TrustInTheWeb.org
Trust in the Web
Find people and things through people you trust.
When we're looking for information, like
funding or a job Funding, a grant, or a role someone you trust knows is opening up. , a flat A place coming free before it's ever listed online. , or a cleaner or a doctor Someone your friends already vouch for, not a random review.
and we'd rather ask our friends for leads,
TrustWeb is the infrastructure that makes that
more scalable
What asking a friend already does, just one hop further. Acquaintances are
the biggest source of new opportunities, but a Superconnector can only connect people
they personally know, and reposting is highly ineffective (under 4% of matches).
TrustWeb is built so a question can travel one hop further, with consent at each step
(today it reaches your direct connections; the demo shows the next hop).
Example
We wouldn't fix up our apartment to make it an
Airbnb, but if a friend of a friend needs a spot, we have one.
Learn more →
,
more discreet
Nobody sees your ask unless it was meant for them. A no looks just like no
match, so even a decline gives nothing away. Discreet, and discrete too (both
meanings intended): private, no public marketplace, nothing broadcast; and discrete,
because trust itself is three categorical rings, close friend, friend, acquaintance,
never a continuous score.
Example
Asking who a good pediatrician is, or who to trust
with a housesitting job, without it ever becoming a public post anyone can see.
Learn more →
and
more targeted
Reaches the few people who might actually know, not a whole group chat. A
question travels through the rings of people you actually trust, and the answer comes
back showing how it was found.
Example
Asking who has set up a small association in Austria,
and reaching the four people who might actually know, not a three-hundred-person
group chat.
Learn more →
.
We have always trusted our friends, and now we have a way to represent it digitally.
What it can do today
- Ask your direct contacts a question in plain words; each of them decides whether to answer, and nothing is shared without a yes.
- Keep the people you trust in three rings: close friend, friend, acquaintance.
- Record and keep a meeting, with its notes and transcript.
- Keep an inventory of what you could offer, lend or point to.
Passing a question on further through friends is not built yet. It is the vision.
A pilot for communities
For EA groups
TrustWeb is an app that lets people ask their community's notes a question. After a conversation you save a few notes; someone in the group asks; the holder sees the question, not the asker, is alerted once a day only on a match, and approves or declines (a decline looks like “nothing found”). Notes stay on each phone, and you can import them from your own Swapcard export.
We start with EA groups, run a test event in April 2027, and plan an opt-in pilot at EA Global London (May 2027). Record only what you would happily pass on in a warm introduction; anyone can have items about them deleted.
Two sides of one coin
How it works
Asking is what is new, so it comes first. It only finds something once notes exist.
Querying
Ask your web a question in plain words. It travels through the rings of people who chose to make their notes askable, and the answer comes back showing how it was found.
A decline looks exactly like no match, so a "no" gives nothing away either.
Taking notes
Right after meeting someone, jot down what's worth remembering: what they're looking for, what they can offer, who they are. Voice or typed, on your own device, nothing sent anywhere until you choose to share it.
Place them in a ring, close friend, friend, or acquaintance, and choose who can even ask about each line.
Notes have to exist before a question has anything to find. Everyone starts on the notes side; the querying side only gets useful once enough of it is there.
Where this is headed
Early, mid, and late game
The early game looks nothing like the late game, and the live demo you just tried is deliberately just the early game.
Early game · now
One connection at a time
Taking notes during high-trust encounters is how the web forms at all: one conversation, one note, one ring assignment. Nothing to query yet without this part first.
Mid game
Querying starts paying off
Once enough people are taking notes, asking the web starts finding things a single friend group never could: a question reaches further, still only through people who chose to be askable, still with a decline looking exactly like no match.
Late game
A vision many have had before us
A web of trust, information travelling only through relationships instead of a public platform, is not a new idea. PGP's own web of trust, and the ongoing "Rebooting the Web of Trust" workshops, worked on versions of this for decades. What's different now is the infrastructure to actually run it at the scale of a real social network, not just a keyring.
Not a fit for everything
Where this is specifically useful, or necessary
Strongest first. Hover, tap, or tab to any of these for the reasoning and an example.
- Only locally relevant
Time-boxed, place-boxed information no platform is built to carry.
Example
"Cooked for eight people, four vegetarian portions left, pickup until 8pm." Learn more → - Trust is the main issue
Care work, pet care, house-sitting, childcare: who matters more than what.
Example
Finding someone to housesit through people who can actually vouch for them, not star ratings. Learn more → - Not publicly possible
Asks that would cause a problem the moment they're broadcast.
Example
Asking who has room to sublet while between leases, without your landlord finding out first. Learn more → - Only certain people should see it
An ask that's fine for some rings and wrong for others.
Example
A role filled through someone recommended, seen only by people close enough to vouch for a candidate. Learn more → - Not worth listing publicly
Tools, bikes, cargo bikes: below the value where a public listing's overhead pays off.
Example
Lending a cargo bike for a weekend move, never worth the hassle of a public rental listing. Learn more → - Not currently worth posting
Below the bar for a public offer, above the bar for a friend.
Example
We wouldn't fix up our apartment to make it an Airbnb, but if a friend of a friend needs a spot, we have one. Learn more → - Honesty about flaws matters most
For cars or tech, what you need is the flaw a seller has every incentive to hide.
Example
A friend telling you the real condition of a used car, something a listing never would. Learn more → - Fair pricing
When a market price would exploit the relationship rather than reflect it, for
example a handicraft-worker's own skill.
Example
Paying a friend's actual rate for skilled work, not what a stranger platform would charge, and not what it would underpay them. Learn more →
What it does today
Features
Only what the app really does now, asking first because that is what is new. Try each one in the demo.
Ask your web
Ask in plain words. The question goes to the people you are connected with, according to the ring each one sits in, and what comes back is only what they chose to share.
Consent per ask
Nothing is shared without a yes from the person who holds the note: given live, or given in advance for a line they marked that way. A decline looks exactly like no match, so a "no" gives nothing away.
Your web of people
The people you have met, placed in three rings: close friend, friend, acquaintance. It lives on your phone.
Record a meeting
Record on your own, or in a meeting with someone: who, where, and a consent hint. "Listen for" prompts remind you what to note.
Notes and transcript
Notes become lines about a person. A transcript is made on your own device where it can be, otherwise later. Past meetings keep place, notes and transcript together.
Inventory
What you could offer, lend or point to, kept as short lines. Requests that reach you wait in one place to review.
Demo accounts
Try it with imaginary friends, each labelled "dummy", and with up to four devices side by side. Demo accounts only see demo content by default.
Encrypted Swiss backup
A backup is encrypted on your phone before it leaves. The app is hosted on Infomaniak in Switzerland, and the server keeps only ciphertext it cannot read.
Connecting in person or by link
Now: a QR code, to show that you met in person, and a link, for people you are not meeting in person. Coming soon: a moving QR code. Coming later: NFC, Bluetooth and AirDrop.
Send a meeting
After a meeting, send its notes and transcript, encrypted, to someone you are connected with, or share them through the Meet code.
What could stand on it
Use cases
TrustWeb is an infrastructure: the layer under things people already want to do. Below is what it can enable. Each card says honestly what exists today and what is still planned. For when this kind of tool fits best, see where it is specifically useful.
Direct today, passing on in the works
Introductions
Ask the people you are connected with who knows someone, and each decides whether to answer. Passing a question on through a friend, so an introduction stays warm, is in the works.
Works today, pilot planned
Events
At a gathering you meet many people and remember few. Afterwards, ask your web who was looking for something or offered it; a few notes written after each conversation are what it finds. A first pilot with EA groups is planned (see For EA groups).
Works today in the app
Sharing resources
Tools, a cargo bike, a spare room, an hour of skill, lent between people who trust each other, below the value where a public listing pays off.
Planned
Finding housing
A room, a flat or a sublet found through people who trust each other. Trust is what makes it possible: the person offering knows who is asking, and the asker knows who vouches. Not built as its own flow yet; today you can ask your web in plain words.
Coming soon
Marketplace
Where people already trust each other, a transaction can run through TrustWeb, which makes the exchange easier for both sides. Fee: 80 percent of what others charge. Nothing of this is built yet.
In the works
QuestHub
QuestHub organizes resources for community quests. TrustWeb can be the trust layer under it: who may ask, who may answer.
In the works
Info sharing as curations
People curate what they know, a pediatrician, a reliable mechanic, a good cleaner, and share it with the rings they choose instead of posting it publicly.
Where this grows from
Lineage
EvoBioSys roots the work. QuestHub is where it fans out toward other communities. TrustWeb grows from that same soil - the page you're on right now.
Family of tools
Ecosystem
ReBioSys ↗
Resource sharing: what a community has, offers, and can reach through its own TrustWeb.
SenseMeet ↗
Meeting capture and QR share, so a room's decisions travel with the same consent-gated flow.
TalkWeave ↗
Live conversation transcripts, local-first, feeding the same profile and resource graph.
SovSwitch ↗
Sovereign Switch: the pragmatic path off Big Tech, privacy without giving up your devices.
SoTranscribe ↗
Sovereign transcription: self-host on your own GPU, or use the hosted tier colocated in Austria.
Under the hood
Source code
TrustWeb is open source. The link leads to a paused public copy with a pause notice: the app is in rapid development, and we do not want to spend our time keeping that copy current. It is older than the live app.
Licence: AGPL. Dual licensing under the Adapted Modular Public License on request; for well-funded organisations (budget from 100k per year) at a cost.
The code will be published as part of EvoBioSys.
If you want to read the current code now, ask us: send a short note through the feedback form →
Who's building this
About us
Main Builder: Jakob Possert-Bienzle
Software advisor and builder, with a background in organizational development. Involved in the broader Web of Trust field for over a year, and the one who decided to stop talking about it and start building. Previously: supporting co-founder of another web-of-trust-enabling community and an app coordinating talent and resources across the global NGO space; Meta-Curator, a convening role grown from talks with the Internet Archive, coordinating people who had thought deeply about what a better internet needs; advisor to a funder; software builder (an emotional-freedom app ↗) and organizational development consultant.
Advisors
Markus Sabadello ↗
Technical expert in decentralized identity (Danube Tech).
Day Waterbury ↗
Internet Archive; connected to web-of-trust and decentralized-identity circles.
Andrew Hasse ↗
Documentary filmmaker, storytelling strategy expert for tech projects.
Zach Miltz ↗
Product manager, systems architect, and community weaver designing knowledge and coordination tools that help communities connect people, opportunities, and resources.
Kevin Triplett ↗
Philanthropist, filmmaker, and funder of projectweave.tech.
Track record: a portfolio of related tools, including Transparent.News (an open-source news aggregator) and questhub.eco (organizing resources for community "quests," the public-facing precursor to this). Also built a somatic-therapy app and a systems-transformation course companion for clients. Markus has led decentralized-identity projects elsewhere, a necessary component for reducing capture risk here.
Stay close