Oddbean new post about login | logout I made a short video on why avoiding connections to untrusted relays is an insufficient way to preserve your privacy. https://videos.mikedilger.com/RelayPrivacy.mp4 #privacy #gossip #relays #nostr
Goddamn in 3 minutes my website has already pulled down several hundred IP addresses! I can't believe you guys don't care about privacy!
You still have an ip if using a vpn
I was just being cheeky. But right you are.
As to the wireguard thing, wireguard wont set the "dont fragment" bit. Wireguard tries to operate as if it didn't exist, and I appreciate that.
Mad respect for @Magister Michael Dilger M.Sc. Take the time to watch. No really, go grab a coffee and watch it. nostr:nevent1qqspp04vfszs2jnqyz6uarkj37dnmncjqe7kqrtcqkkqyuxf9v9xt6spydmhxue69uhkv6tvw3jhytnwdaehgu3wwa5kuef08ankcmmzv9kr6ctvdspzpms35h0lgrqe542lg8ly9dy0qrnp3jgjy43z4cmmds4mv7mkcnjfqvzqqqqqqyl7r7av #cybersecgirl #privacy #nostr
I love how you repeatedly said "connecting to relays you didn't configure". While this is very true in gossip, this is what designers and client devs have deemed an EXTREME advanced use case for nostr. They have designed their apps to have ZERO initial config and 97% of nostr probably doesn't configure their relays. They simply don't even know relays exist. I blame un-education, engagement driven design for this more than the users. Gossip is not this, it 100% requires learning and this is what I wish more clients did. So anyway, my point is, they never fucking configured relays in the first place so fear mongering them over connecting to relays is even worse than pointless, it simply drives them back to X. 🐑🐑🐑 It's ok tho, future generations will know VPNs like the back of their hand, as their survival will depend on it. They'll be installing wireguard on their nanny cam before they can even talk 🦜
And to add to this, these same designers should absolutely be jizzing in their pants over gossip/outbox protocol because it's that much closer to zero config like they always wanted. Just add one relay, gossip the rest. Aw yea. 🦜
You could even tell people to follow other people at their own domain, like follow "mike@mikedilger.com" and it would get my NIP-05, find my relays, and gossip away. Works without even NIP-65 relay lists for discovery, no npubs required, no user interaction with relay setup required. Seriously easy 1-step 1-click experience. The only thing people MUST do is to sign up for at least one relay that serves their stuff.
That would be such a great way to invite people to nostr
I got your DM about still not getting my DMs. We can debug it tomorrow. Maybe gossip isn't AUTHing to your DM relay, or if it doesn't need that maybe it is doing something else dumb. I found a handful of dumb bugs today I'm sure there will be more bugs tomorrow.
Nice! Ya all good, I'm also trying to make sure bugs being squashed or even found on the relay too 🦜
Bro, we did what?! What did you say about designers?! No really, I don’t understand what you’re saying here. People are not going to learn about relays on signup … it’s why mastodon never took off because people didn’t know which server to join
And I'm saying they ARE going to learn. 😎
You can and should learn but it’s not something you want to deal with when signing up. You can, but you’re going to have people either totally confused or just skip that step by clicking anywhere that’s clickable.
Well it kinda doesn't matter because gossip/outbox makes it easier to configure, with a lot less learning if we just quit fear mongering about it.
Agree. Keys & Relays (and Blossom servers for that matter) should be front & center. Most of the other things are distractions, take up valuable onboarding time and confuse users more than they help them. (NIP-05, PIN code, lightning address, following individual suggested users, ...)
Is this an explainer or a cribs episode (dating myself with this reference) 🤣
MTV baby
I wonder if this is any good, haven't tried it, but been hearing about it https://holesail.io/
Could be, but doesn't really help with nostr people hiding their IPs unless they were to use it to roll their own vpn and have an exit node somewhere. These types of things sometimes you gotta configure extra routing/iptables to let the traffic out of the remote network, their use case is usually focused on connecting between private networks that someone is the owner or trusts both networks and then staying on that internal net.
Could you critique the use of caching relays or DVMs to fetch events from untrusted or even blacklisted relays / nip05 providers? I really enjoyed this format. Thanks for taking the time to make the video.
Clarification: a caching relay is a service that will find notes on other relays and deliver them to the to the user so they don't have to connect to so many 'untrusted' relay. A DVM would provide the same service as the caching relay but potentially be directed to query a number of untrusted relays to locate the note.
Are you saying you want me to address that question in a video? Or just give my opinion here on nostr? I think what I call a "client proxy" is a reasonable architectural component that keeps clients from contacting strange untrusted relays, so long as (1) the client can totally trust the client proxy, and (2) you don't care if the client proxy's IP address is leaked. But it is hard for both of those things to be true. If only people weren't so embarrassed about losing their bitcoin keys in so many consecutive tragic boating accidents then they wouldn't be so concerned about maintaining their privacy (I know Edward Snowden says different, I don't really mean what I'm typing, I'm just trying to be funny)
Im not sure it is an all or nothing. I would perfer to share my queries with one 'client proxy' with a good reputation than lots of unknown relays. It could be a point of centralisation that can be the target of censorship requests. So long as its not used relied on for general queries but to find specific events / nip05 validation and clients fall back to using querying the relays, I think it is a great trade-off.
A trade off is what it is. You may have to trust a little bit that things aren't getting censored, and that the proxy won't abuse your IP information. And in return your client can be simpler, maybe doesn't need to open as many connections, and you get a bit better privacy without really doing privacy right. That works for some people, which is why I think it's a viable idea. I'm not working on such a thing because it doesn't really work for me, but I'm not against it.
This is the beauty of nostr. Lots of clients with different trade-offs.
