mleku on Nostr: also, bitcoin doesn't have encryption. it has signatures but that is "cryptography" ...

also, bitcoin doesn't have encryption. it has signatures but that is "cryptography"

yes you can use the same secret key as you sign with for auth to generate shared secrets but that's still not encryption, still simply cryptography. the encryption part is what happens after you generate the shared secret.

but then again, even among nostr devs not all of them even understand this, i wonder if anyone picked him up on this point. probably he shadowbanned them anyway.

encryption is not when you generate an unforgeable signature. it doesn't have to be *your* secret key, it's better if you generate one for a message. the target has the secret tied to the public key and the public key of the generated secret is sent in plaintext in front of it. in nostr parlance this is a "giftwrap" and the idea is that only one side of the conversation is identified, the sender would then put their public key in the message and sign it and then encrypt the message and signature.

and then further to that is forward secrecy techniques that make forward but not reverse linkable chains of keys so the client doesn't have to keep doing ECDH. but honestly, computers are so fast now that's not even necessary, i was able to make a single core push 8mb/s of 1kb packets each packet having a unique key, and receiving is the same process. tbh i have not wrapped my head around the initial key negotiation process exactly, this is not done with nostr because it's not an interactive protocol. but instant messaging on nostr could be an interactive protocol using ephemeral events.