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@ daniele
2025-04-02 12:02:45
We value sovereignty, privacy and security when accessing online content, using several tools to achieve this, like open protocols, open OSes, open software products, Tor and VPNs. ## The problem Talking about our social presence, we can manually build up our follower list (social graph), pick a Nostr client that is respectful of our preferences on what to show and how, but with the standard following mechanism, our main feed is public, \*\*so everyone can actually snoop\*\* what we are interested in, and what is supposable that we read daily. ## The solution Nostr has a simple solution for this necessity: encrypted lists. Lists are what they appear, a collection of people or interests (but they can also group much other stuff, see \[NIP-51\](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/51.md)). So we can create lists with contacts that we don't have in our main social graph; these lists can be used primarily to create \*\*dedicated feeds\*\*, but they could have other uses, for example, related to monitoring. The interesting thing about lists is that they can also be \*\*encrypted\*\*, so unlike the basic following list, which is always public, we can hide the lists' content from others. The implications are obvious: we can not only have a more organized way to browse content, but it is also \*\*really private one\*\*. One might wonder what use can really be made of private lists; here are some examples: - Browse “can't miss” content from users I consider a priority; - Supervise competitors or adversarial parts; - Monitor sensible topics (tags); - Following someone without being publicly associated with them, as this may be undesirable; The benefits in terms of privacy as usual are not only related to the casual, or programmatic, observer, but are also evident when we think of \*\*how many bots scan our actions to profile us\*\*. ## The current state Unfortunately, lists are not widely supported by Nostr clients, and encrypted support is a rarity. Often the excuse to not implement them is that they are harder to develop, since they require managing the encryption stuff (\[NIP-44\](https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips/blob/master/51.md)). Nevertheless, developers have an easier option to start offering private lists: give the user the possibility to simply \*\*mark them as local-only\*\*, and never push them to the relays. Even if the user misses the sync feature, this is sufficient to create a private environment. To date, as far as I know, the best client with list management is Gossip, which permits to manage \*\*both encrypted and local-only lists\*\*. Beg your Nostr client to implement private lists!