DEV Community: Vidit Jain

Why should messaging require your personal identity?

Vidit Jain — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 10:23:33 +0000

Why should messaging require your personal identity?

This question led us to build Eclipse - an anonymous encrypted messenger where even we can't read your messages.

The challenge? Implementing military-grade encryption (Signal Protocol) with onion routing and P2P connections. Normally a months-long project for a two-person team.

What changed everything:

Wrote specs → Kiro understood the architecture
Set privacy guidelines → Every suggestion was zero-knowledge compliant
Created hooks → Security checks automated, vulnerabilities caught early
Vibe coded complex features → Signal Protocol in 3 days, not 3 weeks

The most impressive moment? Kiro generated a complete Double Ratchet encryption algorithm that passed all Signal Protocol test vectors. First try.
Two developers. One AI partner. Under 2 weeks from idea to deployment. That's the Kiro difference.

Privacy is a human right, not a premium feature. Now anyone can build tools to protect it.

Try it out: https://lnkd.in/dwj5d4GX

Open source: https://lnkd.in/dVcvzkbz

Built with Kiro by Het Patel & Vidit Jain

Building Spectre: The Media Player That Haunts You Back 👻🎭

Vidit Jain — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:27:44 +0000

Project: Spectre

Event: Kiroween Hackathon

Tech Stack: VLC, Lua Scripting, Unsplash API, Freesound API

The Concept: The "Uncanny Valley" of Software

We all know VLC Media Player. It's the reliable, orange-coned workhorse of video playback. It's safe. It's boring. It plays everything.

For the Kiroween Hackathon, I wanted to subvert that safety. I didn't want to build a "spooky" app from scratch that users would expect to be scary. I wanted to take something familiar and make it... wrong.

Enter Spectre. It looks like VLC. It functions like VLC. But if you watch closely, the buttons are slightly rusted. The play icon is 5 pixels off-center. And every once in a while, it screams at you.

The Design: Intentional Corruption

I compiled VLC 3.0.21 from source with a custom horror skin baked in. The design philosophy: "Digital Decay."

Key corruption elements:

Play button offset by +5px (subtle, but triggers "something is broken" feeling)
Volume slider 3px narrower than its background
Hidden jumpscare overlay panel
Blood splatter effects on custom button graphics

Under the Hood: The "Haunt Engine" ⚙️

Rather than rewriting VLC's C++ core, I leveraged Lua Extension capability to inject horror directly into the runtime.

How It Works

The Loop:

local CHECK_INTERVAL = 30000000  -- 30 seconds
local TRIGGER_CHANCE = 5         -- 5% chance

function trigger_event()
    if math.random(100) <= TRIGGER_CHANCE then
       fetch_and_scare()
    end
end

The Flow:

VLC launches → Auto-loads corrupted skin and Lua extension
Timer ticks every 30 seconds during playback
5% chance to trigger the haunt
Fetches horror assets from Unsplash ("scary face," "skull," "ghost") and Freesound ("scream")
Caches to %TEMP%\spectre_cache\ for instant display
Overlays image and blasts audio through hidden skin panel

Challenges & Solutions

Build Complexity: Compiling VLC from source on Windows takes 2-4 hours with MSYS2. Created automated scripts to ensure reproducible builds.

Async API Calls: VLC's Lua API blocks the UI during HTTP requests. Solved with local caching—downloads happen in background, only display when ready.

Auto-Loading: Built a two-stage Lua system (spectre_loader.lua → spectre.lua) that activates automatically on startup.

Try It (If You Dare)

This project was a blast to build. It taught me that sometimes the scariest things aren't the ones that jump out at you immediately, but the ones that look familiar... until they aren't.

⚠️ WARNING: This mod is functional. It will scream at you. It will flash images. Do not use this if you have a heart condition or anxiety.

Check out the code and grab the release here: GitHub Repository

Happy Kiroween! 🎃💀

[Boost]

Vidit Jain — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 14:25:50 +0000

Building Spectre: The Media Player That Haunts You Back 👻🎭 - DEV Community

Project: Spectre Event: Kiroween Hackathon Tech Stack: VLC, Lua Scripting, Unsplash API, Freesound...

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