Thread - Nostr Hypermedia

What's the single most marketable feature of Nostr? I mean the thing with the greatest potential to engage a person's attention and hold their interest, and something that is sufficiently distinctive as compared to other offerings to make them want to re-use Nostr rather than something else. My answer: It's the practice of deliberately self-authenticating on the internet through public key cryptography on an everyday basis. The idea of decentralization, relays, etc. are just consequences of that practice. What is basically empowering about Nostr is that it provides mechanisms for distributing content that has been deliberately authenticated by the user with a digital signature from a private key. If that's right, then the tendency among developers to try to hide this authentication mechanism from users rather than highlight it is very unfortunate. It's hiding precisely the thing that makes Nostr interesting. It's not a good way to market something.

Replies (3)

inkan dv@www.inkan.cc 3 weeks ago

Agree, I think it's using public key cryptography for authentication. That's the core of the protocol, and that's what makes it distinctive and liberating. This feature shouldn't be played down when introducing Nostr to "normies" (whatever exactly that means), but instead it should be highlighted. We should make clear that Nostr requires a bit of learning, re-thinking and adjustment of one's practices. It requires an effort, but once a person has made that effort they then have a sense of ownership in the new skill they have acquired. And I don't think any of this stands in the way of broad-based adoption. It's still much easier to learn to manage a key pair than, say, to learn skateboarding, or become a vegetarian. People can be quite motivated once they put their mind to something.

inkan dv@www.inkan.cc 3 weeks ago

That's why we need a key rotation system that allows you to replace keys that have been lost or compromised. Prototype below.

inkan

Inkan enables you to revoke and replace key pairs when your private key has been lost or stolen. You can also perform periodic key rotations preemptively. You can do all this in a decentralized manner. That way Inkan gives you a permanent online identity that only you control, and that you can be confident you can keep over the long-term. For example 50 years. Inkan is open for testing and comment. Let me know if you'd like to try it out.

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inkan dv@www.inkan.cc 3 weeks ago

"I can't say I know enough of the technical stuff to know how well this can work in practice." I made the prototype to find out. I've been using it for a few months and it works well enough for me so far. There's tons of rough edges, but I don't currently see any insurmountable obstacles in principle. If anyone sees anything fundamentally amiss, please point it out. That will save me a lot of time.