Field Notes

Modern feed infrastructure for the future of the web.

First Test

This is the intro to Wirepost. a new protocol for the future of web data.

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The decision is read where it is used, not passed in. openFeed had a decrypt parameter defaulting to true, threaded from two call sites — and a privacy setting that two callers must remember to forward is one a caller eventually forgets. Forgetting it means decrypting for somebody who explicitly asked not to, which is the single failure this control exists to prevent. The parameter is gone; openFeed reads the vault, so there is no path that can skip it:

Follow this publication

Paste this into a Wirepost reader:

@ten-minute-test.pages.dev

No Wirepost reader? Atom or RSS works in any feed reader you already have.

The full address, and what it proves

That handle is a name, not a hash — short enough to say out loud. Your reader looks it up on this domain and then checks the identity below for itself, so the name is a convenience and never the proof.

The full address, which also records where you started:

feed://bagaaiera7gu6iugdagrkbgy3fkj5622x3ah45a3beohmc66wlwvh2iz6da3q?seq=2&root=95ece753b03a83cd1895a8afdbff21d498a96a4886b4413413598370d6e8a231&web=https%3A%2F%2Ften-minute-test.pages.dev%2F

It records that you started here, at post 2. If the address ever serves an older copy of this publication than the one you were given, your reader will say so instead of quietly showing you less.

Underneath that address, this publication is one permanent identity: feed://bagaaiera7gu6iugdagrkbgy3fkj5622x3ah45a3beohmc66wlwvh2iz6da3q — a hash of its own first record, not a domain name. It does not change if this page moves to a different address.

Every post here is signed by this publication's own key, so a Wirepost reader can tell you it really came from here and that nothing has been altered since. That proves origin, not truth: a signature says who wrote something, and it says nothing about whether they were right.

Once you have followed this publication your reader remembers where it got to, and will tell you if the history it is offered later contradicts what it already has. The first time you subscribe there is nothing to compare against yet.

Atom and RSS carry the posts, but not the signatures — an ordinary feed reader has no way to check who wrote them.