Oddbean

I just spent over an hour in conversation with none other than Phil Zimmerman, and the mission was clear: purple-pilling him on Nostr. Phil hadn't heard of it before, so I had the challenge of introducing something I knew would resonate deeply with him. After all, he's the guy who knows a thing or two about encryption keys and was previously involved in building Okuna, an open-source social network that unfortunately ran out of funding. I showed him Amethyst on my phone and a post by nostr:nprofile1qqsw4v882mfjhq9u63j08kzyhqzqxqc8tgf740p4nxnk9jdv02u37ncpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9uju6mpd4czuumfw3jsz9nhwden5te0wfjkccte9ec8y6tdv9kzumn9wsq3yamnwvaz7tmsw4e8qmr9wpskwtn9wvql3tqm Phil's got strong opinions when it comes to content moderation, censorship, and those rage-inducing engagement algorithms that seem tailor-made to fracture society. I knew this was my opening. I explained how Nostr flips the script—you get to choose your own algorithm, define your content moderation levels, and uphold the principle that free speech must be the goal. And yeah, true free speech requires free money, so I brought that into the conversation too. That’s when nostr:nprofile1qqs9ez06ea26rc45f4rf0cyckdxkvvhlvekeawqee29jttp0hjm5mkcpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hsdjaljs chimed in with talk about zaps and ecash, which instantly caught Phil’s attention. Phil had no idea that Chaum's patents had expired, so I jumped into an explanation about Cashu—how it allows payments to be locked to npubs and the privacy-preserving magic of ecash. I was way out of my depth here but tried to channel my inner nostr:nprofile1qqs9pk20ctv9srrg9vr354p03v0rrgsqkpggh2u45va77zz4mu5p6ccpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsz9thwden5te0dehhxarj9ehhsarj9ejx2a30qyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddakj7xph5zr. You could tell the gears were turning... He's not on social media at all, and I didn't get him to install Damus on his iPhone, but hey—tomorrow's another day. I’ll be back to badger him some more. 🤣 I also tried to make it clear that Nostr is far more than just social media. It's a tool to run coinjoins, decentralized apps, and essentially a DNS replacement. It’s got the kind of flexibility and potential that someone like Phil could see changing the game. A massive thanks to the POW Summit and nostr:nprofile1qqsvezz8q3wqlqc8edchd40dll6srm4hsxk02km7ssm9hhgyfnxkvqgpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctv9uemt7cx for making this conversation even possible. And PS: nostr:nprofile1qqs0w2xeumnsfq6cuuynpaw2vjcfwacdnzwvmp59flnp3mdfez3czpspzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuurjd9kkzmpwdejhgtc98uc8k I need you to tag-team Phil today!

Wonderful post. It's like sitting on the sideline of a sportsevent where the commentator explains the action and I feel like being part of the game. Having followed the cryptowars in the 90ies (yes I am old 😑), even wearing a crypto-code (see my bio pic) T-Shirt back then this post stirs up some emotion. Thanks!

In this context I'd like to bring attention to a foundation of a secure internet since 25(!) years. GnuPG Only with this *open source* project the mass adoption of PGP and encryption in general really took off. Everyday it's used (mostly in the background) to ensure privacy and software integrity. So let's not forget the founder of GnuPG: Werner Koch I don't know much about him, but I was always impressed how he as a solo dev ran this project with almost no funding and not giving up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Koch

I met Phil briefly at a documentary filming. He was going to be interviewed after me. Before I left, I went over and was like “hey you probably don’t know me but I just wanted to say I’m a big fan of your work” and shook his hand. Dude’s a legend.