Mastodawn

Adam Hawk Oct 15

I made a thing called Wellness Ping because someone I care about went silent and it took too long for anyone to notice.

You get regular check-ins via email. If you don't respond, your emergency contacts get notified.

Built it for anyone who might go missing and needs someone to notice: activists, journalists, researchers, solo folks.

I paid for premium hosting (high-reliability VPS in Sweden) and a quality email provider because uptime actually matters for something like this. Also paying extra for minimal data retention (7 days email activity, working toward zero content storage).

Free forever (as long as I'm alive) and open source.

https://wellness-p.ing

Wellness Ping

Micr0byte Oct 15

oh also there is no javascript, cuz screw javascript

@micr0 The image is a horizontal bar chart representing the percentages of different languages. The title, “Languages”, is positioned above the chart. The chart consists of three colored bars representing Go, HTML, and CSS.

The first bar, colored blue, represents 72.5% and takes up the majority of the chart. The second bar, colored red, represents 26.9%. The third bar, colored purple, represents 0.6%. The text “Go 72.5%”, “HTML 26.9%”, and “CSS 0.6%” is displayed below each respective colored bar.

Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Gemma3:27b

🌱 Energy used: 0.098 Wh

MostlyBlindGamer Oct 15

@altbot your alt text is overly long and verbose, and doesn’t effectively communicate function. I would like you to not waste energy in my name, as a visually impaired person.

@altbot @MostlyBlindGamer

Wow, that is truly and spectacularly awful AltText, yikes!

#AltText4You
Chart showing languages used:
Go: 72.5%
HTML: 26.9%
CSS: 0.6%
Demonstrates poster’s claim that no javascript is used.

MostlyBlindGamer Oct 22

@DavidM_yeg @altbot organic, sustainably sourced, brain-to-post alt text. Delicious. Concise and functional, hats off to you.

We won’t be replaced by AI, at most we’ll accept mediocrity.

@MostlyBlindGamer @altbot

lol … you almost make me sound like an entree, but I’ll take it! 😉

MostlyBlindGamer Oct 22

@DavidM_yeg @altbot hahaha. Maybe I was too hungry for the internet.

40796c19 Oct 15

@micr0 #alt4you github project language graph showing go at 72.5%, html at 26.9%, and css at 0.6%

Micr0byte Oct 15

@40796c19 alredy have alt-text, it just didnt federate, damn I love how bad fedi is at federating edits.

40796c19 Oct 15

@micr0 no it federated, altbot's alt text is just unnecessarily long and far too detailed for something that doesn't need two paragraphs of description

voidsent doll Oct 15

@40796c19 @micr0 alt text should be descriptive but not excessive

also like. why leave in the <plain>”Provided by @altbot, generated privately and locally using Gemma3:27b”</plain>????????

Micr0byte Oct 15

@0x57e11a @40796c19 i prefer to let people know when content is AI-generated. That is why I always leave it.

voidsent doll Oct 15

@micr0 @40796c19 or just. write it yourself? having an alt text generator llm is not an excuse to be lazy and not write actually good alt text

Neil D. Foster Oct 15

@0x57e11a @40796c19 @micr0

i agree with the sentiment of always trying to get the best alt text, but i feel like altbot can be a pretty good tool for speeding up the process

it's often pretty hard for me to describe things with words so having altbot helps a lot

also i think that it's still a good idea to keep the little """AI""" disclaimer unless the text did actually get revised by a sapient being

voidsent doll Oct 15

@goat @40796c19 @micr0 ig leaving the disclaimer in is fair. altbot is better than nothing, but at the moment the llm generates mediocre quality alt text, there's room for improvement ofc
is it not better for someone who has the time to at least try to write better alt text?
it's still a bit ironic that the sentiment of trying to get the best alt text has gotten this one blocked by the creator of altbot, who didn't write their own alt text

fox brown Oct 15

@micr0 hello, is this app similar to your's? https://github.com/keepalivedev/KeepAlive

GitHub - keepalivedev/KeepAlive: Android app to notify others if you haven't used your device in a given period of time.

Android app to notify others if you haven't used your device in a given period of time. - keepalivedev/KeepAlive

GitHub

@brownfox @micr0 for one, they're kind of orthogonal. If your phone is the only thing not operational, one will alert, and the other will not.

Micr0byte Oct 15

@brownfox Yes, kinda similar but that requires your device to be on, if someone turns your device off they easily disarmed your whole system.

I know a person who was using this app but when their apartment was raided authorities seized their phone and all devices and turned them off, so it didn't work.

But its a good option for people who are less concerned about stuff like that!

fox brown Oct 16

@micr0 I see. Thank you.

@micr0 NOICE!

Michael Rosen (Nice) - GREEN SCREEN 4K60

YouTube

Maypop the Dragon Oct 15

@micr0 based blind javascript hatred

Neil D. Foster Oct 15

@micr0 what the fuck micro, you are truly wonderful

David Zaslavsky Oct 15

@micr0 Awesome! I love to see useful yet simple applications of tech like this.

Suramya Tomar Oct 15

@micr0
This is pretty cool and interesting.

Does it take into account people going on vacation or visiting someplace with limited connectivity? 'cause I travel a lot and some of it is to places where I don't have reliable internet and I wouldn't want everyone to panic because I missed a check in due to connectivity issues.

Micr0byte Oct 15

@suramya You can simply disable the Ping (by logging in with the same email and turning your account off) and then when you come back you can turn it back on.

But if you want a more specific feel free to ask i will look into it!

Suramya Tomar Oct 15

Thanks for the explanation.

I was thinking of something more like being able to tell the system that I am going to be out for the next two weeks (as an example) and having it disable the checks for the two weeks and then auto reenable the checks post that.

That way I wouldn't have to remember to reenable it after I am back

Micr0byte Oct 15

@suramya I'll add this to my list!

Nicole Parsons Oct 15

For people that the ICE gestapo plan on "disappearing" this is an excellent precaution.

Thank you for developing it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/14/petros-krommidas-missing-long-beach-election/

https://apnews.com/article/missing-candidate-election-petros-krommidas-long-island-2a8b2fb150fbe77824a2f17c1e28e26c

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/nyregion/nassau-candidate-missing.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/long-island-republicans-criticized-petros-krommidas-missing/

A man disappeared while running for office. He might still win.

Petros Krommidas went missing at a New York beach five months ago. Because he hasn’t been declared dead, a judge ruled voters should still be able to elect him.

The Washington Post

@micr0 Nice! Years ago when we first started getting smart phones with data I wanted to make a sort of “kill switch” app (needed a less morbid name) that you could set up to message contacts if you didn’t regularly check in. At the time I was thinking about solo hikers and travellers.

cwicseolfor Oct 15

@mez @micr0 Always made me think of tonic signaling in nerves - basically the hum of background is noise, but silence is the signal.

Mitex Leo Oct 15

@micr0 Awesome!

plasticine_era Oct 15

David J. Atkinson Oct 15

@micr0 @alice You are a good person 🫶🏼

Kim Scheinberg Oct 15

@micr0
I would be happy to kick in some financial resources to keep this running

Micr0byte Oct 15

@kims I have a GitHub sponsors page set up as well as Kofi <3 (GitHub preferred due to lower fees)

https://github.com/sponsors/micr0-dev
https://ko-fi.com/micr0byte

Sponsor @micr0-dev on GitHub Sponsors

hi i made altbot admin of wetdry.world and owner of fuzzies.wtf also post silly things on mastodon

GitHub

Gabriel Pires Oct 15

@micr0 Very nice! :)

coldclimate Oct 15

@micr0 this is amazing, thank you

fluffy 💜Oct 15

@micr0 @dgar once upon a time I started building such a thing that would be fed by me using my feed reader but I didn’t have the attention span to see it through. I’m happy to see this existing.

datenwolf Oct 15

@micr0 cool project. It should have some way to sign the PONGs, though, otherwise obtaining control over the email address the PINGs go to would negate it. I'm thinking using some PBKDF to derive the key from a passphrase. Signing the PONG verification code should happen client side though, so maybe bite that sour apple and have a tiny bit of JS to talk to the Web Crypto APIs https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Crypto

Crypto - Web APIs | MDN

The Crypto interface represents basic cryptography features available in the current context. It allows access to a cryptographically strong random number generator and to cryptographic primitives.

MDN Web Docs

Jayson Smith Oct 15

@datenwolf @micr0 It's funny, I was thinking this exactly! I don't live/work in such circles, but if someone were deliberately disappeared, and their government or whomever got control of their Email account and devices, this would be rendered meaningless since they could just keep responding, then the intended emergency contacts are none the wiser. I was thinking of a solution (sorry I'm not much of a programmer) where each pong must be accompanied by a secret passphrase known only to the user, and ideally stored as plaintext only in their mind. Of course this rules out responding by Email, since even if you're careful to always delete your pong from your Sent folder, fragments probably still remain.

datenwolf Oct 15

@jaybird110127 @micr0

Replay attacks are one of the most basic cryptographic protocol weaknesses. Hence my suggestion to use PBKDF derived asymmetric signatures for signing the reply to the random verification token.

By randomizing the verification token replay attack is mitigated, and by signing with PBKDF derived signature impersonation is mitigated.

Jayson Smith Oct 15

@datenwolf @micr0 Still, if an adversary has access to the user's devices, they could potentially respond to the ping in exactly the same way as the user would have, thus failing to communicate that anything is in fact wrong. What would really be needed is some form of biometric authentication which cannot be replicated or bypassed, but of course not every user is going to have a fingerprint sensor, etc. on their devices. Even my idea of a passphrase is susceptible to coercion, unless there's also a panic passphrase designed to be sacrificed, which acts just like the real thing, but in fact sends a panic notice to emergency contacts. I've never actually been in such a situation, but I've always been fascinated by systems intended to deal with such situations.

Micr0byte Oct 15

@jaybird110127 @datenwolf I was gonna add a pin in the next version (and a durress pin) so for those who need the greater security, they go to the link and enter their pin to do the check-in. and if someone forces you to check in you can enter your duress pin which will imedetly alert yoir contacts.

datenwolf Oct 16

@jaybird110127 @micr0 Biometrics suck for this kind of purpose, since any cheap-enough-for-the-consumer-market technology lacks the sophistication to not be fooled by easily copied features.

Passphrases can be stored in muscle memory. If you'd ask me to write down my passwords (with a pen on paper) I honestly couldn't do it. I have them stored in muscle memory (which also means that I have very hard time, i.e. impossible) to punchem them in on touchscreens.

@micr0 Cool idea! Thank you. I don't need it right now, but like the idea. Maybe later, this can be moved to any foundation, that it is not dependent from one single person. Thanks for your work.

@micr0 Brilliant!

Justin Macleod Oct 15

@micr0 Thank you for building it.

@micr0 you're the goatest!

Montessori Space Programme 🛸Oct 15

@micr0 This is a great initiative.

alina cyborg mouse

neomouse_cyborg

@micr0 oooh sweet! i made something like that for myself many years ago and thankfully it hasn't been triggered. it was set up so that after enough time without a reaction it would also release all the information required to get to my passwords with physical access to a trusted loved one.
wellness ping is a much better name than my dead man's switch, and offering it as a service is great!

@micr0 once built something like this, a while ago, but as a thing that had to be self-hosted and relied on a bunch of shoddy bash.

This is cool. Thank you for building this.