So no question I’ve been enjoying lemmy, I love the freedom it offers and I love the seemingly simple and elegant framework it runs on however after having ditched Reddit for the hopes of a similar or improved content experience I have to say it is quite a bit smaller and therefore barren at times which is both a good and bad thing depending on your needs
And then of course there’s kbin and masterdon which from my understanding is a little more geared towards the twitter-like micro blogging
But this morning somehow I stumbled across nostr which I have never heard of but I was wondering if anyone out there has any experience with it? There’s a Web app like voyager at iris.to that makes browsing pretty simple…
My understanding is that Nostr isn’t any specific site or service, but rather a web framework, kind of like Lemmy.
However, unlike Lemmy, which is hosted by individual servers running their own instances of the Lemmy software that can communicate with each other but are still their own unique entities, Nostr seems to be taking a more blockchain-like approach to decentralization, from my understanding of their docs. I don’t think it’s actually using blockchain tech, though, but looks somewhat similar in principle. It looks like people can set up “relays” which seem to act as verifiable mirrors/backups of anything posted through Nostr’s network, which makes me think it operates not so much like blockchain, but more like Tor/onion networks.
That said, I clearly don’t know how it works. But their big selling point seems to be that it’s apparently “resistant to censorship”, and they focus a lot on network security, encryption, etc. So it sounds like it’s largely targeted toward people who are afraid of being “cancelled” on other platforms.
It makes me a bit worrisome about the risks a relay operator would be taking on, though. The people who seem to flock to these sorts of “free speech” platforms are generally the type to post dangerous or illegal content in general. Does running a Nostr relay put you at risk of hosting extremist or illegal content? With normal platforms, a hosting admin can remove what they want, but is that still doable with this so-called “censorship resistant” platform? It sounds like a liability nightmare.
I’m not trying to be an arrogant ass correcting you, but I think your answer is a good starting point.
but rather a web framework, kind of like Lemmy
To extrapolate a bit, any platform is going to have a protocol (lemmy uses ActivityPub), servers, and clients. Their site says nostr is the protocol, and there’s relays (servers) and clients that communicate using the nostr protocol.
it operates not so much like blockchain, but more like Tor/onion networks
I don’t think that’s quite right. The protocol itself does not encrypt the content of messages (althrough there’s no reason you couldn’t send encrypted content). The crypto stuff in this case just “signs” the content allowing everyone to verify that the message came from the purported author and hasn’t been edited.
If you have a private key, a public key, and a message, then you can use those three things to compute a signature.
If you have a signature, a public key, and a message, then you can confirm whether they match.
Therefore, only the person with a private key can author messages, and everyone with the public key can confirm that they are the author.
So in some ways you could say, your private key is like your own account or identity, and the public keys you keep track of are the accounts of your friends.
The “federation” methodology is interesting too. Relays don’t sync, they just store events from those clients which are connected to them.
In summary, as you said, it might be interesting for people that are worried about being “cancelled” or censored. On this platform it would not be possible to purge or alter someone’s messages, unless of course you got their private key.
It makes me a bit worrisome about the risks a relay operator would be taking on
I agree. I wouldn’t want to run a relay open to public signups. Conceivably if I had anything worth saying I might run a private relay just for myself or direct contacts.
I’m not trying to be an arrogant ass correcting you
No worries, you didn’t come off that way at all! I hate giving out bad info, so I appreciate you clarifying the things I got wrong on that.
Nostr gets rid of the notion of servers and admins. At a high level everyone on nostr owns their own account (no central instance). When you want to post something you send your content to a list of relays you choose.
Other people can choose what relays they want to subscribe to.
Relays can block people from subscribing or posting.
Everything is cryptographically secured so there is no way for someone to pretend to be you.
Lemmy is different where the instance admin has complete control. Admins can post as you and users cannot easily migrate to a different server.
