Oddbean

I was always a little confused by this statement about the ability of the nostras to resist censorship. Relays operate on rented servers, their tenants, like the owners of any site, can be found and charged. This is, of course, not an easy task, but for governments it is quite feasible. nostr:nevent1qqsy78d60m3kvzwnpxpcawaxhj8qzguuh0teyjytcw78y2p6s0r3ndspzamhxue69uhhxetpwf3kstnwdaejuar0v3shjtczyqduwzspfzelx9k6x0lrez0j8cl8rtz0lxvqylk8z2ustnfy76jpzqcyqqqqqqgtkeznx

There isn't a sure-fire way of making anything "airtight" against anything really. The systems in place that were used to build to where things are now were flawed, maybe, but not corrupt in the beginning. They were hijacked over time, in a very subtle manner, and warped into what they are now. The consistent vigilance by all parties involved in society is the only remedy to such things.

nostr:nevent1qqswmeux0q6ll3h48mg52nh3xh5nn9kj5ujx4x2uwwymcsc7cl332fcprdmhxue69uhkummnw3e8qatz9euk2emgwfhjuumfw3jj7q3qmz7w8mm74p29d2xn4v8rdpy2y3jht4ecau8wczm7qsvp6zxmnj7sxpqqqqqqzgmq7pr This is something that everyone pushing #bitcoin and #nostr should really consider. The "majority" isn't composed of the tech-savvy, ever-vigilant people that develop such things. They also don't adopt them for use until there is a near-painfree way to do so. If there isn't a way for something like this to be used simply and at-scale for the benefits it provides, this is doomed to fail. Not being a naysayer, just trying to be objective.

Society is divided. For years we have been taught to tolerate and agree with all decisions of the state. Now people are being jailed for saying they disagree. Nobody knows where the truth is or it is only propaganda everywhere. Humanity no longer has common goals, and even global problems are successfully contested at the level of (sometimes stupid) conspiracy theories. War, murder and violence are perceived as ordinary events, and few will comply with the demands of the state in the event of a new pandemic. Are we still capable of defending ourselves?

Society is divided indeed. The misdirection of language in subtle ways, I believe, has had an impact in furthering some of what you pointed out. Tolerance, for example, does not mean you embrace something. Whether people acknowledge the importance of being precise in their words or not, it makes having a simple discussion difficult. Turn the heat up from "simple discussion" to "critical dialogue" and the whole matter is doomed. At the bottom level, if we are to engage in anything at all, all participants must know the "rules" of engagement. In the case of language, we can't all have particularized definitions (especially inappropriate and arbitrary ones) of the same word. We're speaking different languages at that point. I could go on, but I think I'll stick with my seemingly obscure point for now.

I have the same opinion, voicing it for some time now. I believe that IPFS is a decent solution, and if any issues with IPFS, working to solve it would make tons of sense. This will make the client side 100% decentralized. Currently, all web based are centralized and therefore subject to closure. For the relays, IPFS won't do, but an easy solution will be a pruned relay for Umbrel. While building any NOSTR or Bitcoin related application, security, privacy and decentralization should be the prime directive above all in the design phase, yet, most applications fail miserably

Doesn't this mean that the Nostr protocol, at the level of its architecture, does not protect against censorship, since it relies on ordinary web servers? And analysis of logs will theoretically allow the feds to find any "anonymous" user? And freedom of speech exists here only because of a small user base? Until the first relay is gutted and killed by the government and the source of "illegal" information is found and arrested?

On the anonymous front, no, Nostr does not protect your digital identity by default, again, no app built with privacy in mind as it should be, your IP address is exposed by the clients logs and relayers if you are not using TOR Browser or a VPN. Amethyst app at least has in the settings the option of using TOR but you need to combine it with Orbot used as a VPN client on your mobile, so not for the non tech savvy. Nostr is not fully decentralized in the sense that is not fully p2p, but relays in servers which act as relayers, some public, some private/paid (absurd IMO, since their selling point is censoring content considered spam or hateful etc so basically ironic and non sense considering the ethos of Nostr). But there are so many public relayers at the moment across the world that you can say is decentralized, but there is no current strong solution for true decentralization (no money incentive) nor for how it will scale further, currently is a tiny follow, we get to a serious usage/follow and the relayers will need a major upgrade

yes, and at the current state of things, he is , IMO, half right, if an umbrel solution and node relays easy to implement and pruned are not deployed soon, that will be the end of this beautiful Bitcoin enthusiasts ECO chamber... One other project is way more successful and engaging by 10 fold, check Stacker News... (link in my profile) the engagement is excellent and the platform found a way to monetize while providing a service people is willing to spend few sats thanking excellent Intel, articles and thoughts, SN takes a percentage and shares a large portion with creators. It is always the same, on one side the Satoshi Nakamotos' of the world, building altruistically, anonymously, not in search of glory out of ego or primarily looking to monetize (the minority, we have few of them through history) on the other hand the rest, following predictable human nature, with bills to pay, some professional and down to earth, some greedy, some egomaniacs, some sold out to corp interests and the list goes on... Nostr needs Satoshi Nakamotos' type of devs to free the relayers from the intention to monetize them (umbrel pruned implementation would do)... although we may have to enter a coma state to proof that the path of paid relayers leads to a death project. Just my opinion ...

I agree. It's hard to imagine an open protocol that can't be normally used without paying. In my opinion, the classic social media monetization model through advertising (but without collecting and trading personal user data) could bring popular free relays into profit. Which in turn could share the profit with the developers of clients promoting these relays by default. And if user don't want to see ads, there always will be a free relays without ads from ideological altruists or ability to connect to a paid one.

Good idea regarding the advertising. My idea of a business model that could monetize without risk of losing its ethos: 1. Build a pruned capable relayer implementation for Umbrel and the likes (TOR based). 2. Build a Relayer Pool TOR based (like the mining pools) so users willing to share revenue put their relayers to work, in exchange, the relayer pool advertising revenue is shared proportional to the size of the storage added with reliability above a minimum threshold to qualify. (low bar or it would defy the decentralization ethos) 3. Build web clients and share them over IPFS, current ones are all investments looking to monetize ASAP so they won't work for the Nostr ethos. 4. Build mobile apps FOSS and with TOR built in by default, sacrificing some features always better than sacrificing privacy. 5. Ask Minibits to join the party, having ecash-lighting as the default solution seems only logical (until Ark become a thing) I have been drafting this to a friend that is fired up to build this no matter how long it takes and is willing to fund it... Although if he adds TOR by default, monetization will be harder and reliability lower, trade offs... On a funny note, I told him that if he waits 3 to 5 years a simple voice command will build the code for him almost free using current language models (oh yeah, the buzzword is AI)... It is a while I don't write a line of code, just type a pseudo code query and get really decent code in seconds, minor changes and is all good, each day less outsourcing needed, almost zero already... The IT industry is going through a revolution good for corps and entrepreneurs bad for coders ... interesting times ahead

Oh, and last but not least, not my idea, would like to know who was the first that share the idea, simple, brilliant and obvious, yet, nobody added that feature during the design phase since for sure monetizing the relays was always considered. X. The connection of the clients to the relays should be distributed using a torrent like tech (swarms)... That way you won't have a handful of relays taking all the traffic since most people will keep selecting only the relays with the most connected users, thus, without knowing it, supporting further the centralization of #Nostr. (***No censorship for real, freedom of speech, raw and organic as it should be, any filtering done by the user in the client***)

I love @SN (member and listen to the weekly pod) but both will remain niche if the end user has to pay. It's one of the reasons why I've struck out recommending SN to folks at my local Bitcoin meetups. Bitcoiners aside, normies are way too conditioned to get services for "free" and will gladly continue to give up their metadata in exchange for use. Hell, it's still difficult to get people to move between those free services.

Relays are just temporary storage to make sure notes get to the destination even if people are offline. They are not here to protect you or your data. Especially free ones. That's not their goal in the system.

I think the benefit being pushed about being a platform against censorship can be thought of like this: There are no knobs to turn (not easily) that results in a shadow ban. You aren't bound to a single client. You own your content. Privacy is in the hands of the user.

Agree about privacy. By the way, Amethyst (or any other client, I guess) can provide to any npub a shadow ban. Easily. Relays will eat your events, but clients won't show it to anyone. For example that's how Amethyst spam filter is working - blocking npubs without your participation, automatically. Default settings. Read the thread: nostr:nevent1qqsv5ag7wy9r53g7763mjq4l66708mjle2vp3ce3v2nygv3ajtf4dmgpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hsygqcj6nhm7pe3vyvp9hy6pywf55xvdqtqawr56n9jr8ss2hfcplq8cpsgqqqqqqs0kam6v The same about relays' spam filters. I think it may mark any account as a spam at some point and stop delivering content to other users. Maybe not all of them at the same time, but it is possible.

As for making illegal any form of messaging app not control or regulated, that is up to each government, those that are openly totalitarian will most probably try to enforce it, which is almost impossible, but they can legislate and make the life of those using it difficult and even incarcerate them if caught... EU is going that way for the surprise of many, USA is not much different, what can't control with back doors normally is legally banned and their devs incarcerated (tornado, Samourai wallet, etc)...