- Note: “relay” is the nostr term while “instance” is the AP/Mastodon/Lemmy term. They are functionally very similar and offer the same abilities to ban annoying users from “public square” type spaces. Moderation works identically.
- In AP/mastodon/lemmy you are connected to one “main instance” and then connect to other instances “through” that instance. In nostr, you are typically connected to multiple relays and access content more directly.
- Nostr is an underlying protocol like AP is for Mastodon/Lemmy. The main use of nostr currently is as a twitter/mastodon clone, but it has other interfaces as well (calendaring, video sharing, etc) that I am less familiar with.
- Both networks are decentralized in nature
AP/Mastodon/Lemmy
- Instance admins on your instance and the instance of the user you are DMing can read your DMs, block them, or modify them without your knowledge or the knowledge of the receiving user
- If your instance goes down, so does your access to the wider network. It will take your DMs with it, and your identity.
Nostr
- Relays cannot read the content of your DMs as they are encrypted. They can only see that user A is DMing user B and approximate DM size. (This upgrade reduces that visibility further)
- Relays cannot manipulate DMs as they are encrypted and will fail a signature check
- No relay can prevent you from DMing another user as your client will automatically route the DM through another relay (unless that user has blocked you, which they can do).
- You can receive DMs from anybody as long as one relay lets your DM through (and you are usually connected to several)
- Your DMs and other content is replicated across multiple relays. Downed relay? No problem. You don’t lose your content or your identity as your identity is a private/public keypair not “user @ instance dot com”
Bluesky
Idk anybody care to fill this section in?
Image source: nostr post
I checked out Nostr relatively recently and it seemed to me it was full of cryptobros and extremely right-wing people (libertarians, Trump fanatics. A ton of racism and queerphobia, also a bunch of conspiracy thinking). Has anything changed?
Still some of those, as with any social media platform. I have come across a few objectionable things, I just blocked and moved on. But you pick who you follow so you pick who shows up in your feeds. Each relay has their own moderation policies, so (like Lemmy), you can pick relays which suit your moderation preferences (which effect the “trending notes”/public square section). Most nostr apps by default upon install will ask you if you want to automatically filter out crypto/nsfw/foul language/etc. I picked at random and didn’t enable many of the filters.
I’ll stick with AP for now but I’ll keep an eye on it, then.
For becoming something noticeable Nostr firstly need to go beyond just a bitcoin maxi discussion platform. Currently it’s just a decentralized Parler.
It definitely started as mostly crypto bros, kinda like how lemmy was 100% tankies, but it’s gotten better. Lots more human rights activists and scientists and even just regular people on there now. A lot of human rights/privacy activists/orgs are joining up to it after nostr got some promotion at their conferences. Ultimately your feed will be who you follow so luckily you’re in control of that. The default settings for most nostr apps even include a filter to remove anything crypto, NSFW, and other controversial topics related.
Still very early days for all these platforms.
There’s a reason Lemmy strongly suggests using Matrix for secure direct messaging and has a place for it on your profile. 🤷
Just feels like a slightly disingenuous take on Lemmy since it’s made clear in a lot of places that its suggested to use Matrix if you want safe user-to-user communication.
DMs aren’t as relevant in Lemmy so I get why securing them isn’t a priority, but in Mastodon or any twitter clone it seems like a relevant feature I’d like to have some security/privacy with. Instance admins, and anybody who breaks into their server, being able to see all DMs seems like a security flaw that should be engineered away. Even Facebook, the place with the worst privacy, has E2E encryption (or so they claim, who really knows)
Direct messages shouldn’t be private. It’s just a person commenting to another person rather than to a post. It should be possible, and the default that conversations are public.
If you want privacy, use private messages
Anyone following anyone interesting on Nostr? Tried it for a while and while the tech is cool I felt it was missing a good collection of people. All I ever saw was crypto scams and self referential memes/discussions about how cool Nostr is - which I agree - but that’s not what I’m interested in.
Finding good people to follow has been a challenge for me both on mastodon and nostr. But I find just posting and seeing who likes my posts and then following them has got me a decent feed curated at this point. And searching hashtags for topics I’m interested in.
There are some bridges so you can follow mastodon users on nostr and vice versa, but it’s not quite the same. We’re still pretty early adopters on both platforms at this point.
It seems to me that there will be much less relays than there are AP nodes. Users won’t publish/subscribe to hundred of relays (if they did, relays would not scale). Hence more bad content to less moderators, and poor moderation.
Adding client filters would just shift the censorship power to those maintaining them.
Why do we even need relays in the first place? Like, if only someone could create a network that could enable computers to send messages to each other on the layer below apps so apps would just be to display and format those messages, not pass them (ツ).
Why do we even need relays in the first place?
To store message content. To hold message content if you send a message to an offline contact and vice versa. To handle getting things across networks (clearnet to Tor and back if you only are connected to one). To work around NAT etc. To moderate “public square” type features (ie trending posts). Many reasons.
What if one relay is on clearnet and the other one is on Tor?
No problem, relays can communicate cross-network. They relay things between each other so traffic will find a way through as long as one node speaks to both networks.
What if relays I use are not rechable by my contact, that lives in censored country like China and can only connect to relays in there?
As long as there is a relay path between you and your contact, there is no issue. Relays can be run through Tor and other anonymity networks which are very difficult to distinguish from other forms of encrypted traffic.
Why do we even need relays in the first place?
Okey, so relays can pass message to other relay? Didn’t know that, so thanks.
But then, why not use network like Yggdrasil? Which would be basically like Nostr, but can relay any TCP/IP packet for any app, instead of just Nostr notes.
Okey, so relays can pass message to other relay? Didn’t know that, so thanks.
Relays currently don’t talk to each other. But users are typically connected to multiple relays and publish simultaneously to multiple relays. Likewise, a user pulls in data (tweets etc) from multiple relays. My client is connected to ten. So to give you a more accurate answer to your question, to DM another user, you and that other user need to share a relay. If you are crossing networks (such as clearnet->tor), this means one of those relays needs to talk to both networks. If you want to follow a particular person but aren’t normally connected to a relay they are on, your client can connect to a relay just to get content from that particular person. All of this is handled automatically, of course.
But then, why not use network like Yggdrasil? Which would be basically like Nostr, but can relay any TCP/IP packet for any app, instead of just Nostr notes.
Taking a cursory look at this, it sounds more like a general routing protocol not something that is specifically designed to relay message content or other formatted data (ie you build your apps on top of it, it’s just a protocol for packet delivery). Nostr could conceivably run on any base routing protocol like Tor, I2P, or Yggdrasil though I don’t know of any specific implementations either way. As long as the relay has a way to resolve addresses and send data to them over TCP it should be fine. Hadn’t heard of Yggdrasil yet thanks for letting me know about that I’ll do some more reading later.
Same reason you need an email server, not everyone is online at the same time.
Closest I’ve seen to something truly serverless is plebbit, which is a Reddit/4chan clone using ipfs.
Almost ready for it’s prime time I think. We just need a bit more on the UI/mobile app friendliness to make it shine for all.
Almost ready for it’s prime time I think. We just need a bit more on the UI/mobile app friendliness to make it shine for all.
Yep, been using it for a few months now and it’s getting really good. Not quite as polished as mastodon (as least in the app I’m using), but still very fully featured.
Moderation belongs client side. Server side moderation is the original sin of sicial media.
