Ostrich McAwesome on Nostr: So basic introduction for anyone interested: I am a gray hat hacker and cybersecurity ...

So basic introduction for anyone interested: I am a gray hat hacker and cybersecurity awareness activist who likes to stir up privacy-centered networks. I have probably met some of you before.

I actually came here looking for a challenge. I've been lurking around here in some form or another for about 4 months now, playing with different clients and tools, even running my own testnet (3 stirfry relays on a VLAN). Mostly I have been focused on the community and how people use different clients. I've been playing with some good open source tools and getting an understanding of how to interact with relays.

Personally I'm not all that into Bitcoin, but I do have a whole BTC in cold storage so I guess I've got that going for me. This whole lightning thing is new to me, I don't really ever spend Bitcoin, and my actual business makes me plenty of fiat.

So far I am impressed with the community. A little too wild-west in some areas since there's hardly any moderation tools, and the community isn't quite interested in the same things that I am, but I do see a lot of advocacy for privacy and digital freedom, and I like that.

But the whole system here is, regrettably, broken. The promises made about Nostr don't live up to reality. A network like this has the potential to become so much more, but there is a lot to lose if it is done wrong.

I intend to help expose these problems. Expect me here for a while. There are a lot of vectors for attack, and I plan to give them all visibility.

Nostr devs, please pay attention. With no centralized network development, all of you are responsible for fixing these issues.