#WelcometoNostr Day 2

What are private keys, npubs, nsecs, and what's my password?

Nostr is built upon incredibly cool cryptography. There's no username and password combo that a central authority keeps for you and can potentially leak in a data breach.

Instead, your "account" on Nostr has a public key (looks like a long string of jumbled numbers and letters). That public key is what identifies you on the the Nostr network and not a username.

Depending on the client you use, you'll find your public key under your public profile name and is displayed to all users.

The only way to make a post to the "account" that your public key represents is with your private key.

Cryptography makes it so only your private key can post (or "sign") a note as valid to be posted to the “account” with your public key.

Public Key = Everyone can see, and is how you're found.

Private Key = Keep secret. Someone gets your private key, they can post to your account.

You can save your private key in a password manager like 1Password or Bitwarden. Other than that, don't post/display the private key anywhere.

For ease of use, some clients display a version of your keys with prefixes:

"npub" which represents your Nostr Public Key

"nsec" which represents your Nostr Secrect/Private Key

There are no passwords on Nostr, just Public and Private key pairs that work through cryptography. The benefit is that you're not tied to any one client, your account is extremely secure, and each message is cryptographically validated that it's you (or the one holding your private key) that posted the note.

Hope that helps for a little primer. I'm not the best at concise explanations. Anyone else want to chime in, feel free! We're all learning. Welcome to Nostr, it's a beautiful place!