Ask HN: Looking for few testers for my website & associated open-source darknet?
I'm a dual-class programmer/lawyer who's decided to use my powers for good. I've made an open-source system to let you copy/lend/share files and media privately with friends. It plugs into a site where you can add friends and recommend stuff to them.

The website is called LibraryMixer. The open-source system is called the Mixologist.

Many have tried before to create software that builds darknets (decentralized, private networks that connect only to your friends). However, darknets have a lot of difficulties that have kept them from being user-friendly enough to gain traction.

I've designed a hybrid system where basic, non-sensitive information such as friends lists are handled through the website, and adding friends or notifying them of your activity is as easy as using Facebook, while all of the communications and file transfers over the Mixologist are direct, encrypted P2P connections and still fully decentralized and private.

The real benefits emerge when you add reviews and lists of what you have or want on Librarymixer, highlighting them for your friends. The world of media is oversaturated with interesting stuff out there, making the problem not how you should get stuff you want, but how you should find the wheat among the chaff. When used together, LibraryMixer and the Mixologist offer the integrated experience of recommending music or videos or books to your friends via your reviews, and if they're interested, the ability to immediately ask to get those from you using the Mixologist via a single click on LibraryMixer.

It's also possible to just drag-and-drop entire folders on your computer into the Mixologist, which your friends can then browse. Or, if you're purely interested in the media reviews and listings, LibraryMixer itself is a fully functional, independent website, and you don't even have to install or use the Mixologist at all.

Unlike past P2P file sharing services that have realistically only had minimal non-copyright infringing uses, this system provides a whole range of other functionality besides just sending copies of files, such as lending and borrowing files, responding with automatic messages (think: "Got your request, will bring it next time I see you."), privately browsing and downloading from your friends' personal collections such as their photos, etc. In this sense, like GMail or instant messengers that are neutral tools, it makes it possible to treat users as adults and place the responsibility of staying within legal limits on the users of the tool. In other words, like back when we had VCRs (if you guys still remember what those are), the VCR had the capacity to record ten thousand copies of that Blockbuster video tape you rented, but at the end of the day, it was only you that prevented yourself from doing that.

I'm hoping for a small group of tech-savvy volunteers to help test this before I launch. Testers would add each other as friends on LibraryMixer and also use the Mixologist for a week or so to give me some honest, substantive feedback.

If this goes anywhere at all in the future, you'll be sure to get some sort of special recognition for helping alpha test.

I'd be super grateful if any of you would be willing to help out, and I can set you up with an account if you email me at mikeliu@librarymixer.com.