Why Veilid
This was originally published as a Page on the fediverse 2024-08-09. I'm moving off that account, and am unsure about the longevity of the instance, so it's copied here for posterity.
I've been irritating my friends and family about the up-and-coming Veilid software framework for about a year now. Since I first saw teases about it on Mastodon, leading up to the reveal at 2023s Defcon 31, the project has reignited an interest in hacking on software in me that had been ground to dust from nearly 30 years of being paid to do so.
In those conversations I've found it hard to describe what Veilid does without conflating that with what it means. So I'm going to try to get my thoughts out here and just point people to this in the future, and maybe sell the idea of why it's important, and especially why it's important now.
What it is: a software framework that allows people to build internet connected applications without needing to run server infrastructure. Things are private and encrypted by default, to a level that should let people sleep soundly unless they are being directly targeted by a government sized entity. Every application running on every device can function as a network router and bit of storage supporting the whole Veilid network of applications.
There is also a proof-of-concept Veilidchat application that went into open beta today. It's the first official application out on the network, and is helping to iron out underlying issues with the framework and flesh out the possibility space of what Veilid can (and can't) do. Right now it's limited to one-on-one chats with connections made outside of the app itself, and no file or media transfer, but there are ambitious plans for the future.
Why it matters: The internet ain't what it used to be. It started off mostly anonymous, distributed, (mostly) free, and largely ephemeral. Now the big players want your phone number and legal name to sign into a glorified chat room. They have financial incentives to make your "private" interactions easily collected, searchable, and tagged to be sold off to the highest bidder. Also the lowest and every other bidder.
That bidder can be the government who is supposed to protect you. They can use the technicality that this data is for sale as an excuse to exercise a disgusting level of surveillance against anyone at all. They are able to buy their way into data that they could never get a warrant for. Not to mention what anyone and everyone else can do with it, from trying to sell you stuff to selling your address to stalkers.
The distributed, theoretically "bomb proof" architecture of the internet has been reduced to massive reliance on a few dozen huge data centers run by a handful of companies. Those companies buy, bury, or steal any exciting new technologies out of the blind terror that someone else might distract the investor class away from them.
Veilid has the promise to be something of an antidote to all of that. When used as intended, anonymity and privacy are restored. There is no central power that wants you sell your personal information, so there's no reason to collect it. There are no servers to pay for, or investors to grovel to, so no existential reason to sell ads. The government would need to get a warrant to try to crack your encryption, not just buy it in bulk out of curiosity. There aren't convenient piles of your sexts lying around to be sold off to AI startups.
Everyone using a Veilid-backed app can contribute a little of the things that are distributed in abundance now- computing power, storage, and bandwidth. In return, they get the internet of the past back and a chance at a future where corporate interests are not the driving force behind innovation, and where anyone with moderate skills can write a scalable application without having to sell out their principles to finance it.
So, I've been doing this for decades and could throw my energy behind any number or worthy projects... why Veilid? In the end it's because of the people behind it. I've been quietly watching how they make decisions, the focus they put on their values, and the care they show the community growing around them. They balance the adult needs of such a technically and socially challenging project with curiosity, fun, and humility. They genuinely seem to want to improve this corner of the world, and I think they have the experience to do so without falling into the many traps that plague projects like this.
In the end I believe these folks would turn down vast sums of money to see this incredibly necessary project through with integrity, and it turns out that's what I need to be passionate about this shit again.