Glossary#

<FN>#: The “full name”, sort of: this is a unique identifier that empowers you to access a blob of data (such as an image). Just like in fairy tales and myths, if you know the True Name of a Demon, you have power over it. “<FN>” is the True Name of an object. Details of how it’s constructed are summarized in the section on deduplication and storage.
<TID>#: Transaction Identifier. First discussed in regards to the LEDGER_NAMESPACE, this is a token of sorts, which tracks spending of storage budget. It’s main purpose is to enable systems where users manage (and pay for) their total storage on a system, without any individual files or documents being easily attributable to them. It’s never retained (at rest) anywhere except in either hashed or encrypted form.
addressable worker#: See discussion in the computing section. As distinct from non-addressable worker.
channel#: Essentially a synonym for Room.
channel name#: Essentially a synonym for Room Name. This is the newer term.
CLI#: The command line interface; relevant for administering a Personal Room Server. See command line tools.
Durable Object#: These are “addressable workers”, as implemented by Cloudflare (https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/learning/using-durable-objects). They are also sometimes referred to as “Unique Durable Objects” or “Durable Object Workers”.
file#: We use “file” to refer to anything we store - image, video, document, photo, etc.
KV_global#: Key-value store that is global and accessible by both room and storage servers. See the section on storage for more details.
KV_local#: Key-value store that is local to the room server, e.g. local to each individual Room. See the section on storage for more details.
Ledger Backend#: See the section on Storage Ledger Server.
LEDGER_KEY#: The public half of the server secret for the storage server; the private half needs to be kept offline for specific batch use cases.
Local Storage#: Storage (typically key-value / JSON) in the client. In a web client, this refers to Window.localStorage (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/localStorage), on mobile it will be secure on-device equivalent.
manifest#: The set of information needed to convince the storage server that you are allowed to fetch a certain object, including the parts needed to decrypt it. Specifically: <FN>, <verification>, <salt>, <iv>, <size>.
Micro Federation#: See micro-federation for a discussion.
MOTD#: The “Message of the Day” - can be set by the Owner of any Room, and is presented to anybody joining the room.
non-addressable worker#: See discussion in the computing section. As distinct from addressable worker.
object#: Think of this as a “blob of data”, packaged up in a manner that’s secure, private, and with a globally unique name. See the discussion on images and storage for details.
Origin Server#: The web site or domain that first generated or allocated a particular Room Name. It’s not identified or tracked.
Owner#: Every Room must have an owner, namely, somebody (a human) that is responsible for it’s contents and policies, and who thus also has certain administrative abilities. See here for more details. Owners need to be authenticated by an SSO or equivalent.
Owner Key#: The Public Key Pair corresponding to the Owner of a Room. Every room has an owner, and the owner keys for every room are unique for that room. The Room Name is derived from the owner key.
Personal Room Server#: A Room server that you are running for yourself or for friends and family. On a personal room server, the Owner of every room is the individual operating the room server.
PII#: Personal Indtifiable Information - any information that allows for “you” (the human being) to be uniquely identified (or close to uniquely).
preview#: See section on photo sharing
Public Key Pair#: An RSA public-key pair using SECG curve secp3841. For public room servers they are generated off-line with command line utility and snackabra.crypto.gen_p384_pair().
Restricted#: Rooms can be “restricted” by the Owner. This means that all participants must be approved by the owner. Any new participant will be automatically queued for admission.
Room#: All discussions or chats or conversations or file or document sharing occurs within the context of a room, identified by a Room Name.
Room Name#: The unique 48-byte (64-character b64) string that uniquely identifies a room. It is derived from the Owner Key. Note that the newer name for this is Channel Name.
Social Card ID#: To Be Written. It’s a random 11-digit number (constrained to always start with a ‘1’).
Social ID#: To Be Written.
SSO#: Single Sign-On system: an online service through which you can authenticate to multiple systems. In snackabra, we use “SSO” losely to either reference the https://privacy.app membership service, or whatever you are using in it’s stead. It’s main purpose for snackabra is authenticating an Owner, and to manage the Storage Budget of any Room.
Storage Budget#: The amount of storage (bytes) any particular Room is allowed to use - includes all data, notably of course any uploaded images or files.
thumbnail#: See section on photo sharing
verification#: This is a random 16-byte value associated with every object and serves to defend against various types of side-leakage of privacy. See the discussion on images and storage for details.