constant on Nostr: In today’s episode of ‘why you fucks need to timestamp all the things’: You ...
In today’s episode of ‘why you fucks need to timestamp all the things’:
You will die.
And when you are dead, your loved ones will enter your room, clean out your drawers and find that shriveled piece of paper that has your private key on it. Point is: The fate of every private key is to be compromised eventually (yeah yeah all the secret agent nerds with dead man’s switch self-destruct sequence shit can stfu).
It is trivial to lie about the timestamp of an event itself, and as a result the moment a key gets compromised, all sorts of alternative fake histories can be created in an instant. The problem with this attack is that the authentic history has all sorts of interactions with other authentic histories, creating some resilience; but this requires analyses in depth. Additionally this ‘entanglement’ gets less and less relevant over time and with increased distance in social graph because both reduce the ability to asses authenticity in the first place (i.e. you were not there at the time so how would you know).
But is there a way in which clients/software, which is by definition retarded, can latch onto something simple in order to make sense of the world? Yes, there is, (Bitcoin) open-timestamps.
Consistent open-timestamping by itself will protect your history, because an attacker is incapable to producing valid open-timestamps that refer to the past. But it can also protect your ghostly future.
If an Npub posts an event that contains the associated Nsec, it is explicit that the key is compromised and can no longer be trusted. Hopefully your loved ones are nice enough to do this. It implies a moment in time, a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. So if you were to timestamp this ‘publication of compromise’, an attacker can’t effectively attack your future because the moment in time from which the npub should be ignored is clear.
Now non of this is perfect, and because it is impossible to be perfect that is not the point. The point is mitigation in order to be more effective on the battlegrounds of ‘Truth’. Aside from that it is impossible, it is also not necessary to have perfect systems: In a sea of Truth, the Lie sticks out as a sore thumb due to inconsistency; in a sea of Lies, the Truth drowns due to a lack of consistency. What we need is sufficient Truth (and all its ‘entanglements’) in order to weed out the lies, and that is why all you mortal cunts need to timestamp all the things.
Also, never be rude against a kabouter, because he will make you small and you will end up traveling on the back of a goose named Martin.
You will die.
And when you are dead, your loved ones will enter your room, clean out your drawers and find that shriveled piece of paper that has your private key on it. Point is: The fate of every private key is to be compromised eventually (yeah yeah all the secret agent nerds with dead man’s switch self-destruct sequence shit can stfu).
It is trivial to lie about the timestamp of an event itself, and as a result the moment a key gets compromised, all sorts of alternative fake histories can be created in an instant. The problem with this attack is that the authentic history has all sorts of interactions with other authentic histories, creating some resilience; but this requires analyses in depth. Additionally this ‘entanglement’ gets less and less relevant over time and with increased distance in social graph because both reduce the ability to asses authenticity in the first place (i.e. you were not there at the time so how would you know).
But is there a way in which clients/software, which is by definition retarded, can latch onto something simple in order to make sense of the world? Yes, there is, (Bitcoin) open-timestamps.
Consistent open-timestamping by itself will protect your history, because an attacker is incapable to producing valid open-timestamps that refer to the past. But it can also protect your ghostly future.
If an Npub posts an event that contains the associated Nsec, it is explicit that the key is compromised and can no longer be trusted. Hopefully your loved ones are nice enough to do this. It implies a moment in time, a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. So if you were to timestamp this ‘publication of compromise’, an attacker can’t effectively attack your future because the moment in time from which the npub should be ignored is clear.
Now non of this is perfect, and because it is impossible to be perfect that is not the point. The point is mitigation in order to be more effective on the battlegrounds of ‘Truth’. Aside from that it is impossible, it is also not necessary to have perfect systems: In a sea of Truth, the Lie sticks out as a sore thumb due to inconsistency; in a sea of Lies, the Truth drowns due to a lack of consistency. What we need is sufficient Truth (and all its ‘entanglements’) in order to weed out the lies, and that is why all you mortal cunts need to timestamp all the things.
Also, never be rude against a kabouter, because he will make you small and you will end up traveling on the back of a goose named Martin.