Okay I really didn’t notice for a long time that my client doesn’t seem to support NIP-17 DMs at all. I just started using nostr:npub1p5m98p05wn2tqffh0d9du6kjg8uy04g5485mgagxna56yrugd35qzvjnut which I think is the most awesome service on Nostr. I found it by accident, searching for a domain name while building the exact same product. But the DMs didn’t come through. So I pop open a second client that supports NIP-17 DMs and notice that I not only have the messages from Mailstr but some other people who have DM’d me in the past.

This is why I have a Session ID in my profile — because DMs on Nostr are a *complete fucking disaster*. There is only one reasonably good UI/UX experience for normal users on MacOS Desktop — nostr:npub1n0stur7q092gyverzc2wfc00e8egkrdnnqq3alhv7p072u89m5es5mk6h0 — and it doesn’t support NIP-17. Imagine talking to a normal person and them being told that they didn’t get the DMs from their girlfriend because there are multiple fucking ways to send a DM on Nostr. This is horrific and I can’t believe there isn’t a concerted push to demand everyone pick whatever a standard is and stick with it.

To make this even worse, NIP-17 is also a stupidly broken standard. The spec mentions “optional forward secrecy” but the author doesn’t seem to understand how forward secrecy is achieved or the idea that the phrase actually means something in the context of cryptography (this is maximally cringe). Only 0xchat’s “Secret Chats” or White Noise provide reasonable mechanisms for Forward Secrecy, and they aren’t even NIPs at all. Don’t send me messages via either of these, because they only provide phone apps and I do not use phones. The only way to fix things is to make the situation temporarily worse — create a *brand fucking new* protocol NIP for DMs from someone that understands what “forward secrecy” means and scream at client maintainers until they all implement it. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH