just need to find it. (For example on steemd)
Nothing can be removed from the Steem blockchain by anyone. The reality is that it is very difficult to prevent anyone from plagiarizing your content if you make it public. That is one of the reasons why with OpenSeed we are putting a lot of thought into how we enable creators to control who gains access to their content, and providing those creators with the ability to charge people for that access. Your public content should function more like an advertisement for your private content which only a privileged few have access to. This also makes it easier for users, communities, and creators to police plagiarism.
Without a hardfork. Any change whatsoever can be undertaken by consensus of 17 of the top 20 witnesses. It may be extremely unlikely, but not impossible.
I work along the Thai Burmese border with indigenous refugees in what can only be described as a politically fragile, illegal and often dangerous environment. Group encryption is VERY exciting and has huge application for free speech in warzones and dictatorships.
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Wait after reading this, my understanding is this openseed is another platform separate to Steem. That will further dilute stem and is here to advertise itself? Here in stem. Am I interpreting this wrong?
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Incorrect. If OpenSeed is separate from Steem, so is Steem-Engine. We leverage Steem in several critical ways and without Steem we wouldn’t be able to solve many of the problems we intend to solve. Also, I am part of the Steemit team (and have been for over 3 years) I wouldn’t be collaborating on OpenSeed if there was a conflict.
Hi, thanks for the post! I have included a link and a short description in my daily Science and technology digest, and you'll receive a 10% share of that post's rewards.
I also voted for your proposal. Looks like a great project!
I'm def still interested in creating a flag / downvote MMORPG but I guess in a sense, we already have it... But I think my humor + video game nostalgia may be able to spice things up a bit.
This sounds like exactly the kind of development I have long hoped would impact the web, and Steem particularly, and I am strongly encouraged to see it ongoing.
I am not convinced this is possible, as once shared, others then have the data themselves, and it seems impossible to prevent others from doing with such data as they will, which would make deleting it from the blockchain nothing more than busywork. It is facile to see that Google allowing folks to delete their old searches, which Google has retained, simply deletes the users ability to see those searches, but does not actually delete them from Googles own records. Even if Google was so morally upright as to actually enable users to delete Googles access to that data, any third parties that have acquired that data through partnership or data sharing with Google simply aren't affected, as they have their own database.
Curious as to what ya'll envision might impact this reality regarding data persistence.
Thanks!
You're right, to some extent there is no way to completely delete data off the internet once it has been shared. In the case of the text you quoted this is in reference to off chain data that is stored on our servers. Though this doesn't solve the caching by other services we plan to do everything in our power to delete any data that the user no longer wishes to share.
Well, it is good to realize our limitations, and to limit our promises to what we can actually achieve. I appreciate your forthright response, and expect you will do what you can in that regard.
Thanks!
I very much like the ideas presented, but as in everything proposed, the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes :). I need to dig into the project references provided. That being said, I would love to see a secure way of privately messaging someone within the Steem ecosystem, if only to share a way to continue on another external channel.