#asknostr
Does it make sense to build a kill switch note type that effectively tells relays to block anything related to a specific user id?
The "If I can't have it, no one can" feature.
Discussion
Something like that would be nice. But it would have to be voluntary. Some people may not want that.
You would have to sign and publish such an event yourself.
In your case, someone else could do it, but all it does is prevent further misuse of a compromised account. There is no putting the cat back in the box anyway.
So if you have your key safe and sound, it's your choice to destroy the account or not. You might do it if you don't want the account anymore, or you may never do it.
If your account is compromised, you can lock it down or let it be used for nefarious reasons. It's up to you but also up to anyone else who has your private key.
Yes, I would use something like that. But I suspect it goes against the overall ethos on Nostr of keeping everything permanent. I'll keep the old account open until I have time to create a new one. I just won't zap with it.
Looks like there's already something brewing in the pipeline.
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/key-invalidation-and-migration/37.md
You can only make notes with that nsec and send to relays. Like "My nsec is compromized. Do not listen to this account anymore". But the attacker (stealer of the nsec) can also delete what you are posting. I think stolen keys is a major problem of Nostr. A solution is by trusting good old relays.
What you are talking about is NIP-09 event deletion.
That said, it is already in the spec that deleting a deletion is not to be supported: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/09.md#deleting-a-deletion
So really there is already a precedent for having exclusions to what a deletion request can target.
We also have kind ranges:
https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips#event-kind-ranges
This allows us to make things like replaceable events, but why not a range of non-deletable events?
Absolutely we need to rely on relays, but we need a standard way to signal to relays what they should and should not be protecting people from. So what better way than to use events for this too?