If they try many new relays will appear overnight
PSA:
the same people who kept Assange in prison for over a decade will also attack nostr the same way
Discussion
they are already attacking
only access control and paid relays will ultimately survive this
How is it different from bitcoin nodes?
nostr is not a consensus, to take down bitcoin you have to attack over 20,000 nodes some of them on very strong security and between many of them are VPNs as backup that can't be attacked publicly
this is a worry: i'm technical enough to have set up an Apache server as a kid, but not technical enough nowadays to know how Relay's filter illegal content.
if i were a theoretical 17-year old hobbyist and set up a Relay that were infected with illegal content (may even purposely put there by ill-intending parties), I assume i would have responsibility and possibly be charged with possession & distribution of illegal content which is 5 - 12 years in a federal prison minimum by the time my 18th birthday rolls around.
sorry to be so dark, but it's a worry.
Not every country is surveiled like that, and it depends of how many there are to be under surveillance. Then there's tor.
the most effective countermeasure is charging for the service and reserving the right to cancel over abusive behaviour
the cost of the abuse is obvious, in the time of admins sifting through this garbage, and how do you put a price on having to see dozens of photos of children being abused or obviously abused children?
whoever is doing it probably thinks they will strike a blow by tainting our data with poison but it's just going to further reinforce the point that me and others have been saying for a long time
this protocol must be self-funded. period.
the funding model where motivations are not guided by pragmatic necessity are not really helping make stuff work, either the funders like opensats need to start tightening up their criteria, setting targets, or stop wasting donors money on funding 20 different versions of the same thing that doesn't solve any real problem.