Shrib it up!

All about shrib.com

shrib.com is meant to be such a simple web app that no instructions are needed. If you need them, we have failed. However, it may be that you will find a few details and uses for this website by going through this page of instructions.

The document is split up into different uses of the tool:

take a simple note
take a note and keep it
take a confidential note

At the very bottom, you'll find a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, our little legal disclaimer and some final comments and links.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us!

take a simple note

This one's simple, really...

Think of a name for your note. For the example, let me call it "stuff"
Go to http://shrib.com/stuff
Write your note into the text area
hit the button "save notes" in the top left corner
Do whatever you like in your life
when you come back to the internet, call up the same web address again (http://shrib.com/stuff in this example)
read your note
edit your note
hit the button "save notes" in the top left corner again
...and so on...

Note: You will realize that your notes can be overwritten or changed by others, and that they can be read by others. If this is a concern, read on. Otherwise: enjoy!

take a note and keep it

If it is important for you that your note persists, you will need to save copies or backups. If you don't, it might happen that someone else will use your note name ("stuff" in the example above) and save a different note with it - overwriting yours.

You will need the "advanced options" to be turned on to use the following features.

save backup means that the previous version of the note with the current name is backed up when you hit the "save notes" button
save copy means that a copy of the current version of the note with the current name is saved - along with the actual note - when you hit the "save notes" button

These are the details:

before you save your important notes, make sure you check the "save copy" option
If your notes are changed when you come back to them: click on the "view old versions" link and retrieve the version you had saved before. Note that only the most recent 5 copies (and backups) are displayed.
If you want to be absolutely sure to have your copy, store the link displayed at the very bottom of the page after you saved your notes.
The backup checkbox shouldn't really ever bother you. It is automatically checked if there has been other content in the note when you called it, and unchecked otherwise.

For now, copies are kept for at least one month and backups for at least one week. Feel free to challenge this arbitrary decision with your good arguments! Please read through our legal disclaimer at the bottom of this page, by the way.

Note: Your important notes will now be safe from overwrites by others, but they can still be read by others. If this is a concern, read on. Otherwise: enjoy!

take a confidential note

If you are so confident as to use shrib.com for your secrets, let us first thank you very much for your trust. The good thing is we can assure you that if you use the provided locking feature, neither your password, nor your note's clear text will be sent over the internet, nor is it known to us who have access to the server.

You will need the "advanced options" to be turned on to use the following features.

Here's how you lock and unlock your notes:

write your notes, as described above
before saving, click on "lock these notes".
You will see a dialog asking for a password. The longer and the more complicated your password, the more secure. A very long and very complicated password is proposed, but feel free to change it to whatever you like - and whatever you can remember!
Hit "Ok", and the frame background will switch from blue to orange.
The next time you hit "save notes", your notes will be locked (or "encrypted") before being sent to the server. Please note that, depending on your computer, this might take a long time if you have a very long text.
When the saving is done, a new popup will appear, asking you for the password again. This happens because the server (and us) doesn't know your password. So if you want to see your notes in clear text again, you'll need to re-enter your password. Note the frame background color change again.
As before, you can now continue editing the text and saving it. As long as the background is orange, your text is locked.
To unlock your notes again, just hit the "unlock" link. The frame background color will change back to blue, and the next time you save the notes, they will be saved in clear text.

Note: the locking feature is only available in Javascript-enabled browsers. Specifically, notes saved with a Javascript-enabled browser will never be readable with a browser without Javascript support!

If you are technically inclined and interested, please feel free to make sure we are not fooling you or the other users. The entire password handling, encryption and decryption are done within the javascript routines of shrib.js (which is a compressed version of shrib.inflated.js). If you find any problems, please let us know!

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I send someone a direct link to the "nice view" of my note?

Yes. simply add a "?niceview" to the URL. Example:
http://shrib.com/stuff
becomes
http://shrib.com/stuff?niceview

How do I know whether my note is "safe"?

If the frame of the text area is blue, the contained text would be saved in clear text. If it is orange, the text will be locked (encrypted) in your browser before being saved on the server.

I forgot the password to unlock my note. How can I get it back?

You cannot get it from us. Due to the strong client-side encryption used by shrib.com, we don't know either your password, or your clear text note. Your note is lost unless you do remember the password after all.

How do I know whether the most recent edits on my note are saved?

As long as the "save notes" button is disabled ("greyed out"), your notes have not been changed. You can safely browse away from the page without losing data.

legal disclaimer

By using the shrib.com, you acknowledge that there are no guarantees related to its services. Specifically, none of the notes transmitted to this server is guaranteed to ever arrive here or find its way back to you or anyone else. Also, the encryption is done by and inside your browser. There are no guarantees that this process is not tampered in one way or another. Specifically, passwords and clear text might be read, copied and transmitted by other programs or code on your computer. And someone might be looking over your shoulders while you enter the password.

Due to spam and bots (malicious software that litters a lot of webspace), we had to introduce some basic spam filtering. We hope you are not hindered in your sensible use of shrib.com. If you encounter a completely empty page at shrib.com, it means you are confronted with our spam filter. Please let us know if you are and feel we should improve our filter.

final comments and links

This web app was developed by Luzi Schucan. Guo Min has contributed the Chinese translation, Dominik Raub and Ueli Maurer at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, have supported us with good advice on encryption in general, and the encryption and decryption code was entirely developed by John Walker who has brought us JavaScrypt.

Many thanks to these fine people!

Last, but not least, here are some shrib.com alternatives. All of them fit a slightly different need.

And finally, here's the last chance to let us know what you think! Have fun with shrib.com!