Is there a 'standard' way to contact lightning node operators?
465 sats \ 3 comments \ @bartoli 17 Jul 2023 bitcoin
Basically, the question in the title. It's not really easy to know how to contact node operators. Especially if some want to remain anonymous.
I was wondering if there could be some kind of anonymous chat for this. Maybe by a 'nostr login scheme', where an LN operator could claim a nostr address by signing a message with his node. That would allow him to claim an address. Then any user would be able to find the 'claimable' address based on a node pubkey.
The claimable address would not be that signed message directly, as that would mean that anyone has a mean of signing the same way as the node. But some other url scheme the network as a whole accepts?
Hopefully a similar thing already exists and i just don't not know about it yet?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @nullcount 17 Jul 2023
This pre-dates nostr and never really caught on: https://github.com/squeaknode/squeaknode
If the node supports keysend, you can send a message attached to a payment. https://docs.lightning.engineering/lightning-network-tools/lnd/send-messages-with-keysend
Thunderhub let's you read any keysend messages you've received.
LN isn't supposed to be a social network. The existing platforms work great for communicating with node operators.
Claim your node on Amboss by signing a message, then you can tag your node with the various communities you want to associate with. For example: https://amboss.space/community/6d41c0bd-6e39-40a2-a062-a809c2e8c2b5
You can also verify your twitter and add other contact details to your Amboss page: https://amboss.space/node/024bfaf0cabe7f874fd33ebf7c6f4e5385971fc504ef3f492432e9e3ec77e1b5cf
Could put any nostr address up there. I don't see why your node needs to sign anything to claim an address, just make one and share it!
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @bartoli OP 17 Jul 2023
The need to claim the address was so we can know in advance what is the address to contact any node, thus being able to contact any operator without them having to advertise their contact address. But then obviously you wouldn't know if a node operator has claimed it or will ever see your message
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @fanis 17 Jul 2023
There's no real standard way that I know of. One way could be to use spontaneous payments (e.g. keysend or AMP). All you (as the sender) need to know is the destination's public key, which I expect to be known in your context.
LND seems to explicitly support sending messages with keysend/AMP.
CoreLightning [supports](https://docs.corelightning.org/reference/lightning-keysend- keysend, but I'm not sure how easy it is attach a message.
The message is encrypted so that only the recipient can read it, so it's safe to include a way for them to respond (such as a nostr pubkey for example).
In the future Onion Messages might be used for that.
However, both OM and keysend/AMP lack a notification mechanism to alert the node operators that they've got mail. You're just sending a message to their node, with no certainty that they'll actually read it. It would be quite easy (I guess) to build a tool on top of a Lightning node that listens for keysend/AMP payments that have a message attached and forwards the message to the node operator themselves (for example via a Nostr DM). But it doesn't exist yet AFAIK.
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