Whitenoise didn't "smartly" avoid it. Pubkeys and the identity in nostr, as they are in nostr:nprofile1qqsvnx99ww0sfall7gpv2jtz4ftc9v6wevgdd7g4hh7awkpfvwlezugpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsx06t26

The AS is a hack to bridge legacy systems that are based on string/"human readable" identifiers into the modern world of pubkey identities.