Nostr notes by laoc42

GM!

2026-10-09T06:25:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…kut6
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GM!

alles Gute zum (Neu-)Start!

2026-10-08T14:40:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…cw6w
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alles Gute zum (Neu-)Start!

Was machst du jetzt? 👀

2026-10-06T19:44:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…dw9n
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Was machst du jetzt? 👀

Selling or reordering?

2026-10-06T03:46:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…4tgn
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Selling or reordering?

I'm thinking about something like this too. Currently looking ...

2026-10-04T21:45:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…z9xn
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I'm thinking about something like this too. Currently looking into how buzz does it.

I already see them sitting in the streets coding me the most ...

2026-10-04T17:01:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…w0ts
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I already see them sitting in the streets coding me the most beautiful hello world.

On family vacation. But otherwise 🔫

2026-10-03T18:42:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…uj72
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On family vacation. But otherwise 🔫

GM

2026-10-03T18:38:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…ds05
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GM

GM 🌞 My wife is awesome ...

2026-10-03T06:48:44Z

GM 🌞
My wife is awesome

GM Sir!

2026-09-30T16:32:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…hj0c
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GM Sir!

Unless its heavy postprocessing on your vids, you look gorgeous ...

2026-09-29T16:47:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…tvyu
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Unless its heavy postprocessing on your vids, you look gorgeous and I've never seen anybody with cosmetic surgery actually looking good.
But kind of strange how hard it is to let that kind of judgement go, I feel that as well.

Thanks! Happy to participate, can definitley add some ...

2026-09-29T16:36:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…apjk
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Thanks! Happy to participate, can definitley add some perspectives on Nostr in public education infrastructures

GM Viel Erfolg heute!

2026-09-29T07:47:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…4hpw
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GM
Viel Erfolg heute!

GM!

2026-09-29T07:29:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…2y9s
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GM!

GM!

2026-09-29T07:28:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…2naq
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GM!

for farts you have to use this one I think: ...

2026-09-22T14:01:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…70ua
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for farts you have to use this one I think: https://github.com/derekross/yakbak
Derek Ross (npub18am…p424)

yes, same here, i have to read a bit more into it. so much going ...

2026-09-22T11:42:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…72nw
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yes, same here, i have to read a bit more into it. so much going on, difficult to stay up to date

GM anybody here using Jev already? How did you integrate it into ...

2026-09-22T10:14:28Z

GM
anybody here using Jev already? How did you integrate it into your setup? How are your experiences?
#asknostr

cc verbiricha (npub107j…ncxg) Laeserin (npub1m4n…c2jl)

GM She should definitely go out more often 😁 ...

2026-09-20T07:04:02Z

GM
She should definitely go out more often 😁

quoting
nevent1q…vfqw
My wife is going out for the first time since the birth of our youngest child (10 months old). Our party will surely be just as good, since he only sleeps when I play Black Sabbath loudly and sing along 😁. This time we started by listening to the *Paranoid* album, and he was out by the time "Iron Man" played—no fuss at all 🙌

#dadstr

https://youtu.be/b3-QqGVt-tM

My wife is going out for the first time since the birth of our ...

2026-09-19T19:37:03Z

My wife is going out for the first time since the birth of our youngest child (10 months old). Our party will surely be just as good, since he only sleeps when I play Black Sabbath loudly and sing along 😁. This time we started by listening to the *Paranoid* album, and he was out by the time "Iron Man" played—no fuss at all 🙌

#dadstr

https://youtu.be/b3-QqGVt-tM

do you have a little bit more info on that? 🙏 What, where, ...

2026-09-15T10:02:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…u8cf
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do you have a little bit more info on that? 🙏 What, where, how? 😅

GM ☀

2026-09-15T06:51:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…03p8
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GM ☀

At least we got us and nostr. Can't imagine to build on ...

2026-09-10T12:15:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…e8fg
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At least we got us and nostr.
Can't imagine to build on something else. They will get it at some point

my proposal in case anyone is interested ...

2026-09-10T10:12:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…p6wl
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my proposal in case anyone is interested
https://pad.edufeed.org/s/EencCts8X3

also a no here. @npub1qe3…zefe you also handed in something? ...

2026-09-10T10:08:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…da86
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also a no here.
Sebastix (npub1qe3…zefe) you also handed in something?

quoting
nevent1q…wt8k
GM Sir
Did you get feedback on luxembourg conference? Got rejected :/

GM Sir Did you get feedback on luxembourg conference? Got ...

2026-09-10T09:16:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…pnt5
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GM Sir
Did you get feedback on luxembourg conference? Got rejected :/

GM!

2026-09-07T09:29:48Z

In reply to nevent1q…8dec
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GM!

GM There are people picking up there dog's shit in the forest ...

2026-09-06T11:52:29Z

GM
There are people picking up there dog's shit in the forest with a plastic bag. And then they carry it around for half an hour ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway have a blessed Sunday

Nostr event nevent1qqsqqq9rjdh2anuyhtm7ay22jjc9gkm47nsdga8zs6c8n0ul2869z2qzyqw9lu724nvy9sqae28n0q33k9npw5tdy9x6whr6a2a7nc00a8q0v986jkp

2026-09-05T05:31:13Z

Wtf Can't make this stuff up

2026-09-04T16:53:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…8fdu
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Wtf
Can't make this stuff up

Nostr event nevent1qqs93x90tnk0x68q96vx6l2zyyt6t6en4k676m7mfldu7j32v7wsptszyqw9lu724nvy9sqae28n0q33k9npw5tdy9x6whr6a2a7nc00a8q0vfw7x0h

2026-09-04T05:23:32Z

GM 💜

Thank you for this article on that perspective!

2026-08-31T06:52:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…g095
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Thank you for this article on that perspective!

Alright 🫡

2026-08-29T13:32:21Z

In reply to nevent1q…2fqp
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Alright 🫡

Will recommend that 🫡 🤜🤛

2026-08-29T13:26:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…0ry0
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Will recommend that 🫡 🤜🤛

The key based argument is the one I get most confronted with, ...

2026-08-28T21:09:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…hz2t
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The key based argument is the one I get most confronted with, especially talking with devs of running services in that area. I guess we can mitigate this using trusted third party services as they already do. They continue using their identity providers, but its like using pomegenerate. But it will become much easier for people to communicate across services, move and reduce vendor lock in options.

What arguments do you disagree on?

2026-08-28T18:43:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…zw82
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What arguments do you disagree on?

My priority is this: if we start now developing public infra on ...

2026-08-28T18:42:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…883y
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My priority is this: if we start now developing public infra on ActivityPub in a federal system like Germany we end up like, ok every state runs its own activitypub instance. Then one state will drop out in the future, because they get a government that says I don't like whatever the previous government has done and will end this service and stop it.
The users will end up lost. Because they loose their public identity because it is domain based. All the references to content they produced might get lost.

That's why I think *any* domain based system is not suited for public infrastructure

Plesse Start and solve it 😁

2026-08-28T18:36:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…2f0j
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Plesse Start and solve it 😁

isnt the whole project based on one guy scribbling and pushing ...

2026-08-28T14:32:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…vsl6
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isnt the whole project based on one guy scribbling and pushing his os config?

looking forward for your experiences. looked interesting though

see e.g. ...

2026-08-28T13:04:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…ksc7
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see e.g. https://www.bpb.de/lernen/digitale-bildung/werkstatt/576352/das-fediverse-als-raum-politischer-bildung/#node-content-title-4

Because they want to provide services where e.g. teachers can ...

2026-08-28T13:02:17Z

In reply to nevent1q…ksc7
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Because they want to provide services where e.g. teachers can exchange ideas and learning content they develop, but where should they do it?
They can't say use WhatsApp or Insta, if they want to facilitate that as a general policy or want to support them, they need a service to do so.
And the only proocol coming to their mind that is already quite tested is activityPub to build upon. But I think it would be a huge mistake to do so, because of all the flaws, especially regarding identity that activityPub carries.

I think the shit that was going on here with capgemini and ...

2026-08-28T12:54:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…gqn2
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I think the shit that was going on here with capgemini and billions lost in trying to build that monolith actually made *some* people loose trust in that consulting moneygrabbers.

But things just work in that way that they will have to fund activitypub / atproto stuff, if they find no arguments for nostr somewhere else. that's why we went to fosdem and hand in proposals at that luxembourg thing or not?

"show and tell": I attended every possible conference I could and dropped the word. I built for showing them that the solutions they are looking for are already there. A friend of mine is a prof for special education and is going right now from state to state to convince people of actually your example, because he got that nostr will actually enable this.

And some listened, but without lobbies like ones that https://eurosky.tech/ can run, it's hard for them to argue funding and exploring nostr based solutions further, because they will get asked why the fund stuff that's not recommended by that expert comissions. It's damn stupid, but that's how that shit works. I just want to make sure the money gets spent on something sensible. I already paid the last big failure they tried.

Whats your take on napps vs webxdc stuff that ditto pushes? ...

2026-08-28T09:50:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…d55m
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Whats your take on napps vs webxdc stuff that ditto pushes? Isn't it a similar use case?

GM! Glad to see you back! 🫂

2026-08-28T09:31:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…0ndr
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GM!
Glad to see you back! 🫂

## Signatures Nostr events are atomic and self-verifiable: ...

2026-08-28T09:25:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…7kme
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## Signatures

Nostr events are atomic and self-verifiable: generate a hash, verify the Schnorr signature against the public key—offline, without network access, and without additional context. The key *is* the identity.

In atproto, the signature is attached to the repository commit rather than the individual record. While individual verification is possible, it requires an inclusion proof via the PLC directory. Consequently, verification is no longer self-contained; it has a runtime dependency on a central entity.

In standard operation, ActivityPub signs the delivery process using the server key, not the object itself. Once forwarded, the content cannot be independently verified; object-bound signatures exist only as an optional extension (FEP-8b32) with no widespread implementation.

For a distributed public infrastructure involving many small, heterogeneous consumers, the Nostr approach therefore offers a significantly lower barrier to entry: the artifact and the proof travel together, and any participant can verify the authenticity of a data record with just a few lines of code without needing to trust a relay, server, or directory.

## Identity ActivityPub identities are constitutively bound to a ...

2026-08-28T09:22:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…7kme
_________________________

## Identity

ActivityPub identities are constitutively bound to a domain: @user@instance.state.de. The domain is not an address but part of the identity itself. In a federal system where each state runs its own instance, identity is therefore state-bound — and it ends when the state stops operating. Mastodon's Move migrates followers but not content, and requires the origin instance to still be running and cooperating.

The more serious issue is reference integrity. If state A cites resources from state B in collections, curriculum mappings or learning paths, and B shuts down its instance, it is not only accounts that break but every reference to them. In an infrastructure built for cross-state reuse, that is a structural defect rather than an operational risk.

In Nostr the key is the identity. Domains still appear via NIP-05, but as a revocable, replaceable attribute rather than a foundation. A state can shut down its relay without breaking a single identity or reference; the events remain verifiable on any other relay. Responsibility for operations is thus decoupled from responsibility for identity — a far better fit for federal reality than a model in which one state's exit devalues everyone else's data.

## atproto: portability (but with a directory caveat)

The AT Protocol addresses this. Identity there is a DID, not a domain; the handle is merely an alias proven via DNS or HTTP and can be changed without breaking the identity. Migrating between Personal Data Servers is supported, and repositories can be exported and re-imported elsewhere. Rotation keys even let an identity survive loss of the signing key — but only because in normal operation the PDS operator holds such a key in trust. Recoverability is solved organisationally, not cryptographically: whoever can rescue the identity can also alter it. The tie to an operator is loosened, not removed.

The second caveat concerns resolution itself. `did:plc`, the method used almost exclusively in practice, is not a self-certifying identifier but points to a central directory, so far operated by Bluesky PBC. It is auditable, but its failure interrupts identity resolution network-wide, and its operator can change without the federation having any say. For public education infrastructure planned in decades, this merely relocates the dependency: from a state domain to a commercially operated registry in another jurisdiction. The alternative, `did:web`, avoids that but reintroduces exactly the domain binding we set out to escape.

## The Eurosky case

The obvious rejoinder is that sovereign European atproto infrastructure already exists. Eurosky (https://eurosky.tech/), a project of the Dutch Stichting Modal, runs its own Personal Data Server: data sits in Hetzner facilities in Falkenstein, Eurosky operates the service itself, the contract is held by the foundation, and the service falls under European law including GDPR and DSA. That is substantial and relevant for public bodies.

But it concerns the hosting layer, which was never the problem: that anyone may run a PDS is an explicit design feature and permissionless by intent. **The identity layer is untouched: a Eurosky account still carries a did:plc identity resolved against the same central directory**. Data held in Germany, identity resolved through a registry in foreign hands — for an argument resting on digital sovereignty, that is a solution at one layer, not throughout. The rotation-key trust relationship likewise only shifts, from Bluesky PBC to a Dutch foundation: still operator-mediated.

There is also the protocol's practical shape. atproto is built around a few large aggregators processing the whole network's traffic; as of early 2026, Bluesky PBC still ran the only full-network AppView. That suits a platform, less so a landscape of sixteen states, media centres and other bodies each running small nodes and exchanging selectively.

## Key loss

The obvious objection to key-based identity: what happens when a key is lost, and who is responsible in an administrative context? It must be addressed, but it is solvable.

For individual users, FROSTR and pomegranate offer approaches based on FROST signatures, standardised as RFC 9591: the key is split into shares, and signing requires k of n.

The contrast with the atproto model is therefore precise: there, one party must be able to act alone for recovery to work at all. Here, participation is possible without sole authority.

wow what an argument. I'm paying taxes if I like it or not. I ...

2026-08-28T09:13:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…dm2m
_________________________

wow what an argument.
I'm paying taxes if I like it or not. I would like to see them spent on sensible stuff and not going to waste

GM Dear Nostr, I need your help. I need all the arguments you can ...

2026-08-28T09:09:20Z

GM Dear Nostr,
I need your help. I need all the arguments you can think of, why it would be a terrible idea to build public infrastructure based on ActvityPub and/or atproto instead of Nostr.
There is a public recommendation for action for german education infrastructure that says that open protocol based initiatives should be used in near future to get rid of big tech companies in public education infrastructures. But they name EuroSky and Fediverse as examples.
I need to get Nostr in there for reasons. So I would like to collect the biggest list of counter arguments. Technical, sustainability, societal perspectives, whatever comes to your mind.
cc Constant (npub1t6j…ksrw) Sebastix (npub1qe3…zefe) Jurjen de Vries (npub1l77…swft) sync (npub1equ…hkj6) verbiricha (npub107j…ncxg) nono2357 (npub1ren…aw97) you got much bigger reach, please share 🫂
#asknostr

GM 🌞

2026-08-28T07:40:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…xt8j
_________________________

GM 🌞

GM!

2026-08-28T07:39:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…gxds
_________________________

GM!

GM @npub1ye5…knpr https://www.nostrapps.com/ is not working. I ...

2026-08-25T06:40:34Z

GM
hzrd149 (npub1ye5…knpr) https://www.nostrapps.com/ is not working. I get ssl errors. Wanted to try out the napps you posted earlier about
Have a great day!

Or stash... ...

2026-08-21T08:42:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…ahmg
_________________________

Or stash...
https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qq88s7t69ekxzmmr9eehgctndqq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fw0fshqum5daex2tnyv4mqygqutleu4txcgtqpmj50x7prrvtxzagk6g2d5aw8464ma8s7l6wq7cpsgqqq0c9s9lfdd3

😅

GM sir

2026-08-19T14:09:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…kxsj
_________________________

GM sir

Stash got a new release! @npub107j…ncxg you can now on any ...

2026-08-19T13:00:54Z

Stash got a new release!

verbiricha (npub107j…ncxg) you can now on any website click "Share" -> "Stash" and the select read in stash. then you can also do highlights inside the stash reader and we circumvent that issue when they don't send the source link

also you can now share highlights direct in your NIP-29 groups

quoting
nevent1q…h7r5

Stash saves web pages and text highlights to nostr, so your bookmarks live
on relays instead of in one browser.

- Share any page from your browser to file it as a NIP-B0 bookmark (kind 39701)
- Share a text selection to keep it as a NIP-84 highlight (kind 9802)
- Organise bookmarks into NIP-51 lists (kinds 10003 / 30003)
- Reader view with images, for pages you saved
- Signs with Amber over NIP-55 — the app never sees your private key
- Report bugs from inside the app as NIP-34 git issues

https://zapstore.dev/apps/xyz.laoc.stash

Done 🫡 #nevent1q…0zsy

2026-08-19T10:49:47Z

Done 🫡

quoting
nevent1q…0zsy
Dear Nostr,

On the 7th of October, there will be a Open Source Conference in Luxembourg. I suspect the target audience will be the semi-normie public/private sphere, but mostly public sector, education etc.

Also i suspect this is very much intended as fediverse party. The whole fediverse thing got some traction ever since the EU decided it needs to become more independend from US "Big Tech".

I am pretty sure most of not all of these people are not even aware Nostr exists, it is simply not part of the conversation. Lets see if we can change that.

Ideally we hit them from all angles, demonstrating how Nostr already managed to eclypse in a few short years what this fediverse has been struggeling to acomplish in a decade.

Their theme this year is ''Leading by example in Digital Sovereignty'', and we are, so lets make them aware of it. At the very least we can shoot our shot; if they happen to be so biased towards the fediverse that we are not even welcome, so be it, only one way to find out.

There are 2 weeks left to submit. Lets see if we can coordinate a bit such that we are not in eachothers way. Hopefully if we can manage to get all the type of talks/workshops/training established among all their main tracks, and throw these people a curveball.

https://conference.opensource.lu/

Alex Gleason (npub1q3s…d26p)
jb55 (npub1xts…kk5s)
Laeserin (npub1m4n…c2jl)
pip (npub176p…vgup)

Tag anyone relevant below, these were just the first 4 names that came up with and figured i would not make the list too long.

GM, good travels! Are you planning to move or for holidays?

2026-08-19T06:12:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…gl6m
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GM, good travels!
Are you planning to move or for holidays?

GM!

2026-08-17T07:42:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…apus
_________________________

GM!

GM

2026-08-17T07:39:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…3sp7
_________________________

GM

GM

2026-08-15T11:26:08Z

In reply to nevent1q…wvnu
_________________________

GM

Nostr event nevent1qqsqqqxvzh3qfwakddvu6pvytl0wkhhf4t3cqp0x7fd0cwa848vxgxszyqw9lu724nvy9sqae28n0q33k9npw5tdy9x6whr6a2a7nc00a8q0vzz6p98

2026-08-15T05:02:57Z

GM!

2026-08-14T06:44:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…0mjy
_________________________

GM!

Btw, this was just released as well: ...

2026-08-13T15:48:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…aqym
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Btw, this was just released as well: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-26816-7_11

I'm not really satisfied with it, but maybe it's also of interest for you

Hey, so this was just released as well: ...

2026-08-13T15:45:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…32x4
_________________________

Hey,
so this was just released as well: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-032-26816-7_11

maybe its also of interest for you

Alright will have a look! 🫡

2026-08-11T19:37:00Z

In reply to nevent1q…6zen
_________________________

Alright will have a look! 🫡

Can you show/link me the note from another app? Will have a look

2026-08-11T14:53:49Z

In reply to nevent1q…gxtg
_________________________

Can you show/link me the note from another app? Will have a look

Scroll position should work now. Please update and check 💜 ...

2026-08-11T14:53:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…gxtg
_________________________

Scroll position should work now. Please update and check 💜

https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qq88s7t69ekxzmmr9eehgctndqq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fw0fshqum5daex2tnyv4mqygqutleu4txcgtqpmj50x7prrvtxzagk6g2d5aw8464ma8s7l6wq7cpsgqqq0c9s9lfdd3

Long time no see! Lets make it happen!

2026-08-10T20:30:31Z

In reply to nevent1q…lm9p
_________________________

Long time no see! Lets make it happen!

:110percent: thanks for trying out! I will fix this in the next ...

2026-08-10T05:59:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…gnr5
_________________________

:110percent: thanks for trying out!
I will fix this in the next release!

Or despair and they even try the crazy stuff now

2026-08-09T10:47:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…kdz6
_________________________

Or despair and they even try the crazy stuff now

GM How did it go? Can you recommend gsd?

2026-08-09T05:01:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…8qpg
_________________________

GM
How did it go? Can you recommend gsd?

Stash 0.12.0 is out — thanks for all the feedback here - New ...

2026-08-08T10:13:41Z

Stash 0.12.0 is out — thanks for all the feedback here

- New "Paper" look across the whole app
- Save highlights to a list, same as bookmarks
- client tag added ( Sebastix (npub1qe3…zefe) and saving directly to a list /creating a list should also work now )
- Sign in with a bunker (NIP-46) — the axiom (npub137u…a74z), happy for feedback
- Sign in with a private key (nsec/hex/ncryptsec) too
- Fixed the AUTH crash some relays' login step triggered — ⚡tephen (npub1lqu…qaf3), thanks for the logcat
- Fixed saving a bookmark asking for a signature twice for no reason

- NIP-65 is in progress as well as in app highlighting. There is a bug in Chrome that prevents the app from getting the source link for a highlight. It is fixed by them already, but not yet in prod. cc verbiricha (npub107j…ncxg)

https://zapstore.dev/apps/xyz.laoc.stash

quoting
nevent1q…vejn
GE
Published my first app on the #zapstore 🙌
It's a simple bookmarking app so you can save bookmarks and highlights from your web browser on android. Just use the share button and select "Stash".
At least it works for me, maybe its usable for someone else too.
Cc Sebastix (nprofile…0raa)

https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qq88s7t69ekxzmmr9eehgctndqq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fw0fshqum5daex2tnyv4mqygqutleu4txcgtqpmj50x7prrvtxzagk6g2d5aw8464ma8s7l6wq7cpsgqqq0c9s9lfdd3

I've written here about my intentions. a little bit over the ...

2026-08-08T09:08:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…yksf
_________________________

I've written here about my intentions. a little bit over the top, but it might give an picture about the reasons:

quoting naddr1qv…s3xm

Just calling it Open is not enough - Challenges of public education infrastructures and how Nostr could help

I would like to share with you the concepts I am working on to make public education infrastructure more accessible and open with the help of Nostr. I work in the field of public education infrastructure, especially in the field of Open Educational Resources (#OER). OER are openly licensed educational materials that are provided with an open license, usually a Creative Commons license (CC-0, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA). The clear and open licensing makes it easy to adapt the learning materials to individual needs, improve them and republish them.

For many years, the development of free educational materials has been promoted on the one hand, and platforms, in particular repositories, that are intended to make these materials available have been promoted on the other. After all, these materials have to be made available somewhere so that they can be found.

However, this only works moderately well.

Challenges

After many years of funding, the simple question: \"Where can I make my OER material available?\" cannot be answered easily. There are services where I can upload my OER, but it then remains locked in this platform and cannot be found on other platforms. In addition, these services are often tied to specific educational contexts or only release content after a quality check. This means that simple and public sharing is not possible.

These and other challenges have their origin in the fact that service and infrastructure are mixed up unfavorably in the architecture of public education architecture. I understand infrastructure here as the provision of a public and openly accessible educational infrastructure on which data can be exchanged, i.e. provided and consumed. However, such an infrastructure does not currently exist independently of the services that are operated on it. Infrastructure operators are currently always service operators at the same time. However, as they want to have control over what exactly happens in their service (understandably), they also restrict access to their infrastructure, which leads to them replicating lock-in mechanisms of large media platforms in the small public education infrastructure.

It\'s a bit like every car manufacturer building the roads for their cars at the same time. But only for their cars.

Using a few examples of services that existing platforms offer on their infrastructures, I would like to highlight the challenges that I see in the current architectural concept:

Upload of educational material

Curation: compilation of lists, annotation with metadata

Crawling, indexing and searching

Cross-platform collaboration in communities -> example: quality assurance (whatever that means exactly)

AI services -> Example: AI-generated metadata for educational material

Material upload

The \"material upload\" service or the sharing of a link to educational material is provided by various OER platforms (wirlernenonline.de, oersi.org, mundo.schule).

In concrete terms, this means that if I upload content to one of the platforms, the content usually remains there and is not shared with the other platforms. The result for users: I either have to register everywhere and upload my material there (leading to duplicates) or live with the fact that only the users of the respective platform can find my content.

The Open Educational Resource Search Index (OERSI) addresses this challenge by providing the metadata for educational materials from various platforms in an index. This index is in turn publicly accessible so that platforms can also use it to consume metadata from other platforms. That is already very good. However, it only works for platforms that OERSI indexes and not for all others. The OERSI is focused on the higher education sector, i.e. other educational contexts are excluded here. The approach of placing a suitable \"OERSI\" next to it for each educational sector scales poorly and the challenge remains that a corresponding importer/crawler must be written for each source that is to be indexed.

This approach (pull approach) lags behind the materials.

However, there are even more limitations: The platforms have each specialized in specific educational contexts. This means that the question \"Where can I make my OER available?\" always has to be answered with the counter-question \"For which educational sector?\". If this is outside the general education sector or outside higher education, let alone outside the institutional education framework, things get very, very thin. In short:

It is not easy to provide OER so that it can also be found on different platforms.

Curation

By curation, I mean the compilation of content in lists or collection-like form as well as the annotation of these collections or the content with metadata.

Some platforms offer the option of categorizing content in lists. However, these lists are not portable. The list that I create on platform A cannot be imported to platform B. But that would be nice, because it would make it easier to expand the lists on other platforms or even make them collaborative, while avoiding lock-in effects.

Various centralizing factors occur when annotating with metadata. In current practice, metadata is usually defined at the time the content is provided. This is usually done by a person or editorial team, sometimes with the support of AI services that assist with metadata entry. But how do you add your own metadata? How to communicate that this material would be great not only for biology, but also for sports in topic XY? The current approaches cannot fulfill this requirement. They do not utilize the expertise and potential of their users.

There are no interoperable collections

Metadata annotation is centralized

Users cannot add their own metadata

Crawling, indexing and searching

Since users do not want to visit many different platforms and websites to search for suitable content, the \"big\" OER aggregators crawl them to index the metadata of the content. Via various interfaces or sometimes via the raw HTML. The latter crawlers are very time-consuming to write, error-prone and quickly break when the website design is changed, while the former are somewhat more stable as long as the interface does not change. The use of the General Metadata Profile for Educational Resources (AMB) has improved the situation somewhat. Some platforms now offer a sitemap containing links to educational material, which in turn contain embedded script tags of the type application/ld+json, so that the metadata can be imported from there.

Example: e-teaching.org offers a sitemap for its OER here: https://e-teaching.org/oer-sitemap.xml and there is a corresponding script tag on the respective pages.

This is already much better, but there is still more to do:

Initially, this approach is only practicable for platforms and stakeholders who have the IT resources to be able to incorporate the relevant functionalities. Teachers cannot simply implement this on their private blog or similar. On the other hand, there is still a discovery problem. I still need to know where to look. I need to know the sitemaps, otherwise I won\'t find anything. Instead of an approach in which actors can independently communicate that they have new content (push approach), we are currently pursuing an approach in which each platform acquires content for itself using the pull method. This leads to duplication of work in many places, is inefficient (several people build exactly the same crawlers, but always for their platform) and excludes small players in particular (is it worth programming a crawler if the website \"only\" provides 50 materials?)

Instead of sharing developed data, the platforms work for themselves or at most make it available again behind their own (open or closed) interfaces. That\'s probably not what we imagine an open and collaborative community to be, is it?

When it comes to searching, we face similar challenges to those described above. Although various OER aggregators in the form of repositories or repositories already index many of the \"smaller\" platforms and thus offer a comprehensive search, it is not possible to search these aggregators together. Ultimately, this means that users have to go to different platforms again if they want to search the entire OER pool.

In many places, content is duplicated, but always for the user\'s own platform

There is no shared data space into which stakeholders can \"push\" content

There are no cross-platform search options

Cross-platform collaboration

That would be nice, wouldn\'t it? It\'s a mystery to me how #OEP (Open Educational Practices, exact definition by the community is still pending) is supposed to work without it. But as far as I know, there are not even any approaches as to how this should be implemented technically (or is there? let me hear).

One scenario for such cross-platform collaboration could be quality assurance. Let\'s say that two platforms / communities have agreed on something that they call \"quality\", but how can this seal of approval be applied to the content?

Platform A: Well, then everyone come to us. We can do it here and then we can hang a nice badge on the materials.

Platform B: Yes, but then it won\'t be on our materials. Besides, we want/need to work at our place, because what is the point of my platform if we do everything at yours?

Although everyone is now talking about #OEP, there are no technical approaches to how (cross-platform) collaboration can be mapped technically

AI services

What is already complete today without mentioning AI? At least for the next funding application, something has to be done with AI...

Various projects are developing helpful and impressive AI services. For example, to facilitate the annotation of content with metadata, to automatically add metadata, to find content on specific topics or to (semi-)automatically add content to collections. But (maybe you\'ve already guessed it): It only works on your own platform. Presumably because the services are developed close to the platform\'s own data model. And since the data does not leave this silo, it fits. This leads to the same services being developed twice in several places.

AI services often only work on the platform for which they are developed

Summary of the problems

We already do a lot of things very well (use of the AMB, open educational materials, we have a great community) and now we just have to go further.

(The OER Metadata Group, which developed the General Metadata Profile for Educational Resources (AMB), does not receive any direct funding for its work. At the same time, it is a central point of contact for all those who handle metadata in open educational infrastructures and the metadata profile is one of the few application profiles that is publicly accessible, well documented and offers validation options).

If we take a bird\'s eye view of the entire platforms and the challenges described, we can distinguish three intertwined core components that help to better understand the problems described:

User

service

Data

Users: Users are active on (almost) all platforms. They upload material, annotate with metadata, are in a community, search for content, etc. Regardless of whether they can/must log in, we offer our users something so that they can hopefully derive added value from it

Service: This is the something. The \"website\", the interface, the place where the user can click and do something. It is what often gives the data a \"visual\" form. The service is the intermediary, the interface between the user and the data. With the help of the service, data can be created, changed or removed (there are of course many non-visual services that allow interaction with data, but for most normal people, there is something to click somewhere).

Data: The information in structured machine-readable form that can provide added value to the user in rendered form through a service. It is difficult for us to capture unrendered data (we are not Neo). This can either be the metadata for educational materials, the materials themselves, profile information, collections of materials or similar.

In my opinion, many of the challenges described above have their origins in the fact that the three core components of user, service and data have been unfavorably combined. This is not an accusation, because this is exactly the way platforms have always been built in recent years (decades?):

Users, service and data are bundled into one platform

This means that through my service, the users interact with the data and I can ensure that everything works well together in my little world. This makes sense if I\'m Microsoft, Facebook, X or something similar, because that\'s exactly my business model: Locking users in (lock-in), taking away their sovereignty over their content (or can you migrate your Facebook posts to X?) and, if possible, not letting them out again.

But our projects are public. These are not the mechanisms we should be replicating. So what now?

Educational infrastructure structures based on the Nostr protocol

Nostr

In 2019, a concept for a social media protocol \"Nostr - Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted By Relays\" a pseudonymous person by the name of \"fiatjaf\" described as follows:

It does not rely on any trusted central server, hence it is resilient, it is based on cryptographic keys and signatures, so it is tamperproof, it does not rely on P2P techniques, therefore it works.

Fiatjaf, 2019

The core components of the protocol consist of:

JSON -> data format

SHA256 & Schnorr -> cryptography

Websocket -> data exchange

And it works like this:

Users have a \"key pair\": a private key (which you keep for yourself, just for yourself) and a public key, which you can show around, this is your public identity. You use it to tell other users: Look here, that\'s me. The two keys are connected in a \"magical\" (cryptographic) way: The public key can be generated from the private key, but not the other way around. This means that if you lose your public key: no problem, it can always be restored. If you lose your private key: bad luck, it is virtually impossible to recover it.

However, the key magic goes even further: you can sign \"messages\" with your private key. This signature, which you create using the private key, has a magical property: anyone can use the signature and your public key to verify that only the person who also has the private key for this public key could have signed this message. Magical, right? Don\'t understand completely? No big deal, you\'re probably already using it without realizing it. It\'s not a fancy new technology, it\'s well established and widely used.

Remember: users have a key pair and can use it to sign messages.

Then there are the services. Services basically work as described above. They allow users to interact with data. But with Nostr it\'s a little different than usual, because: The data doesn\'t \"live\" in the services. But where then?

When a user creates, modifies or removes a data record, this \"event\" (as we call it at Nostr) is signed with your private key (so it\'s clear to everyone that only you can have done this) and then sent to several \"relays\". These are the places where the data is stored. When a user logs into a service, the service retrieves the data it needs from these relays. User, service and data are therefore decoupled. The user could switch to another service and retrieve data from the relays. No lock-in possibilities.

Note: User, service and data are decoupled.

Finally, there are the relays. Relays are locations. They are the places to which the events, i.e. the users\' data, their interactions, are sent and from which they are requested. They are like the backend of Nostr, but they don\'t do much more than that: accept events, distribute events. Depending on the configuration, only certain users are allowed to write to or read from a relay.

The basic design of the protocol is based on openness and interoperability. No registration is required, only key pairs. The authenticity of an event can still be ensured using cryptographic procedures, as only the owner of the respective key pair could create this event in this way. The relays ensure that the data is sent to the desired locations and as we use more than one, we have a certain degree of reliability. As the data only consists of signed JSON snippets, we can easily copy it to another location in the event of a failure. The signatures also ensure that no changes have been made to the data in the meantime.

Example: A nostr event

Here is a small technical digression that describes how Nostr events are structured. If you are not so interested in the technical details, feel free to skip this section.

Every Nostr event has the same basic structure with the attributes

id: The hash of the event

pubkey: The pubkey of the creator of the event

created_at: The timestamp of the event

kind: The type of the event

tags: Additional metadata for the event can be stored in this array

content: The textual content of an event

sig: The signature of the event to check the integrity of the data

{

\"id\": <32-bytes lowercase hex-encoded sha256 of the serialized event data>,

\"pubkey\": <32-bytes lowercase hex-encoded public key of the event creator>,

\"created_at\": <unix timestamp in seconds>,

\"kind\": <integer between 0 and 65535>,

\"tags\": [

[<arbitrary string>...],

// ...

],

\"content\": <arbitrary string>,

\"sig\": <64-bytes lowercase hex of the signature of the sha256 hash of the serialized event data, which is the same as the \"id\" field>

}

The event types used and the existing specifications can be viewed at https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/ or on [nostrhub.io](https://nostrhub.io/]

It is also important to note that you can simply start developing applications. The relays will accept all events that follow the above scheme. So you don\'t have to ask anyone for permission or wait until your specification has been accepted and added.

You can just build things.

Excursus: Nostr for binary data - Blossom

Yes, but... this is only suitable for text-based data? What about binary data (images, videos, PDFs, etc.)?

This data is often quite large and the best practice has been to not store this data on relays, but to find a more suitable publication mechanism for these data types. The approach is called \"Blossom - Blobs stored simply on mediaservers\" and is quite straightforward.

Blossom servers (nothing more than simple media servers) use Nostr key pairs to manage identities and sign events. The blobs are identified by their sha256 hash. Blossom defines some standardized endpoints that describe how media can be uploaded, how it can be consumed and so on.

The details of how authorization and the respective endpoints work are described in the aforementioned specification.

Nostr 🤝 Public education infrastructures

How could challenges be solved if we use Nostr as the basis for public education infrastructure?

Material upload

It is not easy to make OER available so that it can be found on different platforms.

With Nostr as the base infrastructure, the metadata and binary data would not be linked to the service from which it was provided. Binary data can be hosted on so-called Blossom servers. Metadata, comments and other text-based data are distributed via the relay infrastructure. As data and service are decoupled, the OER materials can be consumed from different applications.

Curation

There are no interoperable collections

Metadata annotation is centralized

Users cannot add their own metadata

Collections are interoperable per se. How lists work is defined at protocol level. Annotation with metadata is not centralized at any point. The promise of the RDF community \"Anyone can say anything about any topic\" is realized here. I don\'t have to listen to everything. Maybe I only consume metadata events from certain editorial teams or users. Maybe only those with a proximity to my social graph. In any case, there is the option of providing metadata for all users.

Crawling, indexing and search * Content is duplicated in many places, but always for your own platform * There is no shared data space into which actors can \"push\" content * There are no cross-platform search options

No more duplicate indexing. If a user has published a metadata event in the network, it can be consumed by everyone. The data space is shared per se. Cross-platform search is made possible by the combination of relays and NIPs. Special query formats for the respective NIPs can be defined in the NIPs. Relays can indicate which NIPs they support. In Nostr, a cross-platform search is a cross-relay search.

Cross-platform collaboration

Although #OEP is now on everyone\'s lips, there are no technical approaches as to how (cross-platform) collaboration can be mapped technically

Nostr is the technical approach.

AI services

AI services often only work on the platform for which they are developed

In Nostr, there is the concept of data vending machines (see also data-vending-machines.org. So instead of just building an API (which is already very nice if it is openly accessible), these services could also act as actors in the Nostr network and accept and execute jobs. The nature of the jobs can be described in a specification so that the functionality is easy to understand for all interested participants in the network.

The services could even be monetized, opening up opportunities to develop business models.

Conclusion

The open education community is great. They are unique and incredibly committed people who have dedicated themselves to the noble goal of \"Accessible Education for All\" -> \"Open Education\". We use Creative Commons licenses -> Commons -> Commons. It\'s okay that many projects are dependent on sponsors and funding. What we do is in the spirit of a commons: public education for all. So we all pay for it as a community.

What is not okay is that what we have all paid for can no longer be found after a short time. That it is locked away. In publicly funded data silos. It must also be available to everyone in the long term. Otherwise it is not accessible, not open. Then the O in OER is just a label and marketing to get money for 3 years for an ABM measure. Because content development is nothing else if the content is thrown away after three years.

And the same applies to OEP. Open learning practices are also just a phrase if we don\'t think about the right technical infrastructure that enables real openness and collaboration and thus the implementation of open learning practices.

And if we don\'t think about adapting the infrastructure for open learning now, then we will probably be able to see in a few years what will be left of it in the event of political reorientation. If the funding pots are cut completely, what will be left of the money invested?

We need solutions that committed communities can continue to operate and that can\'t have their heads chopped off without us being able to put two new ones next to them.

We need to think about this now.

How open does public education infrastructure want to be?

I'm about to publish something about the projects next week. One has recently ended and the other one begins this month. Will ping you

GM!

2026-08-08T08:38:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…wnkq
_________________________

GM!

GM I already got public funding by germany education ministry 2 ...

2026-08-08T08:34:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…0c36
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GM
I already got public funding by germany education ministry 2 times to develop Nostr based applications and am working now at an institute that wants to migrate their whole education related infrastructure to nostr. I would be happy to share my experiences and participate there.

Sorry to hear! Will publish a new release tomorrow. What device ...

2026-08-07T19:13:23Z

In reply to nevent1q…4rns
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Sorry to hear! Will publish a new release tomorrow. What device did you use and which OS?

GM Sir seems to be a bug in chromium that they fixed mid July. It ...

2026-08-07T08:41:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…frvg
_________________________

GM Sir
seems to be a bug in chromium that they fixed mid July. It works with chrome beta browser. Will look if I can find another way around or maybe we will have to wait a little bit. Which browser did you try?

GM On todays list: * figure out why the fuck chromium based ...

2026-08-07T07:30:54Z

GM
On todays list:
* figure out why the fuck chromium based browsers on Android don't include URLs for highlighted text all the time. gotta find a way around this
* NIP-29 support in edufeed

should be enough for a Friday

GM, Sir

2026-08-07T07:28:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…cyal
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GM, Sir

on it :wisp_salute:

2026-08-06T09:15:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…pxls
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on it :wisp_salute:

thanks! yes, I noticed that for some websites it does not work, ...

2026-08-06T09:15:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…dn6c
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thanks!
yes, I noticed that for some websites it does not work, e.g. github. which one did you test?
For others it just works. will dig into it 🪏

I use some "studio speakers" like these ones with an ...

2026-08-06T09:13:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…f6ty
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I use some "studio speakers" like these ones with an extra soundcard.
e.g. https://www.thomann.de/intl/active_nearfield_monitors.html?oa=pra&gk=STMOAN&sp=solr_10&cme=true&filter=true

I am super happy with it

Thanks! They are shipped as nostr events, so will show up in any ...

2026-08-06T08:02:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…sf2j
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Thanks! They are shipped as nostr events, so will show up in any compatible app. It's still early, but seems to work. Next will be Inbox / Outbox support and login possibilities with bunker URI and nsec

Damn, sorry for that, auth should work. Happy to look into the ...

2026-08-06T04:33:42Z

In reply to nevent1q…j8rs
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Damn, sorry for that, auth should work. Happy to look into the log! Thanks for trying out!

GE Published my first app on the #zapstore 🙌 It's a simple ...

2026-08-05T14:40:00Z

GE
Published my first app on the #zapstore 🙌
It's a simple bookmarking app so you can save bookmarks and highlights from your web browser on android. Just use the share button and select "Stash".
At least it works for me, maybe its usable for someone else too.
Cc Sebastix (nprofile…0raa)

https://zapstore.dev/apps/naddr1qq88s7t69ekxzmmr9eehgctndqq3samnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fw0fshqum5daex2tnyv4mqygqutleu4txcgtqpmj50x7prrvtxzagk6g2d5aw8464ma8s7l6wq7cpsgqqq0c9s9lfdd3

GM Sir nice to See you here again 🫂

2026-08-05T12:14:16Z

In reply to nevent1q…vnqw
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GM Sir nice to See you here again 🫂

GM

2026-08-04T08:26:39Z

In reply to nevent1q…x98n
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GM

GM

2026-08-04T06:11:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…xwq2
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GM

I just yesterday started working on a bookmark tool for android. ...

2026-08-03T19:30:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…tjsp
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I just yesterday started working on a bookmark tool for android. Also using grapheneOS. Always bothered me I could not simply share to a nostr app to create a bookmark. Will check on adding highlights. I'll ping you when I got something working

GM Missing @nprofile…fjwq 🫂

2026-07-31T09:20:30Z

GM
Missing verbiricha (nprofile…fjwq) 🫂

Das haben wir auch! 😃 Viel Erfolg 🤞

2026-07-29T07:19:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…wjjm
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Das haben wir auch! 😃
Viel Erfolg 🤞

GM

2026-07-29T07:17:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…9jsu
_________________________

GM

GM running #buzz

2026-07-29T07:17:19Z

GM
running #buzz

GM!

2026-07-28T05:50:30Z

In reply to nevent1q…aheu
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GM!

GM

2026-07-27T07:49:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…nrhe
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GM

GM #cordn or #concord ? Testing out how both would integrate into ...

2026-07-27T07:12:57Z

GM
#cordn or #concord ?

Testing out how both would integrate into #edufeed

How did you come up with it at all? Glad that your pain is ...

2026-07-23T12:36:54Z

In reply to nevent1q…8ds7
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How did you come up with it at all?
Glad that your pain is reliefed 🫂

CC @nprofile…4s8y

2026-07-23T12:23:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…6y04
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CC Niel Liesmons (nprofile…4s8y)

GM Looking into how #concord protocol would fit into #edufeed and ...

2026-07-23T12:21:00Z

GM
Looking into how #concord protocol would fit into #edufeed and #nope could look like

Have you tried out kimi k3 yet? Thinking abou t changing subs for ...

2026-07-19T06:19:32Z

In reply to nevent1q…ydp4
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Have you tried out kimi k3 yet? Thinking abou t changing subs for next months to see if it's comparable. Fable5 doing great, but I don't lime the lock in. Though you still have to get stuff done..

I thought keypairs would be a problem. Turns out even people ...

2026-07-18T18:27:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…20zd
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I thought keypairs would be a problem. Turns out even people asking me what the "slash" is on the keyboard are able to save a simple long "word". It's even better 'cause they don't even have to remember a username for it