Nostr Web Client

Why does spam exist?

It only exists because the following three things are true:

1. People with malicious intent exist.

2. People can create new Nostr identities for free.

3. New identities can write to relays for free with the expectation that their notes will be seen and may not be removed for a time.

It is not possible to change 1, and 2 cannot be changed without a central authority that issues "approved" Nostr keys. Not a road we want to go down.

That means the only way to fight spam is by improving the ability of relays to block spam from being written to them in the first place and/or recognize and remove it quickly.

It is then the responsibility of users to only read from relays that do so. This means they need to have a place to find such relays. A relay marketplace, of sorts, that they can be referred to or that can be displayed within their Nostr client.

Clients aren't entirely off the hook here either. Defaults matter, and clients should have sensible default relays for new users that haven't built a relay list of their own yet. But they can only do so when there are solid relay options that allow write access to new users while also effectively recognizing and removing spam.

Clients can also provide tools for mitigating spam that do not rely on relays doing so, such as the way Coracle, Damus, and Nostur can filter posts based on WoT, regardless of what relays they use. Likewise, Amethyst has a toggle to hide posts that have been reported by those you follow. With these types of tools, though, your experience will vary widely from client to client, based on whether they implement similar tools and whether they toggle them on by default.

Meanwhile, picking good relays will affect your experience on all clients. Well... at least the ones that respect your relay choices...

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Discussion

plor 6mo ago

We have the tools with proof of work to mitigate the worst of spam. There is already a NIP to add PoW to notes, but that makes UX for normal use quite degraded. But what if we only had to do it occasionally? Let's say my profile contains a reference to a note on which I included PoW. Clients then could filter out users by which have shown a certain level of PoW, which if set high enough would make these spam attacks unfeasible.

plor 6mo ago

PoW + WoT is a deadly combo.

Dikaios1517 6mo ago

That's an interesting idea. It's effectively an attempt to create a distinction between legitimate identities and potential spammers by adding a "cost" to creating an identity, yet without the need for a centralized authority.

However, I don't know how effective it would be. The PoW would have to be high enough that it imposes a significant cost for spammers to have to spin up a new identity once the one they were using is no longer being seen by most users. Yet, that also means it will be a considerable wait for a new user on standard hardware to generate enough PoW to finally be able to post.

Indeed, a spammer could have his GPU working overnight to have multiple Nostr keys ready to go, so that as one is detected as a spammer, he just uses the next one in line, with the PoW note already having been generated.

I think the cost to the new user would be greater than the imposition caused to a determined spammer. Indeed, the more I look at PoW as a possible spam deterrent, the less it makes sense and really just ends up being a deterrent against new users in general. For it to be effective at deterring spam, it needs to be a high enough amount of PoW that it is an annoyance to average users, too. Especially those posting from mobile devices.

plor 6mo ago

I think this is where WoT comes in, as new users generally have some nexus of another user. They could inherit some of the PoW of people who follow them, and the PoW can be some background process that doesn't effect UX too much. The key is making the marginal cost of a new npub higher than spammers are willing to bear. If it costs $0.10 of compute per npub, spammers might make several but will give up when those are easily filtered out.

Ucrem91 6mo ago

I think the best way is to incentivate community to report possible spam and if many people tag a post with possible spam that post and that account need to be shadow-banned or something like that. I literally create this account a few minutes ago because i want to try this social and i notice many post that are spam. And if i’m right this app is decentralized and no one have control. So if the community have a control the only way to mitigate spam is that.

Dikaios1517 6mo ago

Helpful, and that is a form of what Amethyst does. However, it requires a number of people within a user's community to see and report the spam before it will be hidden. Not ideal.

The preference would be that NO ONE has to see it, particularly for the worst types of unwanted notes.

mar 6mo ago

The paid relays that I use don't have spam. Just don't use the free relays. The solution is already there.

Dikaios1517 6mo ago

I also use paid relays, and WoT relays, and my own Haven relay. So yes, I agree that there are solutions people can take advantage of. However, these solutions disadvantage new users who are just trying Nostr out for the first time.

mar 6mo ago

I understand what the developers are saying. They are saying that the free relays are needed for new users.

In order for Nostr to grow you need free relays because if you don't. Then users don't want to spend time researching how to pay for a relay especially if they don't have a lightning address.

In a way it makes a bit of sense.

We can just tell users to move onto paid relays once they are comfortable on Nostr. It doesn't affect me too much. It's the free relays administrators that have to put up with that nonsense. Let them take the pain. zmy relay will continue to be paid. I don't like headaches.

Dikaios1517 6mo ago

It's a bit of a rough start for new users one way or the other. If all they have access to are free relays, then they will see a lot of spam early on that could cause them to just give up, especially if the spam is the only engagement they get.

mar 6mo ago

Yes, some will give up but there's always that one or two that will stay. Exactly how Bitcoin was at the beginning. Some people give up fast and others quickly see the value in something.

but many of us on nostr know that nostr is the next big thing since Bitcoin. The giver up-ers will eventually come back.