7 ms·

Nostr solves this. You don't need to "create an account", you just generate a key pair. That is your account. On what relays you store your data is orthogonal t

by ibz 3y ago

Nostr solves this. You don't need to "create an account", you just generate a key pair. That is your account. On what relays you store your data is orthogonal to this. As long as an event is signed by your private key, it is your event.

Brighthurst 3y ago
Yeah, as far as I can tell, nostr does indeed solve the issues discussed ITT. I think it stems from the fact that nostr is a protocol, just like HTTP. So instead of federating or decentralizing on top of http, we needed a different protocol all-together
toyg 3y ago
The minute you introduce the concept of "key pair", you've lost 99% of people.
- lyu07282 3y ago
  True, but you might be able to store it/hide it away in some DHT behind a username and passphrase, even that might not be necessary. You can solve a lot of complexity in the protocol by good frontend people who understand UX. Even Whatsapp is using PKI, its just all hidden away from the user.
  - nickorlow 3y ago
    Yeah, Apple's passkeys is trying to do this too. Their UX is good but it's still pretty immature
- DANmode 3y ago
  I think this is the decade this problem goes away. Of course, the phrase that gains traction won't be "keypair".
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Holding a private key in a way that is both usable and secure is not easy, for fundamental reasons. As such, it is impossible for this to catch on with the general public, ever. A far mor likely outcome is for government-managed identities to become the only way to access certain kinds of services, for better and for worse. Governments already have the identity management part handled, with the legal system acting as the ultimate fall-back for any corner case. The integration is already widely used for certain services (the entire financial system relies on government-managed identities already, all around the world), so it's just a matter of extending this. It also helps solve certain less talked about problems of identity systems, such as preventing children from accessing certain kinds of content. Ideally, instead of the current solution of every institution having access to all of your personal details so they can check your identity with the government, governments could start working for the opposite model - a government-issued and managed IdP, where only the government knows your personal details, and where enterprises get an opaque token they can use to ask the government about a set of details they need to operate their business.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  They managed to sell cryptocurrencies by proxy; maybe somebody else holds your keys, and you log in using a traditional method to have that provider use the keys where they are needed or rotate and update them when you want them rotated and need to broadcast that fact. And people who can handle it themselves, handle it themselves.
INTPenis 3y ago
Yeah Nostr is cool but like others have pointed out, there's an even steeper learning curve. And besides that, Nostr claims to be censorship proof, which sounds cool on the surface but will inevitably lead to a cesspool of hate and personal attacks.
- mid-kid 3y ago
  unlike censored platforms like twitter that become a cesspool of hate and personal attacks. as usual it depends on who you interact with.
  - INTPenis 3y ago
    Twitter has the option to steer the moderation in any direction they want.
    - sodality2 3y ago
      And so will you, when you can block, defederate, etc with whoever you choose :) such is the beauty of decentralization.
      - warkdarrior 3y ago
        The tools to do this are still mediocre at best. I want tools to do content-based blocking or defederation, not identity-based.
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        This misses two important points about moderation/censorship: 1. I don't want to trawl through garbage to reach posts I like. Even a single gore video or such is enough to ruin most people's day. 2. It's not enough for me to block content I don't like - in certain situations, I have a legitimate need to block others from seeing content I don't like. Specifically, if someone is spreading lies about me, or pornography of me, the fact that I can block that person is not going to help me, I need a way for the platform to stop showing those lies/pornography to others, or at least to automatically attach my own version of the story to those lies (of course, I should first have to somehow prove those are lies).
conor- 3y ago
I think DIDs[0] are an interesting idea for dealing with the problem of centralized registration in federated systems. It would be great to be able to create one identity that if I want to leave an instance and bring all my data with me to a new instance I can do so without friction. That's currently a big issue I have with Matrix for example -- there's no way for me to go from @user:matrix.org to @user:myowndomain.com and have that be the same identity with the same friends list, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier
- Arathorn 3y ago
  We’re currently working on account portability (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4014 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/401...) and experimenting with glueing bluesky style DIDs onto it (so as to provide DMs for bluesky via Matrix, should they want them)
  - conor- 3y ago
    Ah, as usual if there's a complaint there's an open spec proposal for it. Thanks for sharing!
mac-chaffee 3y ago
That looks closer to the right solution, but... > Remember, your private key is your identity in Nostr, so if it is compromised you'll lose your followers and will have to start from scratch rebuilding your identity. This is the same gripe I have with home servers on the fediverse: home servers come and go, and private keys sometimes need rotating. Making you lose all your friends and content when that happens is not an acceptable tradeoff. I think the solution is entirely separating "identity" from every single other concern such as security (private keys), hosting (home servers), and public identity ("display name").
- fauigerzigerk 3y ago
  >I think the solution is entirely separating "identity" from every single other concern such as security (private keys), hosting (home servers), and public identity ("display name"). I'm not sure you can separate it from security (private keys). If there's nothing stopping others from using the same identity then it's not _your_ identity.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lazzlazzlazz 3y ago
Nostr does not solve this. There is not "one big Nostr" network because there is no consensus across the network. Your view of Nostr is whatever the peers that you connect with say it is, and they have little reason at the limit to share with each other or to be honest with you. Nostr is just going in circles with federated networks all over again.
- leesalminen 3y ago
  > Your view of Nostr is whatever the peers that you connect with Clients don’t connect to peers on nostr. They connect to relays.
  - lazzlazzlazz 3y ago
    Relays are peers in Nostr. They're supposed to share posts with each other and altruistically create a consistent view of the network for their users.
    - leesalminen 3y ago
      > They're supposed to share posts with each other Relays are not intended to connect with each other. Clients send notes to relays. Relays store notes and send them back to clients.

by ibz 3y ago

Brighthurst 3y ago

Yeah, as far as I can tell, nostr does indeed solve the issues discussed ITT. I think it stems from the fact that nostr is a protocol, just like HTTP. So instead of federating or decentralizing on top of http, we needed a different protocol all-together

toyg 3y ago

The minute you introduce the concept of "key pair", you've lost 99% of people.

lyu07282 3y ago
True, but you might be able to store it/hide it away in some DHT behind a username and passphrase, even that might not be necessary. You can solve a lot of complexity in the protocol by good frontend people who understand UX. Even Whatsapp is using PKI, its just all hidden away from the user.
- nickorlow 3y ago
  Yeah, Apple's passkeys is trying to do this too. Their UX is good but it's still pretty immature
DANmode 3y ago
I think this is the decade this problem goes away. Of course, the phrase that gains traction won't be "keypair".
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Holding a private key in a way that is both usable and secure is not easy, for fundamental reasons. As such, it is impossible for this to catch on with the general public, ever. A far mor likely outcome is for government-managed identities to become the only way to access certain kinds of services, for better and for worse. Governments already have the identity management part handled, with the legal system acting as the ultimate fall-back for any corner case. The integration is already widely used for certain services (the entire financial system relies on government-managed identities already, all around the world), so it's just a matter of extending this. It also helps solve certain less talked about problems of identity systems, such as preventing children from accessing certain kinds of content. Ideally, instead of the current solution of every institution having access to all of your personal details so they can check your identity with the government, governments could start working for the opposite model - a government-issued and managed IdP, where only the government knows your personal details, and where enterprises get an opaque token they can use to ask the government about a set of details they need to operate their business.
pessimizer 3y ago
They managed to sell cryptocurrencies by proxy; maybe somebody else holds your keys, and you log in using a traditional method to have that provider use the keys where they are needed or rotate and update them when you want them rotated and need to broadcast that fact. And people who can handle it themselves, handle it themselves.

INTPenis 3y ago

Yeah Nostr is cool but like others have pointed out, there's an even steeper learning curve. And besides that, Nostr claims to be censorship proof, which sounds cool on the surface but will inevitably lead to a cesspool of hate and personal attacks.

mid-kid 3y ago
unlike censored platforms like twitter that become a cesspool of hate and personal attacks. as usual it depends on who you interact with.
- INTPenis 3y ago
  Twitter has the option to steer the moderation in any direction they want.
  - sodality2 3y ago
    And so will you, when you can block, defederate, etc with whoever you choose :) such is the beauty of decentralization.
    - warkdarrior 3y ago
      The tools to do this are still mediocre at best. I want tools to do content-based blocking or defederation, not identity-based.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      This misses two important points about moderation/censorship: 1. I don't want to trawl through garbage to reach posts I like. Even a single gore video or such is enough to ruin most people's day. 2. It's not enough for me to block content I don't like - in certain situations, I have a legitimate need to block others from seeing content I don't like. Specifically, if someone is spreading lies about me, or pornography of me, the fact that I can block that person is not going to help me, I need a way for the platform to stop showing those lies/pornography to others, or at least to automatically attach my own version of the story to those lies (of course, I should first have to somehow prove those are lies).

conor- 3y ago

I think DIDs[0] are an interesting idea for dealing with the problem of centralized registration in federated systems. It would be great to be able to create one identity that if I want to leave an instance and bring all my data with me to a new instance I can do so without friction. That's currently a big issue I have with Matrix for example -- there's no way for me to go from @user:matrix.org to @user:myowndomain.com and have that be the same identity with the same friends list, etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier

Arathorn 3y ago
We’re currently working on account portability (https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/4014 https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-spec-proposals/pull/401...) and experimenting with glueing bluesky style DIDs onto it (so as to provide DMs for bluesky via Matrix, should they want them)
- conor- 3y ago
  Ah, as usual if there's a complaint there's an open spec proposal for it. Thanks for sharing!

mac-chaffee 3y ago

That looks closer to the right solution, but... > Remember, your private key is your identity in Nostr, so if it is compromised you'll lose your followers and will have to start from scratch rebuilding your identity. This is the same gripe I have with home servers on the fediverse: home servers come and go, and private keys sometimes need rotating. Making you lose all your friends and content when that happens is not an acceptable tradeoff. I think the solution is entirely separating "identity" from every single other concern such as security (private keys), hosting (home servers), and public identity ("display name").

fauigerzigerk 3y ago
>I think the solution is entirely separating "identity" from every single other concern such as security (private keys), hosting (home servers), and public identity ("display name"). I'm not sure you can separate it from security (private keys). If there's nothing stopping others from using the same identity then it's not _your_ identity.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lazzlazzlazz 3y ago

Nostr does not solve this. There is not "one big Nostr" network because there is no consensus across the network. Your view of Nostr is whatever the peers that you connect with say it is, and they have little reason at the limit to share with each other or to be honest with you. Nostr is just going in circles with federated networks all over again.

leesalminen 3y ago
> Your view of Nostr is whatever the peers that you connect with Clients don’t connect to peers on nostr. They connect to relays.
- lazzlazzlazz 3y ago
  Relays are peers in Nostr. They're supposed to share posts with each other and altruistically create a consistent view of the network for their users.
  - leesalminen 3y ago
    > They're supposed to share posts with each other Relays are not intended to connect with each other. Clients send notes to relays. Relays store notes and send them back to clients.