Exploring the Intersection of Decentralized Social Networks and the Three-Body Problem

To store information for approximately a hundred million years, they emphasize that the only currently feasible method known is to “carve the letters on stone.” As Luo Ji raised his cane overhead, with his white hair and long beard flowing like Moses parting the Red Sea, he solemnly proclaimed this method in the context of the Three-Body Problem.

—by “The Three-Body Problem”

Background: The Three-Body Problem

• How to transmit information down the line? With the resounding phrase from the foreword: Carve the letters on stone!
• How to ensure information is not interrupted? It can be carved on more stones, the more the better.
• How to prove ownership of information? Based on the beauty of elliptic curve functions, with a unique and infinite correspondence in mathematical theory.

This week, public keys were all the rage, whether on social circles or Twitter and Facebook. The pivotal event was when Twitter’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, tweeted that the decentralized social protocol-based products, Damus and Amethyst, were officially launched on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, respectively. Additionally, the web version, snort.social, was also officially opened, and within just a few days, Damus’ user numbers had exceeded 720,000.

Although there are many product terms in that sentence, the relationship is quite clear. Nostr is essentially an information transmission protocol for decentralized social scenarios, while Damus, Amethyst, and snort.social are third-party applications developed based on that protocol.

Why is there a demand for Nostr?

After experiencing a year of antitrust, internet users simultaneously detest the abuse and violation of data by centralized institutions, yet are unable to leave behind excellent application experiences and a market without alternatives. Ultimately, the operation of social products is managed by companies serving institutions, and as companies, they are obliged to accept regulations and examinations. Their responsibilities are towards shareholders and the government of their registration location, pursuing commercial success rather than the ideal of free speech.

And historically, the end of antitrust movements often sees the dragon-slayer become the dragon itself. Since centralized institutions are unable to fulfill this role, nor do they have the stance to do so, the yearning for freedom gives birth to the use of code to safeguard freedom through decentralized protocols, like Nostr.

Nostr Protocol Architecture

In reality, Nostr is extremely simple and straightforward, which can be summarized in a sentence:

Let everyone run a client program. When one wants to publish information, they use their own private key to sign the text and send it to multiple relays. To obtain information, one must inquire with each relay. The client then verifies the obtained information using its public key to determine its authenticity.

Role Relationships

In the protocol, there are only two roles: a relay and a client.

• relay, as a relay, can have any number, and its mission is to accept and store information reported by clients and return local query results based on client requests.
• client, which is the client and also can have any number. It exists on the user’s device, and its core functions are signing and verification.

From such a simple role relationship, it can be seen that user clients do not have interaction relationships with other user clients; it is not a P2P form, and relays also do not need to interact with each other without having information communication. This also means that there is no consensus layer problem.

Overall, it belongs to a strong client, weak server (relay) structure, where multiple servers can replace each other, diminishing their importance. This is also the foundation of censorship resistance, giving users the right to choose between different relays, leading to competition at the relay level, with larger capacity, faster speed, better network incentives, and the ability to filter out junk content.

Account System

In Nostr, one’s identity comprises a public key and a private key. Therefore, there are no passwords or unique usernames (or the public key may serve as the username), creating a new pair of public and private keys is virtually cost-free, essentially based on existing relationships.

However, what significantly distinguishes it from previous decentralized social products is that it is entirely off-chain, unrelated to the chain itself, merely applying the conventional public and private key account system from blockchain.