# Private *Updates on SpiritDAO's community progress* By [Sensemaking - SpiritDAO's Weekly Newsletter](https://paragraph.com/@spiritdao) · 2026-10-19 --- **Contents:** ------------- 1. What can a stranger learn about you? 2. Private messages 3. The other paths we closed 4. Our membership roll is accurate again 5. Privacy Policy Updates 6. Upcoming events * * * ### What can a stranger learn about you? SpiritDAO is a church, and every member of the app is a member of our community. Membership is recorded on a public blockchain: your membership token and your community role live on Base, under your wallet address, for anyone to read. So this week we asked a plain question: what can a stranger learn about you? We started from what a stranger would have, a wallet address, a name, or nothing at all, and followed every path to see where it led. The blockchain turned out to be the smaller part of the answer. On its own, it says "this address is a member of Temporal Naturalism," and not much more. The bigger risk was our own app. A handful of its pages and services would hand over the rest, a name, a photo, an email, where someone would be on a given evening, to people who should never have been able to ask. We have closed those paths. * * * Private messages ---------------- We’ve strengthened our database security to better protect private conversations across the platform. On October 12, we identified and closed a gap in our access controls that could allow any signed-in account to read direct messages between other users. The fix was deployed and tested the same day. Direct messages are now restricted to the participants in the conversation, and pod chats are accessible only to members of that pod. Our review confirmed the vulnerability and its remediation, but our available records cannot establish whether it was accessed before the fix. We’re sharing that limitation transparently as part of our commitment to improving security and protecting our community’s privacy. * * * The other paths we closed ------------------------- **Pages that connected wallets to people.** About twenty of the app's behind-the-scenes routes would answer questions like "whose wallet is this?" or "what events is this wallet registered for?" without asking who was asking. Each one now requires you to be signed in, and most only answer about your own account. Invite links no longer reveal the inviter's name or wallet. Payout emails are visible only to the person who made the claim and the Executive Pod. The calendar feed needs a signed link. Forum search respects pod access. Visitors who are not signed in can still see community activity, but without names or photos attached. **A key that should have stayed private.** The key we use to publish files to IPFS, the public file network behind bounties, pod agreements, and community records, had been included in the website's code, where a technically minded visitor could find it. We replaced it with one that can only upload, never list or remove, and publishing now happens only on our servers behind a login. **Claims are approved by the person signed in.** Payout reviews now take the reviewer from the login session. Nobody can approve or reject a payout by sending a board member's address. **What we publish about votes.** When a proposal closes, we publish a public record of the result. That record used to list every voter and how they voted. It now publishes the tally and a cryptographic fingerprint of the full vote list. Anyone holding the list can still prove the result was not tampered with, but the public record no longer shows who voted which way. **Nothing personal on-chain.** Event completion certificates are written permanently to the blockchain. They no longer include the attendee's name or the event's location. **Video calls.** Our server now decides who can speak and who can moderate in a call, based on your actual role in the pod or event. It no longer takes the app's word for it. **Sign-in trusts only verified emails.** The app now accepts only email addresses Coinbase has confirmed. * * * Our membership roll is accurate again ------------------------------------- While checking the on-chain membership records against our own, we found they disagreed: 84 membership badges on-chain, 53 members in our records. Nobody had left. A step in onboarding that should have recorded each new member was quietly failing for some people after the badge was already issued. We fixed the cause and restored the 27 members who had been missing from our records. We also retired four badges that no longer belonged to anyone: one for an account its owner asked us to delete, and three from sign-ups that were never completed. Temporal Naturalism now has **79 members**, and our records and the blockchain agree. * * * Privacy Policy Updates ---------------------- We updated the [Privacy Policy](https://app.spiritdao.org/privacy) to say clearly what is on-chain and what is not. What the blockchain records about you is tied to a wallet address only. We never write your name, email, or photo to the blockchain. The link between that address and you lives in our own database, and when you delete your account, we delete it. Your on-chain history remains, but nothing we hold connects it back to you. Because we are a religious community, a membership badge on your wallet shows that you belong to one. Joining means agreeing to that record being public under your address, and we want that to be a clear, informed choice. Bounties, bids, agreements, and vote summaries are published to IPFS, and the policy now says so. The service providers we rely on, Pinata, Stripe, and LiveKit, are listed. And we removed an old line claiming we verify identities through Basenames. We never did, and the policy should not have said so. * * * **Upcoming Events** ------------------- We strongly recommend registering for events within the SpiritDAO app (Events section) at [**app.spiritdao.org**](http://app.spiritdao.org), it's how we gauge attendance and shape the flow of each session. Links to each event may be found in-app under the **Events** section. **Town Hall** — Mon, Oct. 19th · 8:00 PM EST - A standing community gathering for conversation, questions, and shared presence. **First Contact** — Wed, Oct. 21st · 8:00 PM EST - The official starting point for new members — a peer-to-peer orientation into how participation works. **Feedback Loops** — Fri, Oct. 23rd · 8:00 PM EST - A live working session where the community helps shape the app. Bring your bugs, your questions, and your ideas. * * * SpiritDAO is 100% donor-funded. There are no subscriptions, no paywalls, no venture capital. Every community on this platform uses it for free and that's by design. Our runway is small, and every donation directly extends how long we can keep building. If this work matters to you, even a small contribution goes further than you'd think. → [**Donate at spiritdao.org/donate**](https://spiritdao.org/donate#donation-form-section) SpiritDAO is a registered 501(c)(3). Your donation is tax-deductible. (EIN: 99-1308806) ### **Questions?** The best way to get in touch is within our community: [**https://app.spiritdao.org**](https://app.spiritdao.org) Here you can post a question in our chat, forums, or DM @Ron Rivers. If you prefer, feel free to write to Ron Rivers: [**ron@spiritdao.org**](mailto:ron@spiritdao.org) [**Donate**](https://spiritdao.org/donate#donation-form-section) * * * Thank you for reading! Please share this email with any friends you think might enjoy this newsletter. We are spreading the message one curious person at a time. **Connect with SpiritDAO** 🧠 [**SpiritDAO App**](https://app.spiritdao.org/) 🌐 [**SpiritDAO.org**](http://SpiritDAO.org) ▶ [**YouTube**](https://youtube.com/@spiritdao) 🐦 [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/thespiritdao) / X 📱[**TikTok**](https://www.tiktok.com/@thespiritdao) 📜 [**Docs**](https://spiritdao.org/docs) **SpiritDAO is a registered 501(c)(3) EIN #99-1308806.** --- *Originally published on [Sensemaking - SpiritDAO's Weekly Newsletter](https://paragraph.com/@spiritdao/private101926)*