signum-nostr-nip05

Decentralized NIP05 Alias Resolution Service

How NIP05 verification works?

The NIP05 specification of the nostr protocol describes a standard how clients verify accounts. This is originally bound to conventional DNS-based domain ownership. This requires for verifiable users to have

a domain
a webservice running

Example:

I own the domain foodood.com. So I need to add on my webserver, which I'm also running, a file called nostr.json under the path .well-known and add a JSON description into it.

So, to verify I need a client like https://coracle.social and I enter my NIP05 address johndoe@foodood.com in the profile settings: The client then looks under https://foodood.com/.well-known/nostr.json?name=johndoe and expects a specific answer:

{
  "names": {
    "johndoe": "<mypublicknostrkey>"
  },
  "relays": {
    "<mypublicknostrkey>": ["wss://relay1.nostr.com", "wss://relay2.nostr.com"]
  }
}

For tech-savvy people this is straightforward but my Mom would struggle. (well, my Mom would not be the target audience of nostr - but this is another story)

How it works with Signum?

Easiest way, if you don't have an Alias yet: https://nostrum.vercel.app/

The dApp requires that you have a nostr account imported/created in the XT Wallet

Manual Process

You acquire an Alias in the namespace nostr - which costs you 50 SIGNA/year (about 8 US cent at the time of writing) for example on SignumSwap or in the Phoenix Wallet. Then you edit this Alias and add your (hexadecimal!!!) public nostr key and optional some relays. That's all!

The JSON payload has to look like this:

{
  "vs": 1,
  "xnsrel": ["wss://relay.damus.io", "wss://relay.nostr.band"],
  "xnostr": "<your nostr public key IN HEXADECIMAL FORM>"
}

After the transaction is settled in the network (after about 240 seconds) you can verify you nostr account as usual.

But what's the tech magic behind this?!

The Signum Network allows users to own updatable data containers, called Aliases. All done in a decentralized manner with no intermediaries like ICANN or banks. These Aliases can be updated by the owner (and even traded) whenever (s)he needs. With the help of the Structured Data Format (SRC44) a user adds a nostr public key to th pre-defined field xnostr (and xnsrel for relays). The Signum Network runs a service that delegates NIP05 addresses like johndoe@signum.network to the Alias johndoe and looks for the xnostr field. If existent a NIP05 compliant content is being returned to the requesting client.

Once you own that Alias, no one can take it away from you: Your keys, Your Alias

Development

This project is for Cloudworker Functions on Cloudflare.

To run this locally, type: npm run dev

 ⛅️ wrangler 2.17.0
--------------------
⬣ Listening at http://0.0.0.0:8787
- http://127.0.0.1:8787
- http://192.168.1.20:8787
Total Upload: 31.32 KiB / gzip: 6.37 KiB
⎔ Starting a local server...
⎔ Shutting down local server.
⎔ Starting a local server...
╭───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ [b] open a browser, [d] open Devtools, [l] turn off local mode, [c] clear console, [x] to exit                                                                                                                                                                                                                │
╰───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

You can run locally by typing l if you want to debug locally

Deploy

Use wrangler publish

This repo uses github actions... each push to main branch triggers a deploy automatically

signum-network / signum-nostr-nip05