What is Nostr?
Nostr is an Acronym that stands for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays
What is Nostr? Cont.
Nostr is a simple, open, federated, protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media.
TL;DR: Decentralized Twitter or X but Extendable
What we will learn today
- Compare Platforms verses Protocols
- Sovereignty in Online Spaces
- Review Public Private Key Paris
- Nostr Onboarding
- Create Accounts
- Create Profile's
- Manage Relay Metadata
- Use Nostr to create Lightning Bitcoin Wallet
- Send Encrypted Messages via Nostr
Why does Nostr Exist?
- Decentralized Social Media
- Sovereign Social Media
- Solve Problems of other Federated Social Media Solutions
Problems of Social Media
- Problems of Social Media
- Censorship
- Privacy
- Fake News - Cost Exchange Ratio
- Mental Health
- Political Polarization - Conquest’s Second Law
- Identity
- Black Box Recommendation Algorithms
- Lack of Agency of Filters
- Storage / Memory
Problems of Social Media Cont.
- Social media regulates who is allowed to say what, to whom, when, and how much
- Think about how expensive advertising is
Bitcoin Meets Nostr
- Bitcoin and Nostr are both protocols that are evolving, BIP's for Bitcoin and NIP's for Nostr
- Similarities with Bitcoin
Digital Identity
- Username and Password with Server
- The Server Client Dichotomy
- Digital Signature
- Blockchain Verified Digital Identities
Federated Protocol Identity Types
- Username and Password with Server
- ActivityPub (Mastodon)
- XMPP
- Username, Password, Server + Digital Signatures
- Matrix Protocol
- Email + PGP
Federated Protocol Identity Types Cont.
- Digital Signature
- Nostr
- Tox
- SimpleX
- Blockchain Digital Signature
- Urbit
- Lens
- Farcaster
What Makes Nostr Best
- Same Account any App
- Data is accessable across applications
- Same account can seamlessly be used by users or bots (Create AI Agents)
- KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)
- Sovereign Cryptographic Identities
- Redundancy of Data
- Extendability
- Development Activity (Multiple Implementations)
What is the Fediverse?
- Federalism can be described in two words, "United States"
- Swap out people for computer nodes in a network and you have the fediverse
- The Fediverse has protocol's (Laws) and implementations (Courts with Common Law)
The Internet is Federated
OSI Model
- Transport
- Network
- BGP: Border Gateway Protocol
- IP: Internet Protocol
- Data Link
- Spanning Tree Protocol
- MAC: Media Access Control
OSI Model Cont.
- Application
- Session / Presentation
Technology Exists to Help Solve Human Problems
- Blockchain exists to solve problems of coordination
- Digital Federated Systems, like bitcoin and email, are still evolving just like Human Language and Governing Systems
- Digital Federated Systems are complex and hard to get right
Audience Discussions
Imagine if Satoshi Nakamoto got Bitcoin Perfect form the get go?
What would that look like?
Tutorial Time
- dentropy/nostr-tools-tutorial
- What we will learn today
- Basic Javascript
- Create Accounts (via Mnemonic)
- Send Nostr Events to Relays
- Query Relays for Nostr Events
- Send Encrypted Messages via Nostr
What is Federalism
- Federalism can be described in two words, "United States"
- The same way you can belong to a tribe, group, or family, organizations of people forming a state or tribe can create a state of states.
- Federal States have common institutions, values, and stories that hold them together
Just because we live in the network age doesn't mean these ideas of how people organize have gone away, in fact it is built into our technology
Tribes and Federalism
- Tribes Never Disappeared
- Individual humans can only manage so many relationships hence Dumbar's Number
- Tribes spoke different languages, languages that eventually merged or were forgotten for the ones we have today
- Tribes formed trading relationships, war pacts, and eventually states which had customs and rules for making decision
The Fediverse
- Computers had to learn to talk to one another just like humans did
- Just because someone says something doesn't mean that you have to obey
- You can develop your own Bitcoin or Ethereum Fork no one is stopping you
The Fediverse Cont.
- Bitcoin is like a Federal State and the Fediverse is like Human Language
- Breaking Changes (Disagreements) are resolved differently
- When you hear Fediverse think email, or running your own Minecraft Server
- The fediverse has answers to any social media protocol out there
- They vary vastly in quality and features
The Backbone of the Network State
“A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from re-existing states.”
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