I'm working on the technical aspects, but overall, my idea is a Nostr client where people can post reports, news, and important information completely anonymously.

The context is that I come from a country under dictatorship (Venezuela). Although I'm no longer there, whenever something happens, I stop getting information because people become afraid to post, as it could put them in danger.

So, what I envisioned is a client where all posts are anonymous (I'm thinking of ephemeral keys and key rotation), with no need for a login—just posting. I also want it to have community notes, also anonymous, so that content can be evaluated based on reputation. Obviously, posts with more specific content, sources, etc., would have higher credibility.

Do you think this makes sense?

#nostr #nostrplebs #development

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Gift wrapping posts

This is a question for the folks in Venezuela afraid to share information, not for (99.99% of) nostr.

As for tools available today over nostr: There are plenty of web and native nostr apps today that allow for near-instant, and free key creation. Some support Tor relays. None combine VPN, as far as I know.

I remember nostr:nprofile1qqsyvrp9u6p0mfur9dfdru3d853tx9mdjuhkphxuxgfwmryja7zsvhqpzamhxue69uhhv6t5daezumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qgwwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkctcscpyug had an idea of keys that are ephemeral on the device so confiscated phones have no trace, but an NFC tag could be hidden in clothing or somewhere that would log in so you could still post under that account which people are trusting.

I don't see why you couldn't derive an ephemeral private key from another private key.

Eg to temporarily load an anon key, I enter some additional data to then derive a child key. This key is forgotten as soon as I shut the app down. It can again be retrieved using my loaded private key & my second secret.

So have a basic account with like food pictures and stuff which is like a duress wallet, but you can always recreate the protest wallet from that if you know the secret?

Yup 👍

Have a dummy social account & then enter the equivalent of a pass phrase to generate the protest account.

I also noticed during the last election protests people were posting on here quite regularly and the main constraint was data and electricity. So optimizing a client for those would be cool.

The general problem with the use of ephemeral keys in this context is discoverability. Simple events signed by ephemeral keys will probably vanish into the void. Also, since ephemeral keys are cheap to produce, how do you prevent disinformation campaigns from flooding the system, making truly relevant content hard to find?

I feel like PoW is a good answer for the latter. While a public channel for "reports" implemented with gift wraps could address the first problem.

Also you have to be aware that even with all the precautions opsec must still be practiced by the source. A picture can easily leak their location and put them in harms way for instance.

Thanks