How it works

Five things, in the order you meet them.

1 · Install, and the app sets itself up

You open the app and answer two questions: your name, and what you call a piece of work (a project, a job, a case, a matter). The app then fetches its brain, about 2.5 GB, once. From then on it thinks on your Mac. No account. No password. No sign-in.

2 · Your own room

"My room" is yours alone. You chat with your companion, you dictate, you keep notes. Nobody else can see it, ever. The companion keeps a short memory of the last minutes across all your chats, and the long memory of everything you decided.

3 · The Common Room

The shared room is where you meet other people and other companies. Everything said there is kept and can be read back months later. A decision is only a decision when the people in the room confirm it. The record shows who said what, and from which device.

4 · The door

Nobody walks into your room. This is how a guest comes in:

1. The pass. You invite a person by name and email. The room makes a signed pass and drafts the email in your own Mail. Your press sends it.
2. The word at the door. The room also makes four words. You tell them to the guest by phone or in person, never in the email. A stolen email is useless without them.
3. The knock. On your wifi the guest opens the pass. From far away the guest opens a page in any browser and knocks. The knock travels through our cloud sealed, and our cloud cannot read it.
4. Your press. The guest waits at the door. You see their name, and whether this is a device you have seen before. You press "let in" or "refuse". Only then are they in.

A guest who has been let in is a member and comes back as often as you both like. Their device keeps a key, so the room knows the same person came back, and says so in red if a different device turns up under the same name.

5 · Our cloud, and what it can see

Our cloud does three small jobs. It is a postbox for rooms that are not on the same wifi, and every letter in it is sealed to a key it does not hold. It is a shelf where the app fetches our signed knowledge. And it is a counter that knows how many copies have been installed. It never sees a word you say.