I cleaned up this thread about decentralized contact book in a blog post here:
https://blogue.narf.ca/2023/09/federated-contact-book/

I'm very open to receiving feedback. What is preventing this from existing? This is a old problem; why don't we have a solution yet?

#decentralizedContacts #contactBook #p2p #localFirstApps #FederatedProfile #DecentralizedIdentity #FederatedIdentity #FederatedContactApp #ContactApps #OpenProtocol #privacy #email

Do you know any existing services that do something like that? Am I trying to re-invent something that already exists?

#DecentralizedIdentity #decentralizedContacts #FederatedContactApp #FederatedIdentity #ContactApps

This system should be an open standard, so that all existing contact book apps could implement it. Kinda like an updated version of CardDAV (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CardDAV).

And ideally, all of that would be end-to-end encrypted, so that only your friends get to see your personal data. The host where you store your profile and your friends hosts should not be able to read your contact info!

#CardDAV #openStandard #FederatedIdentity #FederatedContactApp #E2EE #E2EEncryption #encryption #privacy

You should have total privacy control of who as access to your personal information. For example, you could hide your phone number by default and people would have to send you a request before seeing it. And would could decide for how long to give it access to: forever or maybe just a couple months? (The default could be something like 2 years.)

#FederatedContactApp #federatedProfile #DecentralizedIdentity #privacy

But if you do have a compatible contacts app (and ideally, all currently existing contact book apps would support this open standard) you can add that URL in your app to save the profile of your friend. At the start, you only see their public profile. But you can then send a friend request to see their private info, which would include things like their personal email address, personal phone number and home address.

#FederatedContactApp #FederatedProfile #DecentralizedIdentity

You could open that web address using any browser to see the person's public profile, which is a good default if you don't have a compatible contacts app. This public profile would list public information that your friend want to share, like maybe their Linkedin profile or work phone number and a short bio.

#FederatedContactApp #federatedProfile #DecentralizedIdentity

Here's how I would imagine a decentralize and federated contact book:

When someone want to give their email or phone number, instead of giving it directly, they would give you their "contact book profile", which would be an web address that would be short and easy to remember. (ex: contactbook.org/narf)

#federatedContactApp #decentralizedContacts #email #federatedProfile

So how do we get there? How do we make a system that is as practical as Facebook was back in the day, but not centralized in the hands of a private company?

And what would it look like in practice?

#FederatedContactApp #decentralizedContacts