Hey bro! Welcome to #nostr
Nostr is a very new protocol built on the idea of building new networks of information that are not controlled by any single entity. Unlike twitter or instagram or Facebook etc who own your data, could modify it or censor your data, censor and control what data from others that you see, Nostr hands that control over to the individual.
It’s about freedom, transparency in a verifiable way. Most people here are all aligned with that goal to make a better world.
But Nostr really needs more people from different cultures and walks of life and it’s still a very new protocol.
When you use the Nostr protocol, you access information like notes (messages people post) using a client of your choice. For iOS a common one is #Damus, for Android a common one is #Amethyst. On the computer you might use snort.social, primal.net, coracle.social or many others.
You can pick the client that works for you. They’re all new and growing to become better! All the creators are on Nostr so it’s easy to reach out!
As a user you are identified by a key pair: one private key (nsec****) and one public key (npub***). Never ever share your nsec with another person. The nsec is used to sign your messages to prove it’s you. You will need it to log in to clients in order to write notes but otherwise keep it very safe. If you lose it, you lose your profile. If you give it to someone you give them full rights to your profile forever.
Others use your npub (the public key) to identify you and to verify that your messages are actually written by you.
The idea of the private and public keys is new to many people but hopefully it makes sense. Don’t be turned away. It’s essential to making the protocol powerful for the user.
As a user, you can choose where to send your messages. You select a bunch of “relays” which are special servers that store and distribute messages sent to them to other users using the same relays. You can change relays whenever you want if you think they’re censoring or doing something wrong or if you want relays that have different users etc.
But that’s it: key control, clients and relays are the essential part for a user to understand.
Use the hashtag “asknostr” when you have questions!
Let me know if anything is unclear
#grownostr
