Maybe I’m missing something but I fail to see how Nostr can be censorship resistant in any non-trivial way.
Sure. It is an open standard that allows for easy migration between service providers — and that is good.
But that doesn’t mean it’s censorship resistant. For starters there is no general way to detect censorship!
Unless you already know a message exists you can’t see any evidence it was censored!
For “censorship-resistance” to work you have to *assume* specific market conditions.
…
I think you're missing that "censorship resistant" doesn't mean "censorship proof."
Glancing at the project, it does seem to provide additional ways to resist censorship. Exactly as claimed.
Yep, it's still subject to censorship through various means, but that doesn't mean it doesn't resist censorship.
The protocol description suggests that a user can migrate their follower base to another relay by posting the new relay address then switching.
But if the original relay has banned the user then *there’s no way for the user to inform the followers where to find them*!!!!
The only way around that is assuming multiple relays (at least one “honest” at a time) that everyone is connected to — but it’s hard to see what’s the incentive for this being the case.
…
Also note that spreading the word by the social graph of where the banned user can now be found doesn’t solve the issue — unless you assume an external end-to-end cryptographic communication network that allows the banned user to reach the follower base independently.
But if that’s the case then the banned user doesn’t need Nostr at all!
I think calling “censorship resistance” a different (but useful) property only causes confusion.
I’d call it “portable identity” instead
I don't think there's much point responding farther.
The features you're recognizing here are the exact ones that I'd say allow the platform to resist censorship, making it censorship resistant, even if you personally wouldn't apply that term.
*shrug*
That’s weird since my post above explicitly explains how to censor someone on Nostr — unless you assume there’s something else that’s actually censorship resistant to use as a backup.
Not sure how that explains how Nostr could resist censorship.
What Nostr does isn’t very different from having everyone post to multiple platforms (Twitter, Gettr, Truth..) and followers always following them in all platforms.
It’s just more automated.
And using public keys to authenticate your identities and posts over different platforms can already be done using eg PGP.
The idea someone can just create a new relay if they get banned is completely impractical unless the amount of traffic is trivial.
If you have millions of followers downloading just a few KB per day it already gets hard to run a relay for just *one* user.
And if everyone has their own relay the number of relays creates serious issues for clients.
It’s hard to see how exactly Nostr resists censorship besides hoping for a number of gigantic relays to exist and be honest
So if there isn't a universally accepted definition of Censorship Resistance, you're being awfully definitive in saying Nostr doesn't offer it :)
It looks like Nostr provides alternative ways of accessing content, routing around points of potential censorship, along with built in methods for automatically routing as more relays are added.
You might not personally think that's enough resistance for your own comfort, but it IS resistance to censorship.
It does have some value, whether you think it's a great value or a small value.
The fact there isn’t a universally agreed formal definition of “censorship resistance” doesn’t mean it is a meaningless phrase and you can’t discuss whether something is or isn’t censorship resistant.
There are things that all agree are CR and they are nothing like Nostr.
Otherwise I could equally claim Twitter is now CR bc Musk claims to be against censorship.
My point is that Nostr *does* offer benefits, but calling it “censorship resistance” is incorrect and confusing.
Well obviously all **don't** agree on the things that are CR since you and I apparently disagree!
Since Nostr has those features that absolutely resist censorship, I thing it's completely correct and unconfusing to call it censorship resistant.
It's a straightforward way to describe something that has such features to resist censorship.
What I’m saying is exactly that it doesn’t have features to resist censorship.
It has useful features that are unrelated to resisting censorship.
But you can call it whatever you want.
And I can point out you’re wrong.
Yes, you keep saying it doesn't have features to resist censorship after having yourself mentioned the features to resist censorship :)
You're talking in circles, man.
@volkris
That’s not what I’m saying.
Bitcoin doesn’t make censorship impossible— but it has clear limits on the sorts of resources a censor needs (a huge share of the hash rate).
Bitcoin also allows for detecting evidence of censorship as a drop in hash rate.
Nostr doesn’t have any clear benefit like these.
Please note there isn’t a universally accepted definition of Censorship Resistance — but it usually refers to must stronger guarantee than anything Nostr offers.
…