[lukaslukas]

I don't understand. Can someone explain it to me from a technical/IT perspective? Is it like HTTP or JSON, or like XMPP...?

"An open protocol with a chance of working" = ?huh? "Nostr doesn't subscribe to political ideals of "free speech"" = ???huh? "BEEP BOOP" ???wtf??

Please don't explain technical things as if you were talking to children. Explain them as if you were talking to a colleague sitting next to you. Talk to them as a person and as a professional.

[N-Krause]

It is a standard of how one thing talks to another thing. It is JSON with some fingerprinting/hashing send over Websocket. Thats basically it. What you do with it, remains up to your implementation.

That helped me understand the protocol better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbt3jL1Ms0w

This also helps understand the whole basic concept: https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/01.md

[lukaslukas]

Thank you! Exactly this "It is JSON with some fingerprinting/hashing send over Websocket" should be write there somewhere + put a link to the documentation and an example of how to use it. I don't want to watch an hour-long video.

[littlecranky67]

Nostr is decentrialized, working with public/private keys. there is a very basic message format, messages are sent to "relays" that forward and store messages to other relays. It is up to the relays (anybody can be a relay) to connect to each others, chose a policy what/whose content to forward, whom to grant access, and how long to store and re-broadcast messages.

If you are familiar with the IRC chat system, it is similar to IRC but with JSON messages and the ability to store & resend messages on the servers. Servers have to connect to each other and are free to each have their own policies.

[nunobrito]

It is basically email on steroids.

You write an email (note/message) but instead of sending it to one server, you can send it to multiple servers of your choice. Each message is digitally signed with your keys and a time stamp, so you can verify that the identity is truly yours no matter where the message came from.

In my opinion is the most innovative way of communicating that I've seen in the last 20 years. There is no concept of server nor permanent location.

A relay can refuse to receive your messages, but they can't block your account because you can always write new notes, sign them and send to wherever people want to read your texts.

Imagine the case with Trump when he got blocked from Twitter. With a click of a button they have deplatformed him, with NOSTR he would have just continued writing and people would simply tune to another relay to keep reading his texts.

On top of that are other good developments. For example, file sharing also became decentralized. So files, images and other media can be sent to the relays and you mention them from the notes based on the file hash which is good save content when someone else hosting your texts and media decides to stop hosting.

[grumbel]

> In my opinion is the most innovative way of communicating that I've seen in the last 20 years.

The sad irony of this is that this is really not all that innovative, it's just reinventing the 45 year old Usenet with public-crypto. The server-independence was present in Usenet right from the start, that's why Dejanews/GoogleGroups could exist, and why Usenet wasn't provided by a specific server, but by your ISP. The modern Internet has completely regressed in that regard, getting rid of protocol specific clients, and moving everything to the browser and HTTP that don't allow that kind of distribution, that's why Nostr feels fresh again.

[digitalbase]

Nice way of phrasing it :-)

[sebastix]

You can have a look at https://how-nostr-works.pages.dev/#/pathological which is also mentioned on the website somehere quite hidden

[andunie]

Those phrases you mentioned do not sound like they were addressed to children, and they have more text afterwards that expand on them.

Maybe you could explain what they're lacking?