I mostly poke fun at Mastodon, but something interesting happened last week that got me thinking. I received several messages via the protocol that I needed to update my instance to patch a vulnerability.

How did this happen? My instance publicly lists my Mastodon handle as being the admin, so folks could scan the Fediverse of instances for unpatched versions and message their admins.

Last week I was researching Bitcoin node versions and how long it takes operators to update. I realized that the average time to update is increasing over the years. My suspicion is this is a result of more hobbyist node operators who aren't technical and are running a user friendly plug and play node. So they are less likely to be checking the node for updates.

Point being, nostr seems like a great solution for the notification problem. Imagine if you could paste your npub into node / any other server software upon installation. The server could generate its own private key and establish an encrypted DM channel with you. Then whenever an update is available, you could be notified in your nostr client.

Voila, secure and decentralized update notifications for server admins!