My video overview of Nostr: A simple, open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media
https://gadgeteer.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NostrThumb-400x225.jpg Nostr is unique in that it has a global public key ID that replicates posts (notes) via relays, so it is scalable, resistant to censorship, and the user fully owns their identity profile. There are […]
https://gadgeteer.co.za/my-video-overview-of-nostr-a-simple-open-protocol-that-enables-global-decentralized-and-censorship-resistant-social-media/ https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-3e2f1df7-0bf915b3b2652e65
@danie10 I'd like to discuss this:
> resistant to censorship
Technically, any relay could block any user (from that relay). If enough popular relays block a user, they are effectively censored.
> the user fully owns their identity profile
What does this "ownership" entail that can't be found on fedi when relays can still block or refuse to delete your content.
It seems to me that Nostr is just the fediverse, but you can post to multiple instances (relays) with one account (public key).
@schizanon no it is slightly different:
1. Yes a relay could block, but there are over 500 available, and you could even soelf-host your own one. Followers would be directed automatically to that relay to still get your posts. Even peer-to-peer, you can have everyone blocking one person and then their posts go nowhere, so nothing is 1000%.
2. On ownership normally IDs are tied to a domain / server name so the moment that owner of the service blocks your ID, you cannot take it elsewhere at all with the identical ID (you lose the name name part). No-one can spoof your ID, or reset access to it, either as only you have the private key that matches it. To some extent yes the number of fediverse servers vs Nostr relays is a similar concept, but key here is your identity stays exactly the same without any change, no matter what relay or client app you use.
> would be directed automatically to that relay
Is that true? In my #Nostr apps I have to manually add relays that I post to. It's my understanding that it's only these relays that I can fetch posts from. Otherwise how would I be able to avoid abusive content? (I don't want posts from white supremacist relays) You can't force your followers to add your self hosted relay.
> your identity stays exactly the same
This is only true if all the other relays have all your other posts.
@schizanon I was looking at github.com/nostr-protocol/nost… where it says "Instead of requiring users to manually type new relay addresses (although this should also be supported), whenever someone you're following posts a server recommendation, the client should automatically add that to the list of relays it will query." and also "If a relay is being used as a spam vector, it can easily be unlisted by clients, which can continue to fetch updates from other relays."
There is a <recommended relay URL> item present on the "e" and "p" tags in event posts, that can optionally be empty, and may also be ignored by other clients, but that carries the URL of the recommended relay to fetch messages for the creator.
No the ID always has to stay the same as you have one public key ID that you reuse across clients. It does not chnage. If you chnage it yourself, then you are seen as a separate profile ID. Thepublic key ID is what ties all your posts to you, and there is no changes or effect that different realys have on it. In fact if it is tampered with or changed by a relay, that would break the cryptographic verification of the post.
@danie10 seems to me we could just add public key verification on top of #ActivityPub. Maybe someone is already doing this?
I think it's key that ActivityPub is focused on instances being the first class actors instead of having that focus be on users.
A focus on user-focused PKI would be a fundamental chance to the core organization of ActivityPub, not something that could be elegantly bolted on.
