Nostr

This is an interesting concept.

It seems to be a simple way to take a name "key" and attach a npub to it ( "value" ) on the bitcoin blockchain.

Then presumably a client would look up the name ( "key" ) on the blockchain ( most likely through a server that's keeping track of these ) and get the npub ( "value" ).

Then it could query various relays for a kind 38300 event and extract the JSON record out of the "content"

A few thoughts.

1. Whats stopping me from just creating a new bitcoin transaction with the same name as someone before?

2. If the data is stored in nostr whats the points of putting the npub on the blockchain? is it just a way to publicly associate a name with an npub?

I think there are a few fundamental issues with an approach like this.

Firstly the bitcoin blockchain is not easily searchable, it might be easy to write data to it but without a centralized server that keeps track of all data written to the chain its almost impossible to search for something

Which makes it pretty useless if your trying to quickly look up a name in a self sovereign way

Second issue. I don't trust nsec keys. They work well for social media and posting on nostr but I would not want to put anything else behind them.

Not because they are insecure, but because if they get leaked then it wont be just my social media account that gets compromised

current list of 38300 events: https://nostrdebug.com/query?base64=eyJraW5kcyI6WzM4MzAwXX0%3D

Freakoverse 2y ago

Ye! I saw nostr:npub1gcxzte5zlkncx26j68ez60fzkvtkm9e0vrwdcvsjakxf9mu9qewqlfnj5z 's post utilizing different kinds for different file types and had a website ip and running on nostr. Everything is perfect and I'm super hyped about it. All that was left was to solve the ICANN problem =3

To your points:

1. First come first claim. Others can take the same name, but they can't take when the first person who took it is.

2. The NPUB in the Blockchain is the owner of the name and controls the rexords. Transfer of ownership is recorded in the chain.

A) I'm not an expert on this so I can't answer this properly, but I'd imagine a software specified in this would be developed to search for these specific transactions and categorize them for fast searching (if you're running a node with umbrel for example, you'd download that software and use it).

B) That's a... Well, that's an issue with Bitcoin and nostr all together then? x3

That's just a responsibility with the individual that they have to have, like in those 2 protocols, and take the appropriate security measures.

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Discussion

hzrd149 2y ago

Sorry about all the notification, my replies are tagging everything in this post :(

response:

The first name being the valid one makes sense and dose make use of bitcoins immutability.

A) The issue is the blockchain size and the ability for users to verify names themselves. If the solution requires people to write distributed servers that index these names. then we are back to where we are now with DNS servers. it wouldn't solve the censorship issue because all phones/wifi routes are programmed to point to a DNS server and cant verify anything themselves

B) True, things would be more secure with better key management. but just as you have multiple password across multiple sites to reduce the damage when you get hacked. You would want to have multiple npubs for social/dns management, which kind of defeated the purpose or at least one of the big selling points of this system.

The use of the blockchain to tie names to public keys is novel. but It could only solve the "permission" part of the DNS problem. It cant solve the censorship problem because the only way to verify the names on the blockchain would be download all of it and index the names starting from the earliest.

And while servers can do that easily. no consumer device can easily do that, and so they would have to fallback to trusting a third party (which is where you get censorship)

Freakoverse 2y ago

Oh, is everyone getting tagged in each reply? Sorry too! x3

I guess this should prompt nostr clients to include 2 things later:

1. Mute Post Thread (from the perspective of the person getting tagged along in replies).

2. (Reply to: @ @ //@ @ //@ ) from the perspective of a person replying and wanting only reply to specific tagged individuals.

B + last paragraph)

Aren't most Bitcoin users (and I'm not even talking about Binance and similar custodial users) are trusting third parties with their transactions as they aren't running their own node? As long as things can be verified by the user themselves, like how it is with Bitcoin and everyone's kind of fine with it, then I don't think this is that big of an issue. What can also be done is provide the user with the power to change who's providing them the node data, like how it is with Blue Wallet for example, and even allowing adding multiple ones and cross checking the end result to decrease the chance of fowl play.