TFW a fake RFK npub is trending and got zapped by reputable nostr users who still haven’t learned to verify 🤦♂️
Discussion
Even if that account was real, why would you give RFK (or any other famous person, such as Saylor) YOUR money? It's not like they need it or they'll starve if you don't zap them.
i reposted his note 
I was suspicious of it. I have wondered what verification would even look like in a world where Nostr actually took over in big ways. Imagine if DNS and X were gone. Those are the two main ways I've seen other than web of trust, which clearly isn't that great if so many people just blindly believe whatever
Idk why we want to try and pretend those things don’t exist. They do, so let’s use them for stuff like this. For most people it’s good enough. If and when they become unusable or inaccessible then use something else.
100%. It was an aside more than a response to this particular issue. People should absolutely use the tools we have.
Better than nothing at least lol. But yea, I do agree that it would be good to have other ways of verifying here, especially for high profile people where scammers are likely to take advantage and impersonate.
only dumbfuck scammers refer to webpages like https://http://...
Im no expert, but possibly something similar to how you prove to a website that you own your lightning node? Signing a message?
I know its more nuanced than that, but its a start...
There are theoretically many ways. None are absolute (the closest probably being trading info in person) and people would need to verify in accordance with their own threat models.
NIP 05 or you’re gay
Good thing about NoStrudel, gotta go searching for trending, unlike Primal where it's just there next to your feed 😎
LOL
Yep, I noticed yesterday. Why do they trust? Why? 🤦🏻♂️
nostr:note10250ueg83nwntzdy4pe4jm50jtr85m99cz260y9706zy4x3slrhqcst8a2 
😭😭😭
but wEb oF tRuSt
Fortunately for me I know better than to trust most of y’all muthafuckas 😂
Yeah, but there’s not really a verification method for Nostr, unless you use a custom domain or post your npub somewhere else.
rfk owns several custom domains
nostr:npub15dqlghlewk84wz3pkqqvzl2w2w36f97g89ljds8x6c094nlu02vqjllm5m too!!! People give credit to this fake accounts because they don’t verify
Fwiw, that saylor npub was vouched for at one time by Jack, and for a short while it was using a hope.com NIP-05, which is one of Saylor’s domains.
Saylor thinks he can do orange check marks through Microstrategy.
Nostr kills his idea so he’s unlikely to embrace it.
nostr:note1q3zk4f5uxg4nfj8qr5h3568mg0seafm3rwsz3mkdkksu53w3pz3sr30hzs
Saylor stole my name:
nostr:note1703c6wndt7qugt3jwgw4mw33arj43fuuy7gzv07x9lmpe0w6wspspd088n
I don’t like Saylor. He’s a BitcoinBug to me.
But he has a good track record of being early on new tech. He owns some great .com domains and saw what mobile would do to the world before most.
Too bad he’s a spook collecting corn for the US Gov..
Who is this dumb
Even if it was real, why TF would you voluntarily send money to a rich guy with no plausible need for your sats? I don't understand this compulsion to just give money to the people who need it the least.
I don't give money based on need. I give money based on value. I will send value to anyone who gives me value, regardless of their net worth. I may indeed give money to someone who needs it more than me simply because I value them or whatever they're offering me, but I'm still getting value. It also isn't neccesarily a compulsion. You're making a lot of assumptions, which is an exercise notorious for leading to misunderstanding.
how can you actually verify though? unless he posted his pubkey somewhere like X or something, how could you know?
NIP-05 using his official domain. Post his npub anywhere else he is known to be identified. X, his website, etc. Those would be good places to start.
In theory. But his real account doesn't have a nip05 domain that he controls like his campaign site. Doubtful he ever has posted his npub.
See the issue? That's the problem with nostr 'verification'. It only works when you rely on outside sources to verify. Always been the case. Signing means nothing if you don't know the correct npub.
He doesn’t have a real account. Neither of the ones on nostr was ever verified/announced by his campaign. And the methods I mentioned would be sufficient if they had.
he did have this statement in 2023 while talking about Jack and censorship.
"Figuring out how to make censorship proof, social media sites, and they’re doing that with Nostr. Some of this blockchain technology that’s coming out of Bitcoin will be very useful"
Not really verification of anything except that he was aware of nostr. Especially for a figure in a position such as him. Needs to be an explicit verification that it’s his account.
What do you mean “learn to verify?” Be pragmatic in your answer.
This is the same unsolved problem with web of trust. How would a pleb be able to verify ANY given npub/person?
Learn to critical think too.
So how would someone verify any given npub using critical thinking?
What I’m getting at is that it’s largely an unsolved problem
Imagine that Donald Trump was on nostr and there were also 50+ impersonators.
Which relay(s) would he be on?
If you stumbled on this actual account, how would you verify?
He would have to go on live TV and speak his npub or something similarly drastic for any of us to have enough confidence. Or he would need to blast it on all his socials.
But even then, you’d have to ensure you went to those definitive sources in order to verify and not from some random news blog site that may try and trick you.
It’s a hard problem.