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Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

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Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#1

Post by bdominy »

Neucards is an end-to-end encrypted contact information sharing and updating iOS app that protects your identity while letting you keep in touch with people. I started working on neucards as a side project more than ten years ago, and I decided three years ago to go full-time and try to build a community around it.

There are two major problems that neucards addresses. First, most people end up with contact lists that are hopelessly out of date. Over time, people move, change jobs, or add social profiles and unless they tell you, chances are you could lose touch. Second, your contact information ends up in the wrong hands. There has been a huge increase in robocalls, unsolicited emails, data breaches, and online scams that is driven by accessing a person's contact info. Even worse, with AI now being able to imitate a person's voice or other mannerisms, knowledge about the connections you have with others can be used against you.

Neucards automatically updates your contact information for anyone who has your digital contact card. You control your contact information and who has access. This is possible because of end-to-end encryption. Neucards brings the same level of protection for your contact information as Signal or WhatsApp does for your chats. Privacy is built it.

But, even with these protections, you can share your contact info with anyone. As an example, here is a link to my Social card:

https://www.neucards.com/of/braddominy?id=M6TC5PLngD&k=4R98i...

I'm excited about how much neucards has grown and what I have planned for the future to do even more to protect people's privacy. If you have any comments, please let me know.

Brad https://www.neucards.com

Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card
neucards.com

Re: Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#3

Post by alaskamiller »

Another old timer Yahoo engineer showed me something like this at a cupertino coffee shop a few years back but with like half the features ready but the enthusiasm is there so I guess vcf sharing is a pretty deep idea. The headline, sub, and intro copy can do with simple jargons. The nfc cards/stickers are a good incremental add on. Good luck!

Re: Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#4

Post by bdominy »

alaskamiller wrote: post #3

Another old timer Yahoo engineer showed me something like this at a cupertino coffee shop a few years back but with like half the features ready but the enthusiasm is there so I guess vcf sharing is a pretty deep idea. The headline, sub, and intro copy can do with simple jargons. The nfc cards/stickers are a good incremental add on. Good luck!

Thank you! Contacts sharing and updating has had a lot of takes over the years. I remember Plaxo and Bump, back in the day. I'm hoping adding a privacy focus will help people feel more comfortable sharing better information and improving their connections.

Re: Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#8

Post by prophesi »

Any chance of opening the source? I'm a bit confused how it could be E2E-encrypted if the URL doesn't have a URI fragment. This is usually where the key would be located, as the URI fragment isn't sent to the server unless there's malicious code doing otherwise.

Re: Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#9

Post by bdominy »

_1tan wrote: post #6

Cool! Is the app restricted to certain regions at the moment? Unable to download from a EU-country.

Unfortunately, it is restricted to the US App Store due to there being a higher compliance necessary for using encryption in Europe and other countries outside the US. Once I get some traction, I'm planning to release it everywhere.

Re: Show HN: Neucards – Privacy based digital contact card

#10

Post by bdominy »

prophesi wrote: post #8

Any chance of opening the source? I'm a bit confused how it could be E2E-encrypted if the URL doesn't have a URI fragment. This is usually where the key would be located, as the URI fragment isn't sent to the server unless there's malicious code doing otherwise.

For card links, I'm using a one time key to protect the information stored on my server. The end-to-end encryption works when you exchange cards using the Neucards app with another Neucards user. It's a tricky situation because people won't use it if it isn't able to quickly exchange contact info like a vcard or other digital cards. The goal was to make sure nothing could be read by a third party without the user giving them access. As for opening the source, I'm going to wait and see. I understand the need for verification, but it is also difficult to make a living doing that.
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