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309 sats \ 1 reply \ @jb55 28 Dec 2021 freebie \ on: Looks like a nostr client is live named "branle" nostr

For anyone not in the know, nostr is fiatjaf's social network protocol:

The simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global "social" network once and for all.

It doesn't rely on any trusted central server, hence it is resilient; it is based on cryptographic keys and signatures, so it is tamperproof; it does not rely on P2P techniques, therefore it works.

Very short summary of how it works, if you don't plan to read anything else

Everybody runs a client. It can be a native client, a web client, etc. To publish something, you write a post, sign it with your key and send it to multiple relays (servers hosted by someone else, or yourself). To get updates from other people, you ask multiple relays if they know anything about these other people. Anyone can run a relay. A relay is very simple and dumb. It does nothing besides accepting posts from some people and forwarding to others. Relays don't have to be trusted. Signatures are verified on the client side.

This is needed because other solutions are broken

The problem with Twitter

  • Twitter has ads;
  • Twitter uses bizarre techniques to keep you addicted;
  • Twitter doesn't show an actual historical feed from people you follow;
  • Twitter bans people;
  • Twitter shadowbans people.
  • Twitter has a lot of spam.

The problem with Mastodon and similar programs

  • User identities are attached to domain names controlled by third-parties;
  • Server owners can ban you, just like Twitter;
  • Migration between servers is an afterthought and can only be accomplished if servers cooperate. It doesn't work in an adversarial environment (all followers are lost);
  • There are no clear incentives to run servers, therefore they tend to be run by enthusiasts and people who want to have their name attached to a cool domain. Then, users are subject to the despotism of a single person, which is often worse than that of a big company like Twitter, and they can't migrate out;
  • Since servers tend to be run amateurishly, they are often abandoned after a while — which is effectively the same as banning everybody;
  • It doesn't make sense to have a ton of servers if updates from every server will have to be painfully pushed (and saved!) to a ton of other servers. This point is exacerbated by the fact that servers tend to exist in huge numbers, therefore more data has to be passed to more places more often;
  • For the specific example of video sharing, ActivityPub enthusiasts realized it would be completely impossible to transmit video from server to server the way text notes are, so they decided to keep the video hosted only from the single instance where it was posted to, which is similar to the Nostr approach.

more on the project page

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2 sats \ 0 replies \ @0260378aef 1 Jan 2022

I definitely like this general line of thinking, but I want to look at the censorship part a bit more carefully:

The distinction between 'relays' and mastodon 'instance servers' is a real one in as much as a relay doesn't "own" its clients, but what stops relay operators from blocking posts or users they don't like; you can say 'well you just use the other relays', true (probably redundantly), but relays might coordinate in the same way as current mastodon instance owners do, publishing ban lists that "right thinking people" all agree on.

I would like to say there is an encryption/blinding based cryptographic solution, but I don't see it, currently (if anyone can decrypt, so can the relay operator! - at least in any practical system that's going to be true) ... unless you entirely ditch identities, which removes the whole social network concept.

I would guess that the counter-argument is: well, you only need one non-censoring relay, so the decoupling of users from servers in this sense could well be enough. Hmm, probably. Servers can be shut down, though.

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