Notifications on Public data with external opt-in services

Apps Storage (Gaia)
#1

Hey there! First time poster here sharing an idea I’ll be working on in the close future for my project kit

The main feature request I got is Notifications

I decided to build them in an unconventional hacky way.
Here’s my idea:

  1. In the settings you have an opt-in notifications option, if toggled it asks you an email or phone number and charges you 10$ one time fee
  2. Whenever you open the app a public .json file with the next 3 months of dates is generated with true and false values for each date
  3. A robot of mine grabs that .json every day at a certain hour depending on your timezone, if it reads a “true” value for that date you get an email/message on WhatsApp saying “you have to contact someone, visit kit.st to see who it is”

If the three months expire without you opening the app notifications are stopped and your personal data (email/phone number) is deleted.

This would be a temporary solution as I hope that when I figure out how to make a mobile app with blockstack the phone should enable background processes and notifications.

Any feedback on this? Is it a dumb idea?

#2

I was confused by the word Notifications. Looking at your kit link Reminders makes more sense.

Think it is a cool idea that the personal data is deleted. Tho, keep in mind that a lot of people get into Blockchain because they don’t like to give out their email and personal data. So, people might not like handing that over.

A better way might be to have a postal box or way station model.

  1. I sign up with your service with my ID.
  2. I give someone your service and ID via whatever means I choose.
  3. They can then join your service or send an email to your service with my ID in the cc say…and it gets queued in my notifications.

That would act like notifications and the person I give my ID to never has my email address. You would need to support a “general email box” so

to-email: [email protected]
subject: This is a message to moxiegirl
cc: moxiegirl.id.blockstack

Questons around sending encrypted etc…blah, blah.

#3

Probably, I wouldn’t write true/false for each date, but just the date for the next reminder dates for the next three months.

A public .json file is not a good idea:

The user should subscribe to your service like in 1. then she receives a public key and the app writes the dates when to send reminders in a file at a well-known location encrypted with that key. (It could also contain the push notification url, so no email or phone number needs to be transferred.)

Your service grabs the jsons, decrypts it with the private key and schedules the push message/email/matrix.org message (instead of whats app :stuck_out_tongue:)

The user should be able to unsubscribe from these notifications of your service as well.