How far does it sink in?

Yeah, I have slowly been putting my ideas down about this. I guess I have time to ramble...

Calle and Laan are software. We code, and we are code.

While we are software and abstract, for us to run ourselves and our code we need computers, and computers are physical things. We are bits; our computers are atoms. Unfortunately, our computers, bodies, and communication networks are made of atoms, and they are subject to physical attack.

I believe as a cypherpunk, our main concern is defending against physical attack. We tend to think we exist and work in cyberspace, but we really have to concern ourselves with meat-space.

We have a couple of tricks up our sleeves. One is obviously cryptography, and I think 90% of the heavy lifting of NOSTR and Bitcoin is getting everyone to physically secure a private key. An emphasis on PHYSICAL. Securing a private key is a physical process, not a software process. It is instantiating the key into atoms, defending those atoms, and keeping them private.

NOSTR is good here because as a protocol it remains loose enough to innovate on. Once everyone has a private key, you can go a long way without having to define the networking. Relays, snail-mail or carrier pigeon: you know that this event is from me to you, because we use keys.

I think that the cryptography part is pretty well understood, but we have another trick up our sleeves: the commodification of hardware, or maybe even better: the "roachification" of hardware.

It happens to turn out that in our universe, once a computer can do some very basic functions, it becomes "Turing Complete" meaning the computer can run ANY software in our universe. Some Turing computers have more memory and some are faster, but they can all run any software program to some arbitrary number of steps.

If/when the aliens land, they will be able to run Microsoft Windows on their computers (god help them), and we will be able to run their software. It's an amazing fact about the universe we live in.

This means that you, I, and our code are SUBSTRATE INDEPENDENT. It doesn't matter what the computer is made of: silicon, carbon, DNA—it's all the same. It doesn't matter where the computer is. As long as it can compute.

So while we live on/in computers, and depend on them, they are interchangeable, and fundamentally a commodity on a physics level. Our code is special; our computers are a commodity.

If we recognize this underlying fact about our universe, we can utilize it in our code to give us a great advantage.

Bitcoin's strength is not that it defends its computers; it's that it treats those computers (the nodes, the mining ASICs) as the commodities that they are: redundant and expendable. There is no special computer in Bitcoin.

In my estimation, NOSTR comes the closest of the communication protocols in understanding this. A core tenet of NOSTR is that relays are dumb. Expendable. Commodities. We want the world to be awash with them such that they are like roaches. You stomp on one, and two more appear. They need to be easy and cheap to run.

So I would say that the two key ingredients of NOSTR are:

1. Keys

2. Commodification of hardware.

There are things about NOSTR that I think could "use improvement," but I love it.

Once I discovered NOSTR and saw that I could take my overly important home computer, separate the software from the hardware, turn the hardware into a commodity, and spread my software globally across the internet such that it is everywhere and nowhere, I was hooked.

One of my goals is to be able to walk up to any standard computer, enter my key, and have the entire world that I built in cyberspace available to me. My code, my communications, all there.

My money is controlled by me. It is everywhere, and nowhere.

My code and my network can now be controlled by me. It will be everywhere and nowhere.

Now if I could only upload all of myself from my brain, and save it from this slowly dying computer I am running on.... that would be something. It's actually a good thought experiment, and way to critique a protocol. Imagine you upload your brain to the internet, and you don't want to die. How would you design the network that you live on? The physical infrastructure as well as the protocol?

We should think about this question because it is ultimately what we are doing.

Yeah, I have slowly been putting my ideas down about this. I guess I have time to ramble...

Calle and Laan are software. We code, and we are code.

While we are software and abstract, for us to run ourselves and our code we need computers, and computers are physical things. We are bits; our computers are atoms. Unfortunately, our computers, bodies, and communication networks are made of atoms, and they are subject to physical attack.

I believe as a cypherpunk, our main concern is defending against physical attack. We tend to think we exist and work in cyberspace, but we really have to concern ourselves with meat-space.

We have a couple of tricks up our sleeves. One is obviously cryptography, and I think 90% of the heavy lifting of NOSTR and Bitcoin is getting everyone to physically secure a private key. An emphasis on PHYSICAL. Securing a private key is a physical process, not a software process. It is instantiating the key into atoms, defending those atoms, and keeping them private.

NOSTR is good here because as a protocol it remains loose enough to innovate on. Once everyone has a private key, you can go a long way without having to define the networking. Relays, snail-mail or carrier pigeon: you know that this event is from me to you, because we use keys.

I think that the cryptography part is pretty well understood, but we have another trick up our sleeves: the commodification of hardware, or maybe even better: the "roachification" of hardware.

It happens to turn out that in our universe, once a computer can do some very basic functions, it becomes "Turing Complete" meaning the computer can run ANY software in our universe. Some Turing computers have more memory and some are faster, but they can all run any software program to some arbitrary number of steps.

If/when the aliens land, they will be able to run Microsoft Windows on their computers (god help them), and we will be able to run their software. It's an amazing fact about the universe we live in.

This means that you, I, and our code are SUBSTRATE INDEPENDENT. It doesn't matter what the computer is made of: silicon, carbon, DNA—it's all the same. It doesn't matter where the computer is. As long as it can compute.

So while we live on/in computers, and depend on them, they are interchangeable, and fundamentally a commodity on a physics level. Our code is special; our computers are a commodity.

If we recognize this underlying fact about our universe, we can utilize it in our code to give us a great advantage.

Bitcoin's strength is not that it defends its computers; it's that it treats those computers (the nodes, the mining ASICs) as the commodities that they are: redundant and expendable. There is no special computer in Bitcoin.

In my estimation, NOSTR comes the closest of the communication protocols in understanding this. A core tenet of NOSTR is that relays are dumb. Expendable. Commodities. We want the world to be awash with them such that they are like roaches. You stomp on one, and two more appear. They need to be easy and cheap to run.

So I would say that the two key ingredients of NOSTR are:

1. Keys

2. Commodification of hardware.

There are things about NOSTR that I think could "use improvement," but I love it.

Once I discovered NOSTR and saw that I could take my overly important home computer, separate the software from the hardware, turn the hardware into a commodity, and spread my software globally across the internet such that it is everywhere and nowhere, I was hooked.

One of my goals is to be able to walk up to any standard computer, enter my key, and have the entire world that I built in cyberspace available to me. My code, my communications, all there.

My money is controlled by me. It is everywhere, and nowhere.

My code and my network can now be controlled by me. It will be everywhere and nowhere.

Now if I could only upload all of myself from my brain, and save it from this slowly dying computer I am running on.... that would be something. It's actually a good thought experiment, and way to critique a protocol. Imagine you upload your brain to the internet, and you don't want to die. How would you design the network that you live on? The physical infrastructure as well as the protocol?

We should think about this question because it is ultimately what we are doing.

Almost everything is solar powered!

Living the meme! No chairs in sight 👏

GM

I guess it just makes all the blue light in my screen turn off shifting it to a red hue. It is a function of Red shift?

I keep mine as close to the testicals as possible.

We are electrical bodies. Makes sense we could use a discharge now and then.

Heading outside 🫡

Is my single AAA battery operated vibrating toothbrush considered electric? 🤔 please tell me no 🥺

I just picked up a used meter like the one you have for 1/2 price on ebay, should arrive in a few days. I'm very excited and a little nervous to begin testing my living environment 😬👍

Just another great reason to not wear sunglasses!

Wild. Thanks for all your educational content.

What do they do if your wifi router is switched/powered off at night ? We have 6 pods in our house atm.. 😩

So the metal of a belt or the button of trousers may be causing problems?