Node 02 A. Certainty of the secret Next up

Should you roll your own entropy?

A hardware device's TRNG can generate a seed for you in seconds. Rolling your own entropy (dice, shuffled cards) takes longer and requires you to trust your own procedure instead of a chip. What does rolling your own actually buy you, and what does skipping it cost you?

A position to test

Framing to test, not to assume: for the entropy step specifically, there's no way to verify a non-deterministic output after the fact. You can only control its source in the first place. If that's right, generating it yourself may be the only point in the whole setup where “verify, don't trust” isn't actually possible, and controlling the source is the only lever available. Is that framing correct, or is there a way to gain assurance about a device's TRNG that doesn't reduce to trust?

Branches

None drafted yet. Branches are compiled from the answers below, and each one carries an "applies when" tag and the name of whoever argued for it.

Video answers

No video answers yet. Approved contributors can submit a video response; we transcribe it to text here and keep the original for promotion. See the process note in design.md.

Answer this question

Answer here, or copy the note id below and reply from the Nostr app you already use. Sign in with a browser extension on a computer, or a signer app on a phone. Your key never reaches this page. The thread opens on the core roundtable by default, and Everyone shows every reply. This question has no deadline.

How to comment

Why Nostr and not a normal comment box

Your reply is signed with your own key. That has three consequences that matter for a document built out of other people's arguments.

Nobody can edit what sits under your name, including us. We compile replies into branches, and you can always check the original.
Nobody can delete your argument either. A signed event does not depend on us keeping it. If this project disappears, your answer is still on the relays.
There is no account, no email, and no password. Nothing to sign up for and nothing for us to leak.

A project about not trusting third parties should not ask you to trust one to hold your words.

Getting a key, about two minutes

A Nostr key is a keypair, the same idea as a Bitcoin key. The public half (npub) is your name. The private half (nsec) is your password and your identity. Back it up. Losing it means losing the identity, and there is no reset.

On a phone: install Amber (Android), or open nsec.app in any mobile browser. Create a key.
On a computer: install Alby or nos2x as a browser extension. Create a key.

If you already answer on Nostr from Damus, Primal or Amethyst, you have a key already. Skip this.

Commenting from a computer

Install Alby or nos2x and create or import your key.
Press Browser extension above the reply box.
Approve the connection when the extension asks. It shares your public key only.
Write your reply and press Sign and post. The extension asks you to approve the signature.

Commenting from a phone

Alby and nos2x are desktop browser extensions, and no Nostr extension exists for Safari on iPhone, so the Browser extension button is switched off on a phone. Phones use a signer app instead. Your key stays inside that app and never reaches this page, and the app asks you to approve every signature.

Install Amber, or open nsec.app, and create or import your key.
In that app, copy its connection string. It starts with bunker://, which is the Nostr standard for remote signing and has nothing to do with any hardware vendor.
Press Signer app above the reply box, paste the string, and press Connect.
Approve the connection in your signer app.
Write your reply and press Sign and post, then approve the signature in the signer app.

This page remembers the connection, so you only paste that string once on this device.

Or answer from the app you already use

The reliable way, and the one we suggest: press Copy the note id under the reply box, open the Nostr app you already use, and paste the id into its search. That opens this thread, and you reply there as you would to any note. No key to connect here, and your reply still appears on this page.

Reply in your Nostr app beside it tries to open the thread directly. Some apps honour it and some ignore it and open on their own home screen, so treat it as a shortcut and fall back to pasting the id.

If the id does not resolve in your app, that app is probably not reading any relay we publish to. We use relay.damus.io, relay.ditto.pub, nos.lol, relay.primal.net and offchain.pub. Tell Kiwi which relays you read and we will add them, because a missing relay is our problem to fix, not yours to work around.

Why some names show first

The thread opens on Roundtable only, which shows the people listed in whitelist.json. Everyone shows every reply. Both views read the same relays.

This is a display default. It is not moderation and it is not permission. Anyone can post, no reply is hidden from the relays, and every reply is one press away. The list is public so you can see exactly whose answers are being weighted.

The reason for it: a handful of people with deep experience should not be buried under bots and drive-by opinions. Deciding whose answer carries weight is human judgment, and this project treats that as part of the work rather than something to hide behind an algorithm. Public replies can still raise a branch and reach the tree on their merits.

Still stuck

Post your answer publicly on Nostr and tag npub1ddeduk2zx9wpu86v2d3t0qxdgz4yymyt2ake5kll3sl6w3f2qvdqcevr7n, or raise it on the repo. There is no deadline on any question, so there is no rush.