Free on one device. Synced when you want it.

No account needed #

Node Paper is open source, and the app is free. It runs in your browser and installs like an app, and your lists are stored in a database on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere, so there’s no account to make and nothing to pay. Every feature works this way.

Keep a backup now and then: Settings, then Sync & data, then Export saves everything to one file you can import again.

Why sync costs money #

Your lists on one device cost nobody anything. Your lists on all your devices, kept backed up and moving between them, means someone has to hold them and move them for you, safely, privately and quickly, all the time.

That someone can be you: the open-source app comes with a small sync server you can run on your own machine. It costs your time and your hardware, and it’s built for your own private network: it has no accounts and no end-to-end encryption. Or Node Paper can do it for you, encrypted end to end, for 1,000 satoshis a month.

How sync works #

• Your device comes first. Everything still works offline, and the app never waits for the network. Sync happens in the background.
• Changes show up in seconds. An edit goes out about a second after you stop typing, and your other devices are told straight away. Edit on two devices at once and you’ll see the changes appear on each other in near real time.
• Offline is fine. Changes made without a connection wait on the device and go out when it’s back.
• Edits merge. Two devices changing different bullets, or different parts of one bullet, both keep their changes. If both change the same thing, the later edit wins.
• As many devices as you like.

Paying for it #

Your first day of sync is free. After that it’s 1,000 satoshis a month, 2,700 for three months, or 9,600 for twelve. Once you’re paying, you can buy more months ahead whenever you like. You pay a Lightning invoice from any bitcoin wallet: scan the QR code or open it in your wallet.

If you stop paying, nothing is lost. Sync pauses, everything stays on your devices and keeps working, and when you pay again it picks up where it left off.

Privacy: sealed on your device #

Everything you write is encrypted on your device before it’s sent, with a key only your account can unlock. The server stores your lists sealed, and can’t open them.

The key #

When you make an account, your device makes a random key for your data. It locks that key with your account’s own key and stores it on the server only in that locked form. Each device you sign in on unlocks it with your account’s key. We never have your account’s key, or your data’s. More on how your account’s key is used.

What the server can and can’t see #

It can’t see anything you wrote: no bullet, page name, fact or relation. To sync, it does see:

• your account’s public key (your npub)
• when your devices sync, and how many there are
• how many bullets you have and how much space they take
• which parts of a bullet changed (say, its text or its checkbox), but not what they say
• your plan and payments
• IP addresses, in the web server’s logs, which are kept for a week

From those logs it counts, each day, how many devices use the app and how many people visit this site (robots left out), and keeps only the counts: nothing that tells one person from another.

Payments go through Strike, which makes the Lightning invoices. An invoice says only what it’s for (“Node Paper sync, 3 months”), nothing about your account.

If you lose your key #

Nobody else holds it, so nobody can recover your synced lists without it, us included. Your devices keep their copies, and you can export them. Settings can show your secret key again on a device you’re signed in on, so you can write it down.