Let's Get Acquainted... with Nostr.
Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relay. A Truly Decentralized Social Protocol.
I've been exploring the decentralized social media protocol, Nostr, and trying to educate myself on the ins and outs for a couple of years. Its been a whirlwind of fun moments, intellectual stimulation, and engaging with some of the most brilliant minds around. My own personal experiences aside, I'm far from being a tech geek, so much of what I've discovered has also lead me to learning about things far out of my comfort zone. Hopefully, through some of what I've learned, I can help simplify some concepts & highlight what makes Nostr unique and empowering. First, lets back up and break down what Nostr means and what it does...
N- notes
Notes. Pretty simple, right? Yes. Its as simple as that. A note can be some message to your friends, an announcement, news, a link. It doesn't matter what's in them, but notes are at the heart of the protocol. Each note is cryptographically signed by your secret/private key and located by others through your public key. An important part of the user empowerment of Nostr is your keypair identity (npub- for public and nsec- for secret). This pair enables you to prove that any content you generate was, in fact, created by YOU, as long as you maintain control of your secret key. It also enables you to find & interact with notes by others. (Your key pair let's you switch between any Nostr app or client, too! More on all that later.)
...and...
O- other
oth·er/ˈəT͟Hər/adjective
- denoting a person or thing that is different or distinct from one already mentioned or known about.
- further; additional.
S- stuff
Other Stuff. So much other stuff... Live streams, articles and blogs, collaborative music composition, bookmarks, communities... endless possibilities.
T- transmitted
Transmitted/tranzˈmidəd/
adjective
- 1.passed on from one person or place to another.
...by...
R- relays
In this case, its relays doing the transmitting. What is a relay? Its like a little server with a specific set of jobs: Hold notes, fetch notes, serve notes. That's it. Each has its own way of handling things and its owns set of rules. Some have very niche jobs, others handle a wide array of content types. Some are paid, free, public, private. The options are broad. Your client connects to them to send and receive notes. They are simple enough that you can run your own from home with minimal hardware and experience. You can also rent private hosted relays, if you're uncomfortable running your own. THIS IS OPTIONAL, but it's a very important part of what makes Nostr censorship-resistant, resilient, and customizable. There is no central server. There are relays. Many of them. Use the ones you want. If you're wild enough to get kicked out, use another. If all else fails, you can run own... but you should run your own anyway because that's what makes this so great.
If you want to get started on Nostr right now, visit https://start.njump.me.
For a quick relay setup guide, visit https://usenostr.org/#relays.