If you plan on using this please read this comment. It's very preliminary onion support.

Main caveats

1. not everything is end-to-end onion routed
   • js/css/images while using tls and still routed over tor and expose your egress node's IP (not a huge deal, but perhaps a deal to some users)
2. logging in and certain logged in behaviors might not work yet
   • this was a pain to add so I haven't fully tested everything
   • logging in with twitter and github and email will probably still take you to the stacker.news domain ... lnauth might work, but I haven't tested it

@BlokchainB sent me 500k sats to do this. Thank them.

Funny note: I said it'd take me an hour and it took me 12 because I had to do a lot of weird dev-ops stuff and testing to make sure I didn't take down the main site. I also quoted BlokchainB an hourly rate of 500k sats but I did the math wrong and meant 5 million sats/hour lol.

Anyway, it's a decent start.

https://www.zapread.com/i/-0F

Someone is bound to suggest this so I'll just get it out of the way: work for bitcoin. That has its own list of problems and in many situations is probably much more inconvenient than gift cards.

Hope we can get a fruitful discussion started from the contrarian viewpoint! Here's the high level concerns and questions:

1. Incentives

2. Security

3. Scale

*The points below are assuming the NOSTR use case to be an alternative to Twitter as stated in the "About" section on Github https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr

About
a truly censorship-resistant alternative to Twitter that has a chance of working

1. Incentives

1. In the long run what incentive does a relay operator have to host a public relay (to achieve a twitter like global feed)?
2. How will the relay operator cover the hosting costs? Assume, not all users are on a lightning standard. How will a normie use this system?
3. How can we achieve a network effects if most current twitter users are not on lightning?
4. What happens when your relay is shut down for routing illicit content, even if its encrypted en route thru the relay, its still public from the decrypted client. (kiddy porn, etc...)? Not a great end user experience if you need to play a game of "whack a mole" and keep changing relays when they get shut down or ddos'd.

2. Security

1. How do you prevent XSS attacks for browser clients? Can we even have secure browser clients?

• See this attack on Anigma (Telegram clone) funds were lost https://github.com/brilliancebitcoin/nostrgram#warning

Warning
Due to my incompetence, anigma has security vulnerabilities that allow remote siphoning of your private key. I haven't fixed them yet. Don't use anigma with
a private key you're not okay with leaking.

2. Do you feel comfortable having raw data coming into your phone/web browser via web sockets from random ppl on the internet without having a server virus scan it first? Lots of potential zero day exploits to come in the near future.
3. If you argue the Alby chrome extensions can help, how many users are capable of running a browser extension, could the extension be dos'd? If a virus routes thru a websocket and dos's your session could they prompt you pay in an endless loop, rendering the browser client unusable (not sure if this is possible or rate limited but worth research)?

3. Scale

1. How to achieve a global algorithmic feed like twitter?
2. Will this lead to an emergence of indexing services?
3. Take the scenerio of an indexing service emerging. Assume the service indexes and aggregates data from multiple relays into a better data structure for global feeds, such as a graph data structure. This could be useful to get info about a "friend of a friends" interest in a topic, such as "Dogs". (vertex => edges). The indexing services might reap all the benefit from the client apps (ad model, paid algorithmic feed) . Would the raw data relaying service get jealous and start censoring the indexer?
4. What incentive does the relay have to feed data to an indexer, while they are going broke on hosting costs?
5. If you argue relays will start indexing data then won't it just be a traditional client/server/database model?

The unhappy path

If you fast forward a few months/years could this be the reality we end up with:

• The relays will end up being cartels and blacklist users/indexers.
• The relays runners will run out of money because it costs alot to host and prevent spam
• Once kiddy porn starts flowing thru nobody will want to run relays and the gov start shutting down relays like a game of whack a mole
• Clients might need to connect to 100 relays to get relevent data. This might render a client app slow and buggy. Would this drain the battery?

Alternative Case studies

• XMPP
• Tim Berners Lee Solid Inrupt Project
• The original Blockstack 1.0 stuff, *2017 era pre shitcoin stuff
• All the stuff csuwildcat is doing

Net neutrality is good for an open internet which is not controlled by ISPs.

Net neutrality means that ISPs should not shape traffic as they see fit. Not even when it's "illegal traffic".

So net neutrality also means that governments can't force ISPs to shut down your internet because you're suspected of a crime by potentially fining the ISPs for any illegal activity that you might be doing. So ISPs would rather just shut down your internet access before it even gets to this point.

So think of net neutrality like asserting that the internet should be more like public infrastructure. If the net is not neutral, it's no longer public infrastructure.

There was a lawsuit where some government wanted to fine ISPs for piracy of their users. The ISPs tried to argue that they can't be fined since Twitter also wasn't fined for terrorists using their platform. And ISPs have even less control what goes through their networks. But can't find it at the moment.

Here are some sources which I haven't verified myself but the headlines look like they go more into depth of what I am trying to say:

• https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/ny-state-ags-lawsuit-against-isp-shows-why-we-need-strong-net-neutrality
• https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/1-billion-piracy-ruling-could-force-isps-to-disconnect-more-internet-users/

I am working on datapeek ( https://datum.alwaysdata.net ) a collaborative tool to add data to online discussions.

I am hacking on integrating it with lightning network. But I am held back by the thought of limiting its appeal for non crypto users.

I don't think fiat is the source of market-culture failure.

Market culture failure is the result of incessant subversion.

Back in 2001 I was reading to much Chomsky, Herman and Zinn. I grew to hate the sight of the American flag. These three "academics" I'm now learning, were really just the pointy end of the spear Marxist that had been working behind the scenes to subvert the very market culture that allowed their crackpottery to flourish.

It's a phenomena best summarized by Propagandi's lyrics:

"And yes I recognize the irony,
that the system I oppose affords me the luxury
Of biting the hand that feed.

"That's exactly why, privileged fucks like me
should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream
until everyone has everything they need."

Punk rock is the evangelical arm of the Marxist subversion machine. It's industrial engine is the university system. It's produced a cultural monster of gnostic utopianism.

Then, in 2010 I started making frequent trips to the United States. You know what broke the spell for me? Root beer flavored milk.

That's right, the free market had produced root beer flavored milk. Along with a whole lot of other goods and services that were not available or were incredibly expensive just 8, 10, 12 or 25 miles north of the US/Canada boarder.

You have no idea the impact the artificial scarcity of mixed economies does to culture. Canada neither has bounty, nor does it have culture. Everything we get/develop is a second rate copy of something that comes from the USA.

Let Trudeau's hell-hole be a lesson to you all, and a warning. Grab hold of the 'Merican spirit and identity - embodied in the symbol of your great flag - before its lost forever.

(seriously, I once bought 48 eggs from a store in 'Merica for less than I pay for a dozen in Canada. Unbeknownst to me, I wasn't technically allowed to bring that many eggs back over the Iron 49th parallel).