Combat Identity Theft on Nostr \ stacker news ~nostr

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535 sats \ 17 comments \ @nyan 20 May nostr

I recently joined Nostr and love the idea of it all (obviously duh). However, one major problem I see coming is nsec keys being stolen. Your nsec IS your identity and especially for early adopters this will be problematic. You paste your nsec in several clients and it is basically guaranteed that they will be leaked eventually. Hardware signing devices don’t exist and frankly would be too cumbersome anyway for social media.

I think we need some standardized protocol how to deal with that. For example:

The first message every new nsec (user) publishes is signed (e.g. signed with some private key in a HD wallet). Then they can start posting happily until their nsec gets leaked. They create a new nsec and publish a message proving that they signed the first message sent with the previous nsec. Nostr clients recognize this and disregard (optionally) or flag content published with the old nsec after the publishing of the new message.

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87 sats \ 2 replies \ @justin_shocknet 20 May

I've taken a personal interest in solving this too

Key management is a big problem with just about everything, that's one of the biggest grievances new Bitcoin users too... I often use the example of grizzled old *nix admins still fumbling with SSH keys for decades now with no great alternatives

Browser extensions for Nostr are a terrible solution too, they generally give the publisher access to your full browser storage across every domain, and they don't even work on mobile where they're needed most.

As bad as the products are, Bitcoin hardware wallets are at least directionally correct in separating signing keys from connected devices... but Nostr itself is an inherently online thing so that's not a solution either.

NsecBunker got the right idea generally, I just don't like the unscalable implementation with NIP46, so am working on something more robust.

The idea being OAuth-like, apps connect to a remote-signer over a tunnel with revocable tokens and a permission set. The signer can then be a daemon hosted anywhere like a hardened VPS or an Umbrel/Start9.

Solving it in this way also opens the door to high profile Nostr accounts, managed by social media teams or automation etc, where the proprietor doesn't have to give up the key to an intern.

27 sats \ 1 reply \ @nyan OP 20 May

Thanks, finally someone who is not just saying, “duh, browser extensions idiot”. As you say, their required permissions are egregious. And they are still a hot wallet. Will be interested in your solution. Do you have an ETA?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 20 May

We're kind of developing in production for use with our own apps at this point, big refactor shipping later this week but it'll probably be at least a month till we make a remote signer for Umbrels etc

Can poke at the landing page though: https://auth.shock.network

140 sats \ 0 replies \ @k00b 20 May freebie

You're basically describing NIP-26 which is key delegation. It didn't get adopted though it seems. This kind of thing is very tricky to get right. Most solutions are either very complicated or not very robust. Hot key management is very hard.

71 sats \ 5 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 20 May

Why have you introduced nsec on several sites? Nostr may have problems but this is not one of them, there are several solutions to solve what you are talking about.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @nyan OP 20 May

There are some extensions like Alby that help you manage that on Desktop but not on mobile. And even then, you are basically relying on a hat wallet.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 20 May freebie

I don't use nostr on mobile, so I don't know what the state of the art is. But I do know that the Alby extension works in Firefox on android. I don't know if nostr2x also works. Yes, it works as a "hot wallet".

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @MarsIronPI 20 May

Pretty much this. If you're pasting your nsec into clients you're doing it wrong. If you're using a native client and you don't trust it, don't use it. If you're using a web client, you should be using nos2x or Alby or some other nsec-managing extension.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @nyan OP 20 May

Sorry man, but Alby and nos2x are still hot wallets. Why would I trust Alby over client xyz. If you have your nsec in Alby I wouldn’t feel secure building out my online identity based on this

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @MarsIronPI 21 May

Hmm, so you would want "hardware wallets" for nostr? I think there is such a device. I'll find a link later.

101 sats \ 1 reply \ @Coinsreporter 20 May

Your nsec IS your identity and especially for early adopters this will be problematic. You paste your nsec in several clients and it is basically guaranteed that they will be leaked eventually.

These are serious allegations. Come on Nostr guys, reply to this ignorance. I think we need some real deliberations on this.

I wil take part as a first bench viewer in the court of SN. Let's give the best decision.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nyan OP 20 May

What about my post is ignorance. Please elaborate

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @dtonon 20 May

Something similar to what you described has been proposed (if I'm not wrong by Pablo) in a not yet merged NIP that focus on keys rotation.

For a good sign pattern, NIP-46 is the solution, https://nsec.app is a very interesting implementation totally non custodial. I use also Gossip on desktop as signer.

https://github.com/fiatjaf/window.nostr.js permits to use NIP-46 on every site that has NIP-07 (extension) support, also via bookmarklet.