The year is 2030. Everyone has just vibe coded their own Nostr client to their preferred spec. Some people who can afford better LLMs have more superior experience than others who used a free model that doesn’t even know how to parse JSON blobs correctly. The spam bots have gotten out of control and they have defeated every mitigative measure but one. Humans won’t even see your kind 1 unless you zap them 21 sats. They call it WoTz… web of trustful zaps. WoTz going on is the only algorithm now. The rate-limiting on the Damus relay is now only one event per day.

#Nostr it's now live on #Nymchat ...enhanced NIP-17 group chats. In Nymchat, group chats are end-to-end encrypted using NIP-44 + NIP-17 gift wraps. Now on Nymchat, when you create a group, it uses rotating ephemeral recipient keys for enhanced privacy. This means each member generates a fresh ephemeral keypair when they send a message, and the new pubkey is advertised inside the encrypted rumor. Future messages to that member use their ephemeral key instead of their real pubkey, reducing the attack surface for honeypot relay correlation of group membership through timing attack.

Anonymously Chat with Nymchat

Ephemeral anonymous chat messaging over Nostr. Bridged with Bitchat geohash channels.

This commit of Nymchat (that isn’t being used in the live version) has a rebuild of NIP-17 group chats where everyone in the group uses ephemeral keys on every sent message to “key hop” and the app tracks and updates their addresses. This prevents a honeypot relay from inferring group membership, since not only is every giftwrap sent from an ephemeral key (per spec) it is then also sent to an ephemeral key. In each message inside the encrypted message it states the next key that will be used, so others know what next address to use. It’s not wholly stable, which is why it’s not live now. Some of the group member keys might become stale, and not sync to each other, causing some message delivery/retrieval problems. But, I wonder if some bigger brains might want to help with it?

GitHub

v3.58.271 · Spl0itable/NYM@b3e4bd1

A lightweight, yet feature-rich, ephemeral chat client built on Nostr protocol, bridged with Bitchat for anonymous, temporary messaging. - v3.58.27...

Sadly, I have reverted course for the time being and removed the Marmot Protocol for MLS encrypted group chats on #Nymchat. It appears to be far too experimental than I realized at this time and needs further testing, tuning, etc. A lot of folks couldn't get the messages to work or some people could publish a keypackage and others not making invites janky. It also seems unreliable for any sort of restore state, which caused the group to become corrupted. It's also disappointing that only a single admin in the commit can invite/kick members unless all group members are admins. I need to keep tinkering to see if it's worth pursuing further, but for the now the battle-tested NIP-17 group chats work beautifully. They of course, just come with the caveat of possible timing attacks that might infer group member pubkeys and there's no forward secrecy. However, the message contents of NIP-17 group chats are still e2ee. I just wouldn't recommend them for absolute mission-critical comms. Otherwise, shitposting with your friends is fine.

Anonymously Chat with Nymchat

Ephemeral anonymous chat messaging over Nostr. Bridged with Bitchat geohash channels.

New #nymchat v3.58.262 released, which includes a new friend system for more granular control over some settings such as notifications, PMs and group chat invites, and image blur. From the context menu, when clicking a user's nickname, there is a new "Add Friend" button. You can then manage your friend list from the settings modal, above blocked users. Friends also get a new "friend" flair badge next to their nicknames, to easily spot them across channels.

Anonymously Chat with Nymchat

Ephemeral anonymous chat messaging over Nostr. Bridged with Bitchat geohash channels.