The way it usually goes, your online identity is your private key. If the key is compromised, there goes your identity. Inkan fixes that.
You keep a master key in cold storage and a signing key for everyday use. If the signing key ever leaks or gets lost, the master revokes it and delegates to a new one. Same identity, same followers, fresh signing key.
If you'd like to take a look at the prototype: https://www.inkan.cc. Log in with your NIP-07 extension and say hi to the test identities already walking around. Or make one of your own.
We need relays to have the ability to (i) verify OTS proofs, (ii) pick the best OTS proof they know about for a given reference event and (iii) splice that OTS proof into the reference event's json when returning the reference event.
This is a crucial piece of Nostr infrastructure. Delivery of events with both "created_at" and "ots" should be a standard option.
Here's an example of the shape, created by an experimental OTS-enabled relay:
Nostr is a protocol for distributing digitally signed content.
The primitives on which it is build closely trace the elements of public key cryptography. It's unlikely that these are going to change.
So Nostr is not just some fad or fashion. Whether it's popular or a lot of people use it is in a way secondary. It's the correct way to authenticate on the internet, and that's all that matters to my decision to use it.
Inkan enables you to revoke and replace key pairs when your private key has been lost or stolen. You can also perform periodic key rotations preemptively. You can do all this in a decentralized manner.
That way Inkan gives you a permanent online identity that only you control, and that you can be confident you can keep over the long term.
Inkan is open for testing and comment. Let me know if you'd like to try it out.
Yes, I've been thinking about making in-browser construction of identities available as an option. There is nothing difficult about it in principle, but it sort of defeats the purpose of keeping the identity-securing keys airgapped. I may still decide to do so as a sort of toy-identity option so it becomes very easy to try it out. I first want to fortify the surrounding infrastructure, so it's more scaleable before I roll out an-easy-to-try option.
Inkan enables you to revoke and replace key pairs when your private key has been lost or stolen. You can also perform periodic key rotations preemptively. You can do all this in a decentralized manner.
That way Inkan gives you a permanent online identity that only you control, and that you can be confident you can keep over the long term.
Inkan is open for testing and comment. Let me know if you'd like to try it out.