Live data from Hacker News

Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

nostr.how

131–140 of 140 posts

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to have to look at abuse material just to tell my machine to block a user. And play whack-a-mole as they reappear etc. Moderation is vital for public social platforms.

These notes can already be flagged and reported. This action generates another note of a specific type. A nostr client could use this data and hide notes from users before they ever see them.

> These notes can already be flagged and reported. This action generates another note of a specific type. A nostr client could use this data and hide notes from users before they ever see them.

This is just crowdsourced moderation then? Which relies heavily on there not being bad actors that can be incentivised to run up botnets to generate bogus flags/reports to push their own agenda.

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That describes most centralized services on the web today. Nostr and other decentralized protocols aren’t aiming to recreate the Twitter and Amazon model.

There already exist nostr user verification service providers that charge a fee for a purple checkmark, similarly to Twitter Blue.

These services exist outside of the protocol and depend on a few centralized and trusted authorities.

Another solution that is arguably more resistant to capture and censorship would be to use a blockchain to manage user name aliases - like Farcaster is doing with fnames.[1]

[1] https://github.com/farcasterxyz/protocol#22-farcaster-names

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#133
Nostr "relay" nodes have no economic incentive to relay and store data.

Because of that, authors and readers of least popular opinions - which may be legal content that's censored elsewhere - are most likely to be easily identified and tracked.

No incentive to store data, no incentive to relay data, weak privacy, no censorship resistance, relay nodes may be legally responsible for knowingly relaying data from accounts censored by the rest of the network, etc.

For Nostr relay nodes it's like running a Tor Exit node where you may be the only exit node for illegal content.

And for users it's like using Tor to browse the Internet thinking your metadata isn't being captured, without knowing there's just 1 or 2 exit nodes out there.

There are no privacy and pseudo-anonymity advantages over "Twitter over Tor".

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#134

The whole premise of Nostr is that you consider your access point hostile, yet its provider is still offering one. That contradiction just incentivizes bad and toxic actors to participate and dominate this network. That's why, it seems, the developers actively conflate what one would expect from a private communication platform and a social media platform. But this isn't an alternative to Mastodon or Twitter, it's an…

> But this isn't an alternative to Mastodon or Twitter, it's an alternative to Berty, Cwtch, Speek, Briar, Anonymous Messenger, and maybe Matrix

And (not maybe) xx Network.

Nostr isn't an alternative to these messaging and chat apps because it has weak anonymity and privacy. Take a look at how those other apps/platforms work, and then compare them with Nostr.

> As such, it comes to no surprise that the free speech warriors from the crypto community are the main drivers of this protocol.

Nostr has weak privacy protections compared to most of of the above mentioned platforms, so I don't think it's something free speech advocates should feel comfortable promoting - anyone who truly needs free speech and uses Nostr won't last long.

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think centralized moderation is the problem with social media servers. Users should be the ones to control their own moderation. See a post you don't like? Hide the post. Don't like any posts from a particular user? Block the user. It's not difficult to do and if users are really only following friends and famous accounts (celebrities, bots, news, etc.) they won't experience much spam anyway. I think the real issue…

Saw some CP, just block it, right? No one to be notified so it stops spreading.

In most jurisdictions you're supposed to report it to the police, so that they can identify who has accessed it and who attempts to access it next.

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#137
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of cryptos more like “incentives to rational behavior” than “money” and it starts to make sense. You can incentivize, for example, data availability with cryptos and that opens the design space for distributed systems that don’t need to be controlled by one entity (like Twitter, for example).

Nostr already has bitcoin payments for incentives. Please example one concrete example where a blockchain is needed for nostr protocol itself

That is a laughable claim. What happens if no one pays?

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#138
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me it does require cryptos. Which luckily are based on cryptography so we all get to like the path forward :)

Do you have a particular use case in mind which cryptocurrency enables here? Care to give an example of how they help solve a issue?

Gateway operators are paid to successfully process data (which they can do if they stay online, have a fast connection to the Internet, and so on - not a shitty Raspberry Pi)

Gateway operators are paid to store data

Gateway operators are paid to mix client-side encrypted messages and shred message metadata

Gateway operators are staking their nodes to ensure cryptographically correct operation

If you want to see more, spend some time reading how blockchain-based networks with incentives work.

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two places where a blockchain would be very useful in this context: guaranteeing completeness (allowing you to confirm whether or not you have downloaded all the posts ever created by a user), and preventing timestamp forgery.

You wouldn't want text messages on a none scalable blockchain. Timestamping is already possible using the bitcoin blockchain. No token scam or new blockchain needed

You sort of moved the goal posts here from "no crypto" to "doesn't need something other than bitcoin"...

Re: Nostr.how – A Complete Guide to Nostr

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't want text messages on a none scalable blockchain. Timestamping is already possible using the bitcoin blockchain. No token scam or new blockchain needed

You sort of moved the goal posts here from "no crypto" to "doesn't need something other than bitcoin"...

Crypto movement does not relate to bitcoin. Bitcoin was about preventing money printing and crypto is about every VC having his own private money system he sells token of

I didn't say decentralised timestamping is required for a social network or any blockchain needed

Post reply on HN