README.md

WhisperBlog

Interactive blog, with a unique chain-like structure

Usage

WhisperBlog is a basic social media site that works entirely sequentially, where making a new post can only happen with the passcode. The initial post, from AddPost is made with creation of the chain. From this point, making a post randomly generates the new passcode. This can then be given to someone new, who then creates the next post.

This was designed to be a digital chinese whispers, posts then circulate in turn around a small social group. The chain could also move around society if the passcode is given to a more broad range of people. Uniquely, WhisperBlog does not require user accounts like mainstream social media, but also facilitates a chain of trust between posters unlike anonymous social media platforms.

Clicking Vote on each post allows reacting to this post, where possible reactions are random English adjectives. There is room for 6 anonymous reactions, where further reactions can be made by providing a passcode that was valid for the 3 previous posts. This means that attributed reactions, that carry more weight, can outvote any attempt to spam reactions.

After 5 days of inactivity, the previous passcode can also make a new post. This ensures that the chain does not get stuck with one person. Then every 2 days, the next previous person can also make a post using their previous passcode.

How to build and run

Quick run

Note that this will be insecure as the encryption key is in the public image

docker run -p 8000:8007 georgejmx/whisper-blog:latest

Manual build and run

• This will build locally. Modify your config package to look like;

package config

import "os"

var (
	DB_FILEPATH      string
	AES_IV           string // must be of length 32
	AES_SPLICE_INDEX string // must be a string parsable to >=0 and <= 31
)

/* Sets environment variables ued by program. Will be different for integration
tests than in production */
func SetupEnv(isProduction bool) {
	if isProduction {
		DB_FILEPATH = "./data/blog.db"
		AES_IV = "[YOUR IV]"
		AES_SPLICE_INDEX = "[YOUR SPLICE INDEX]"
	} else {
		DB_FILEPATH = "./data/blog_test.db"
		AES_IV = "snooping6is9bad0"
		AES_SPLICE_INDEX = "28"
	}
	os.Setenv("DB_FILEPATH", DB_FILEPATH)
	os.Setenv("AES_IV", AES_IV)
	os.Setenv("AES_SPLICE_INDEX", AES_SPLICE_INDEX)
}

Also adjust the constants at the top of client/src/main.js to match the above values for [YOUR IV] and [YOUR SPLICE INDEX]. This means rebuilding your obfuscated client/public/main.js using cd client && npm run bundle. Now time to build

Using docker

docker build -t wb-img . docker run -p 8000:8007 wb-img

Keep this image private to ensure the only way of finding your secret key would be to reverse engineer the backend binary, ideal to deploy on the cloud

Manually

• Run go test ./... to ensure your build is stable
• Execute go build -o server to generate a linux binary
• Put this binary wherever, next to a blank data/ directory where the database will be generated
• ./server will spin the whole thing up with only sqlite needed