41 sats \ 10 replies \ @nullcount 13 Nov 2023 \ on: Hello World, this is Cipherchat! 🐈⬛ bitcoin
Careful anons, this is yet another way to link your identity to your stack
Cipherchat uses Lightning Node Connect which is used by many bitcoin apps including Zeus, Alby etc. It is not possible to link your identity to your node with LNC. Also the whole stack can be self-hosted. All of this is explained in the FAQ and Privacy page.
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My guy, sharing your node pubkey (identity) to people so they can message you is bad opsec. Its like sharing your xpub.
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If I know your pubkey, I can watch your channel opens and closes and make assumptions about your usage patterns.
Worst case, I can follow your channel txns back to your stack and create a list of addresses owned by you.
But 'tis a small price to pay for the ability to message you /s
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Who's saying to share your pubkey with anyone you don't want to know it? Do you give your phone number to people you don't want to contact you... The fundamentals of privacy is sharing information with people you choose, that choice is up to you.
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Yea, but my phone number doesn't reveal anything about my finances.
There is no technical reason why you need to reveal ANYTHING about your money in order to chat with someone. We're chatting right now!
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Pubkeys are also publicly available so it gives a way for nodes to communicate with eachother without knowing any other information. It can be very useful if you need to coordinate channel closures or notify peers of upcoming downtime for example.
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Yes, pubkeys are public and used as identity within the LN protocol. But as soon as you start to use pubkeys in other protocols, you attach additional significance to them which can be used to deanonymize. Again, there is no technical reason to use LN pubkeys in a chat protocol.
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There is no other protocol, Cipherchat just uses lightning. :)