Subnostr

That's a big consideration for porting over from old media.

At least on fb and insta I knew mossad, asio and the CIA were watching me, but that if I set something to just my friends list, only my friends could see it (and mossad,CIA,asio) but not every other joe blow out there

Matt Finlay 6d ago

Yeah most platforms give the illusion of privacy because it's not easily accessible to the man on the street.

Nostr has no kyc so you can avoid identifying yourself if you know what you're doing.

Troy 6d ago

I'm glad you figured this out early. Too many times I have seen people equate Nostr with privacy, and it's quite the opposite. Privacy was never a consideration during Nostr's inception, but we can change that over time.

Currently, an npub is a publicly confirmed identity. If this note is later deemed illegal, it will be difficult to say that I didn't write it.

Oh, and btw, fuck strong central governments. 😜

Valentino Giudice 6d ago

> If this note is later deemed illegal, it will be difficult to say that I didn't write it.

Which is not necessarily bad.

Nostr isn't a lawbreaking tool and, if it catches on, morons that treated it as such will face some stupid consequences.

Matt Finlay 6d ago

The issue here is that a stroke of a pen can render previously legal speech into a jailable offence.

Australia Parliament has just passed new legislation that, for just one example, outlaws reciting Bible verses if the state believes it has the potential to cause offense to someone. Honest criticism of government policies is also to be considered "hate speech". The legislation is retroactive as well so past speech is to judged by this new standard.

I agree that Nostr should not be used to facilitate criminal activity. But maybe the platforms that censor people are much safer in our modern world.

Constant 6d ago

Thats ultimately a political battle. If you have written a book that after the fact is deemed wrongthink you have the exact same problem, or any public expression for that matter regardless of medium.

Atleast with Nostr you are free to use a pen name/psuedonym, which has been ussed throughout time for similar reasons.

Part of that political battle actually is speaking out, and doing so in masses.

I know things are grimm in aussie land, and various other places as well (though (former) commonwealth appears to try to get a medal for this crap or something). Stay strong and God speed!

Matt Finlay 6d ago

Thanks Constant.

You are usually only guilty for what is illegal at the time you do it.

If I do something, then it becomes a crime, I can't be charged for it.

Of course, even these basic principles of democracy can be broken, along with freedom of speech, but Nostr is not even supposed to be a solution to that problem, it never was.

I don't expect Nostr to fix anything. I see it as an enabling technology.

When the state acts against the will and the best interests of the people, do we have democracy?

I do wish for Nostr to, maybe not solve, but at least address other issues, primarily corporate censorship.

Companies often censor content which is absolutely legal. It's also legal (and one could argue moral) to censor content, since they own the servers, but we have the right to reject their role and power as middlemen and Nostr can address that.

Government censorship and violation of basic civil rights (such as the non-retroactivity of laws) isn't a technical problem, it's a political problem which can't really be solved by just nerding hard enough.

> When the state acts against the will and the best interests of the people, do we have democracy?

In some cases yes, but not if it violates fundamental human rights.

Democracy isn't about having perfect laws, or maybe even good laws, it's about empowering the people (not just the majority of them, all of them).

Fundamental human rights such as democracy, the right not be prosecuted for what wasn't illegal at the time of the act and the right to influence political decisions are all that democracy is. There is nothing more and nothing less to democracy than that.

Rejection of centralised platforms; their seemingly arbitrary or idealogy-based controls and over-exploitation of users.

That's why I've found my way to Nostr.

The two reasons are aligned.

People giving up power to corporations, and allowing them the role of filtering speech, isn't illegal and isn't strictly speaking a political problem, but it does erode democracy.

It doesn't mean, morally, that centralized platforms *ought* to be neutral and have permissive policies (although some choose to do so). You can make the argument none owes anyone the tool to exercise fundamental rights, so long as they aren't actively infringing them without their consent.

However, it'd be nice, and healthy for democracy, if people did have a tool to exercise their fundamental human right to freedom of speech, which is neutral and not subject to the will of the owners of corporations or capitalistic interests.

That's Nostr.

It doesn't remove governmental censorship, but it does a lot of good to freedom of speech and can be a tool for democracy.

The legality of any new legislation needs to be challenged in court.

Unfortunately that can take many years and destroy many lives in the meantime. The state often uses "the process" as the punishment and will drop charges at the final moment to ensure it there is no successful challenge.

Correction to last sentence:

The state often uses "the process" as the punishment and will drop charges at the final moment, ensuring there is no successful challenge.

I cannot assume motive.

Sim Cardashian 5d ago

They punish you with the process

Courts are part of the government.

They enforce laws made by the legislator, they are made of people picked according to the law, they are the mouth of the law.

Many laws which infringed upon human rights have been enforced by courts, sometimes correctly so (in the lack of higher laws preventing such violations).

A law can be morally illegitimate but legally valid. It must be challenged politically.

Troy 6d ago

It wouldn't be bad if my previous note were deemed illegal?

I think it would.

Troy 6d ago

Howdy, cell mate. 🤣

It would be bad if that specific note were deemed illegal, yes.

I don't think it's necessarily bad that it's hard to say you didn't write what you write.

Nostr isn't supposed to be a means to publish illegal content. It's not failing at doing that, it was just never supposed to do that.

The purpose of Nostr is to publish things so that it can be proven that you wrote those things, which is exactly what you may want if you wish to have a public outlet.

Oh and to answer your message question,

I can see how many messages, from who, and I can go into the messages.

BUT the messages are encrypted and I can't read them.

Still enough data to be concerning though

Dawn 6d ago

There are 2 types of direct messages. One is a spec that is (hopefully) being depreciated. Primal uses that one. Amethyst supports both the dying bad one and the better one. If you go into Amethyst, click my profile to send a mock dm, or send one, i don't mind... you'll see the little incognito man. You can switch back and forth between the message types. Active means they're more secure. Amethyst will automatically set the msg type, based on what type your recipient is using. If you do msg me, then go look on the npub sign in, you won't see the msg data.

As far as everything else, nostr was designed to be censorship resistant above all else, so most things are public by default. You can utilize nostr in less public ways, once you get familiarized with choosing, setting up, and navigating relays. As with anything on the internet, there is no guarantee of privacy. The difference with nostr is that there is no 3rd party to mitigate these matters on your behalf. You are responsible for your freedom, your privacy, your content, what you view (and not), and what you choose to share.