Subnostr

Tor and the average commercial VPN like PIA or ExpressVPN will do close to nothing for relay operators if an enforcement agent comes for them, unfortunately. (And I'm not talking out of my arse, by the way… end users need to keep this in mind: their anonymity is mostly an illusion, and most folks who think they're "off the grid" are actually doxxing themselves in a myriad of ways every single day.)

I'm still in the "Is there anything to comply with? And if so, what and how?" stage.

I assume most people on Nostr won’t comply, and at worst, they'll just take their personal relays offline. But assuming there is an option to comply (involving relays) I need to take my "the resistance" hat off for a moment, and try to understand if it's even possible to provide people with a compliance path to begin with. Ultimately each relay operator should make the call as they are the ones with skin in the game.

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Discussion

ChipTuner 5mo ago

So are you speaking from the relay operator perspective or from the developer's responsibility?

I would expect operators to comply with legislation for the region they operate in, exactly how typical web2 application operate. I would expect to be forced to comply with cease and desist or take-down orders if you fall under the jurisdiction of the region summoning you. If you operate a relay in the EU, and the EU government slapped you with a take-down request I'd expect to comply.

These are things we've discussed at GitCitadel, we agree we don't intend to operate out of compliance, however we will do everything we can to empower customers to operate their own equipment to avoid government action.

Dealing with feds in any country is no joke, they have the power to turn your life upside-down with the click of a pen. I personally believe a single company or founder of a company should not die on the hill of non-compliance, there are ways (for now) to keep you on the outside of a prison cell. IMO we are way more useful outside than inside one.

O Expedicionário 5mo ago

That's the reasonable take, comply and promote freedom, silly idealism combined with low technical skills it's far too common and far too dangerous.

Laeserin 5mo ago

Yeah, your events, your problem. 😁

People need to run their own Nostr node.

ChipTuner 5mo ago

Yup.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 5mo ago

either that or move their services to a more friendly jurisdiction and use VPNs.

whatever they say, doesn't matter if they can't find out.

Laeserin 5mo ago

Like where? North Korea? This is going to get baked into the hardware and the operating systems and the app stores.

ChipTuner 5mo ago

^ 100% yes.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 5mo ago

so, let's just give up now

they are going to shut down the mobile devices first, because of the duopoly of google and apple.

for this reason a more reasonable response is to stick with open platforms anyway. it's already a waste of time trying to put nostr on iOS as it is, just ask will.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 5mo ago

force them to overreach and try to shut down the entire linux industry. that will be highly successful i'm sure.

it also puts a big roadblock up against the "but muh adoption" meme all the influencoors and even some not so much influencoor who think that adoption is everything

we can't get people to adopt stuff that the government has blocked from normies. the end.

we target linux, web browsers, and if that means that we rule out 90% of the addressable market, so be it. there isn't a normie in the world who would even care to fight the governnment on this.

and there isn't a freak who wouldn't.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 5mo ago

also, let's be clear about this:

gitcitadel is not about attracting hordes of normie social media dopamine fiends

it's about providing back end infrastructure and applications to use it to private businesses. the government can't push those people around as easily as they can lock you out of google play and apple store. they already are routinely using all kinds of technologies that are completely bespoke and nothing directly to do with social media

they also can't stop private associations from using them. they can't stop private citizens from using open protocols on their open operating systems.

the inevitable conclusion from all of this is that this whole meme about "mUh AdOpTiOn" needs to die right here and now. it's not gonna happen, ok? they won't let it happen. people will only learn if they have friends who are doing it.

as it is, i'm virtually shut out of reddit already. i'm shut out of X because they shadow ban me automatically, if not explicitly suspend my account within 5 of my posts. this is their cow paddock and they won't have any goats in it.

Laeserin 5mo ago

Yeah, widespread adoption could only be shortlived. We've always seen Nostr as something thinly connecting LANs and similar.

I think that's what the next Internet will look like: No more global stage, just people moving between local stages.

Laeserin 5mo ago

Yeah, iOS is completely pointless. Waste of time.

Anthony Accioly 5mo ago

Answering here since the conversation below went in a different direction. In Anthony’s Wishful Thinking Universe, there’s basically no distinction. That is, users running relays on their mobile devices or Raspberry Pi are operators just like the big ones, such as nostr:nprofile1qqsflmrj64um42nh9tu7w8nr3dffy9tjrt8xururype9ajle7alctvgppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddakj7qg4waehxw309ahx7um5wghx77r5wghxgetk9uukdx2g, nostr:nprofile1qqs8eseg5zxak2hal8umuaa7laxgxjyll9uhyxp86c522shn9gj8crspz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qgjwaehxw309ahx7um5wgerztnrdakj7qgkwaehxw309a3x2an09ehx7um5wgcjucm0d5hsvlnggv, and others.

Folks running Haven, for instance, are storing and serving notes from people in their WoT when those people tag them. (I’m serving your note above from my Inbox relay; it’s small scale, of course, but people running personal relays are still relay operators.)

In practice, I expect law enforcement to go after the big players (Primal, Damus, nos.lol, nostr.mom) first, due to their scale and the higher likelihood of finding adult content on their relays. But we also need to provide tools for the smaller-scale operators to self-moderate as well.

Regarding government compliance (e.g. facial recognition, ID checks for age verification), I don’t think it’s up to me or other relay software devs to bake compliance directly into the relay software. However, moderation tools should be designed in a way that allows operators to build their own ad hoc compliance solutions.

For example, nostr:nprofile1qqswuyd9ml6qcxd92h6pleptfrcqucvvjy39vg4wx7mv9wm8kakyujgpypmhxue69uhkx6r0wf6hxtndd94k2erfd3nk2u3wvdhk6w35xs6z7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcpypmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuetfde6kuer6wasku7nfvuh8xurpvdjj7a0nq40 suggested implementing an approval queue. Then it's up to the relay operator to verify the user’s age before releasing a post, however they see fit, especially if they’re operating in the UK.

Of course, I wouldn’t impose this on all Haven users / operators. There should be an auto-approval flag for folks in countries with less strict compliance requirements. Still, the option to enable an approval queue should be there, and it’s definitely jumping the queue on my list of side quests (That said, it’s not something that’ll be ready tomorrow, unfortunately).

cloud fodder 5mo ago

it gets missed frequently, but relay.tools is open software that I encourage people to run a hub of their own, for their own community.. in fact, I prefer they do this whenever possible since it adds to the decentralization, and has the features for curation I think you would need like the moderation portal.

Anthony Accioly 5mo ago

I'll have a look at relay.tools and see what I can learn from it, try to adapt some of the moderation ides. Thanks for the insights!

cloud fodder 5mo ago

in addition, relay.tools will eventually support deployment of other types of relays and management for those as well, like haven. the relay.tools project is opensource and focused on being for node runners first, running the nostr1 hub is a just a small part of the overall vision.

Anthony Accioly 5mo ago

Sounds exciting. Happy to help when the time comes!