Peter Todd @Peter Todd - 6mo
Heh, I applied for a $20k grant to do a proper analysis of Nostr's decentralization on Saturday. Same idea (and similar cost) as my recent L2 Covenants article. Only took them one business day to reject it (took them 6 weeks to reject my grant request to keep OpenTimestamps running). I'm not surprised. I strongly suspect there isn't much good to say about Nostr's decentralization and I hear OpenSats is funding a bunch of Nostr. Nostr needs a serious redesign.
Re: the OpenTimestamps grant request, the problem is right now while the protocol scales in theory, the backend does not. It would be quite easy for a bad actor to DoS attack OpenTimestamps out of existence because I simply can't throw servers at the problem: the backend code just doesn't scale. I need funding to put in a bunch of hours to fix this. So far, no luck in finding that; OpenSats is one of a few sources I've tried. Frankly, I suspect that there isn't actually much interest in time-stamping.
To be exact, IIRC I estimated it at 153 billable hours at $150/hr. Billed like lawyers do, with only time spent directly on the task. So for a "days" work that means 4 hours billed like that. I also offered doing it as a fixed price contract.
Ironically this reply guys are a really nice example of a problem with Nostr's decentralization claims... nostr:nevent1qqswwej6zrtr7au8h5qk3ptuzfeshzvvm6nmqfyg77qpq6utpu7p6rgpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygq3rq8vzf6xwk7xcfmev9trx44yl7jejzvcyty24xqq0rxthyj82upsgqqqqqqszrcew8
nostr:nevent1qqsfp6cjwn7k73jn3merxhd6qz2g7zysga3krkne0yfnkv8jyh4xw4cpzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezumt0d5hsygxv4fvwxlyeepdute65q298rz75vjz7t57txdzkj8k2hq782h2gespsgqqqqqqsnymmj7 I need funding for that and haven't been able to get it.
Leo Wandersleb @LeoWandersleb - 6mo
What have you built and gotten perfect from the start lately? But nice roast.
Peter was very public about seeing serious issues but I haven't seen him consider the outbox model. I've seen some project - was it some git replacement? - using some DHT to store the outbox relays of users and with TOR in the mix ... how is nostr not decentralized? I don't get the criticism and thus I don't get the need to spend $20k on exploring problems that are not problems yet. Yes, nostr is dirty and naive in its approach but it still might actually work.
Silberengel @Silberengel - 5mo
Some relays are only ws://local, for instance.
I know of a private one that is not listed, intentionally.
I actually just run Citrine in my phone.
Peter Todd @Peter Todd - 5mo
I don't have a copy. It's a web form, and OpenSats doesn't give you a copy of what you submitted.
Brunswick @Brunswick - 5mo
Do you know of an article that describes the concern you and nostr:nprofile1qqsrhuxx8l9ex335q7he0f09aej04zpazpl0ne2cgukyawd24mayt8gprdmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuam9wd6x2unwvf6xxtnrdakj7qgnwaehxw309amk7apww468smewdahx2tckuej4c have about nostr's lack of decentralization and what other systems to compare it with that meet the standard you are applying to consider it sufficiently decentralized?
Leo Wandersleb @LeoWandersleb - 1d
nostr:npub10pensatlcfwktnvjjw2dtem38n6rvw8g6fv73h84cuacxn4c28eqyfn34f $1M/month in funding is a huge win for Bitcoin & OpenSource! But the community needs more clarity. https://opensats.org/transparency is a start, but lacks specific grant amounts. We see ~50 recipients. Is the average grant ~$20k/month? My @WalletScrutiny application (and others) received no response. nostr:npub1ej493cmun8y9h3082spg5uvt63jgtewneve526g7e2urca2afrxqm3ndrm's situation nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzpn92tr3hexwgt0z7w4qz3fcch4ryshja8jeng453aj4c83646jxvqyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2qgdwaehxw309ahx7uewd3hkcqpqrf5frvx86d6n99d6sntjsxenjrmgzpm4qht7hzersyx6h87dzryqmyxhuk also raises questions but he at least got a rejection. Given OpenSats' influence, greater transparency is crucial for trust.
Peter Todd @Peter Todd - 19h
Good news: Simple Proof has promised me an initial $20k of funding to work on OpenTimestamps. So far I've partially fixed the scaling issue. I rewrote Riccardo Cassata's Foxglove timestamp request aggregator in modern Rust (the previous version didn't even compile anymore). https://github.com/opentimestamps/foxglove Foxglove is now running live on both my Alice and Bob calendars. This means that I can now scale timestamp _creation_ by throwing servers at the problem. So if someone tries to DoS attack the OpenTimestamps calendars, given enough money to run extra servers, you'll (probably) at least be able to create new time-stamps. Timestamp _verification_ still has a significant scaling problem that needs to be fixed, and this will be a significantly harder challenge to implement. But I'm making progress at least. nostr:nevent1qqsfp6cjwn7k73jn3merxhd6qz2g7zysga3krkne0yfnkv8jyh4xw4cpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7q3qej493cmun8y9h3082spg5uvt63jgtewneve526g7e2urca2afrxqxpqqqqqqzljtltl
