Trust Revolution

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In this episode of Trust Revolution, Shawn welcomes Dr. David Strayhorn, a neurologist, electrical engineer, and freedom technologist, for a deep dive into Web of Trust. Recorded at Bitcoin Park in Nashville, David shares his journey from clinical practice to building Brainstorm, a personal Web of Trust relay on Nostr, and GrapeRank, an algorithm reimagining trust curation. Together, they explore how decentralized systems can empower individuals to control their data and trust networks, challenging centralized gatekeepers and reshaping how we find truth in a skeptical world.

About Dr. David Strayhorn


Dr. David Strayhorn is a board-certified neurologist specializing in epilepsy, with a background in electrical engineering. A decade-long contributor to freedom technology, he focuses on decentralized systems and Web of Trust protocols. His current project, Brainstorm, is a personal Web of Trust relay on Nostr, while GrapeRank is an extensible algorithm for contextual trust scores. Follow him on Nostr (@wds4@primal.net) or explore his GitHub (github.com/wds4) for insights into Concept Graph and Grapevine.

Quotes to Remember

• “Trust doesn’t live in any one place in the brain, just like there’s no single neuron in charge. It’s decentralized, like the systems we’re building.” — Dr. David Strayhorn
• “Web of Trust is about letting your community decide what trust means—not developers imposing categories.” — Dr. David Strayhorn
• “GrapeRank is PageRank for people: it uses any signal—follows, zaps, mutes—to calculate trust in context, not just importance.” — Dr. David Strayhorn

Resources & Links

• David Strayhorn’s GitHub: Dive into Concept Graph and Grapevine (github.com/wds4).
• Nostr Protocol: Learn about the platform powering Web of Trust (nostr.com).

Subscribe:
https://podcast.trustrevolution.co

Music in this episode by More Ghost Than Man.

[00:00:03] Shawn Yeager:

Doctor Strayhorn, I presume. I'll call you that one time, and then it's David. It's David. Yes. John, it is, fantastic to be here. Thank you. Appreciate you joining me. I'm excited about your podcast. Thanks so much. Excited to have you. I've been looking forward to this conversation, and, we're here in the lovely Bitcoin Park, studio where we both, spend a lot of time. Yep.   And   as you and I have chatted, David,   what I'd love to do is to start   with   a primer   Okay.   On trust from a neurologist's   perspective. I I say that tongue in cheek, but you'll   do a better job than me. I will include, of course, your your esteemed biography,   in in the show notes. But   as someone with a background   academically in electro engineering Mhmm. As a board certified neurologist who's practicing Mhmm. And as someone who has spent now the better part of ten years   studying web of trust and implementing different approaches,   let's begin with   where does trust live in the brain? Where does trust live in the mind?  



[00:01:10] David Strayhorn:

Well, in in true cyberpunk,   the spirit of a cyberpunk   mind is decentralized, and it doesn't live in any one place.   And so first, I guess, I'd say the answer to your question is not something   that's ever come up, you know, in med school or neurology residency.   It's something that I think about a lot in the clinic when I,   I a lot of what I do is getting a history from patients. And so epilepsy is what I focus on. So a lot of the information is just what people tell me.   Sometimes   the information is accurate. Sometimes it's not because just of the nature of seizures, you can't remember stuff.   And so I spend a lot of time just thinking about how the mind works and   how trustworthy is our self reporting.  

So clinically,   I'm certainly not alone in dealing with that question.   But   some of what I would say, I'd you know, I've been obsessed probably with for the last decade   in the on the quest of web of trust   and how do we obtain trusted information. How do we   to me, freedom technology   is about how do we agree   on any whatever on a different set of rules. Rough consensus and running code.   How do we how do we generate consensus   to solve whatever problem? And there are various different problems I'm sure we're we'll talk about.   But so I'm I, a lot of times, have my engineering hat on trying to build tools to solve problems for real people. But then sometimes I'll put on   my scientist hat and I'll think, You know what? I think the brain   has the exact same problem.  

We people, just in real life, face the same problem   as we   freedom technologists solve, which is how we arrive at So just something as simple as language.   Who decides to call, This is you.   Nobody. There's no one in charge.   And and I speculate.   So I've been, you know, with my engineering hat. I'm like, here are the tools I think that are gonna solve. How do we build a platform with no one in charge?   I have lots of thoughts on that.   And and as I'm, like, building the the big picture and the little picture, I'm like, you know what? Maybe the brain does the same   strategy. So if you ask where does where is   trust in the brain,   there is no place. Like, if you ask me which neuron is in charge,   there is none. And,   you know, it's not the pineal gland is not in charge. There's there's,  

[00:03:47] Shawn Yeager:

Is there a and I I asked that question   knowing,   as as little as I know from a neurological standpoint that it's not simple. But   but to sort of tease out,   if not a place,   certainly,   then   is there an understood process? How do we process trust? How do we   derive or arrive  

[00:04:08] David Strayhorn:

at at what or who we trust? Yeah. That I actually don't know. There's definitely no no spot, and,   you know, there probably are people who think about that, you know, who, you know, probably psychologists,   psychiatrists.  

[00:04:21] Shawn Yeager:

So there's no clear blueprint   to take from your field of of medicine and science  

[00:04:27] David Strayhorn:

to apply to web of trust as a protocol clear blueprint that I know of. The analogies that I come up with are things that  

[00:04:35] Shawn Yeager:

yeah. I don't know if any of that. Primitives? I mean, what what do you What are the primitives of trust? When you are mapping   trust onto a protocol, onto software, onto code Yeah.   Are there clear   buckets  

[00:04:49] David Strayhorn:

Types of trust. Or or primitives that you think about that you need to map? So when I try to do that, I come to realize that there is an there's no cap on the different categories of trust.   The word itself can make conversations about this very difficult because I might say I trust you to do something,   or I might say I trust that something is true. It's a completely different kind. Contextually   The word is being used in two different very different ways.   And there's kind of even a continuum. I trust that this is true because I trust you to be truthful   on that topic. Right. I think trust is contextual.  

And and, yeah, like and I don't   as far as what are the different categories,   that is something that's not for the developer   to decide. We need tools so that your community can tell you help you to decide what the categories are. It's emergent.   Yeah. Now   talking about the   brain, you know,   how does the brain I think of the brain as decentralized.   If you do a corpus chaliceotomy, which is sometimes done, you cut you separate the left and the right hemispheres,   then for so which is sometimes done for a very   severe refractory epilepsy.   Then you   and some you there are patients who where this is studied. There is very interesting because they don't communicate with each other. You can you can send it put information into the one hemisphere, and the other hemisphere doesn't know it. You can say,   draw I want you to draw something, and the what you draw off your right hand and what you draw off your left hand are not gonna be the same,   because   probably it's your left hemisphere that understands the words, draw something.  

But I maybe I'll say copy the image that you see.   So you took an images. And it's almost like there are two people. And yet,   patients like this can go to the grocery store. They can   they can not 100% normal, but can function like one person. How is it that you have   this thing, this brain, you know, that stores information and processes information   where there isn't anything in charge   seem like one unit? And   so as Freedom Technologists,   we want tools so that in peep so that   people,   users,   we can,   in some ways, act as a unit to come to agreement in a way that doesn't require a leader, a king.  

[00:07:19] Shawn Yeager:

So it is not so much that you're   emulating   or need to emulate an emergent   sort of feature or function,   of the brain so much as   the technology can be informed,   I guess, by some of the limitations. I mean, I think of Dunbar's number. I I don't know if there are other   factors or features like that that would   maybe put boundaries around something like web of trust? And and, actually, let's pause, and if you would, give us a primer  

[00:07:52] David Strayhorn:

on web of trust itself. Web of trust itself. So the,   so the way the way I think of freedom technology   in general, the problem is how do we arrive at consensus on solving different problems?   So Bitcoin, the problem is how do we arrive at consensus on money?   Nostr,   how do we arrive at consensus on building platforms?   And   web of trust. So I I think the goal of what we're trying to build I I go big picture, you know, nuts and bolts, what are we trying to build, is to build what I want   users to have that I'm trying to build   is a store of information   that you and your community   can identify   who is the most trustworthy to help you curate what's not only what's in the store of information, but also how it's structured. And so I can effectively  

[00:08:47] Shawn Yeager:

I can outsource,   in a managed fashion Mhmm. Who should I trust about what in what context? Yes. And the context, your web of trust,  

[00:08:58] David Strayhorn:

is gonna help you manage even what the contexts are. So you have a data store, and then you have your web of trust, which I call a grapevine.   But these two things, what So you have one problem   that you are now breaking apart into two problems. What is the nature of the store of information?   What is the nature of the web of trust? How do you build each one of these things,   and how do you build them so that they work together? So the design of each one needs to be guided by how does it fit with the other. And the and the the web of trust,  

[00:09:31] Shawn Yeager:

certainly, I think I think the name itself is quite helpful.   It is the the web of interconnectedness   to individuals,   for or on which I have certain levels of trust. Now the data store, maybe unpack that a bit. Is this the are these the subjects, the topics, the,   taxonomy?  

[00:09:52] David Strayhorn:

So I'll give you an example of what I'm building right now. The the next iteration of what I'm building, which I'm not sure what I'm gonna call it. I think I'm gonna call it Brainstorm.   Brainstorm is a personal web of trust relay for Nostr. Okay. This data store is a stir fry relay, which is one of the arguably the the most performant of the open source of of the Nostr relay. And broadly, we can say this is a  

[00:10:16] Shawn Yeager:

self hosted or self managed,   component that would otherwise live in Meta's   data center, but that we have chosen  

[00:10:25] David Strayhorn:

to operate ourselves so we have more. So so ideally, this would be a database that you know, I'd love to to see you running Brainstorm on your phone. Mhmm. The Relay is on your phone or it's on your laptop. You don't have to. There could you could outsource the service, but the ability would be this is a database that you that you have full control over, everything about it, where it is, what it does.   And, you know, the the web of trust algorithms, you have final say.   They   and that would be curated by people you trust   and people they trust.  

So what is web of trust? Actually, I like to call it webs of trust. And I think Odell has probably said I think I've heard him say the same thing because there are different types of trust. Right. There's different ways to calculate trust. There's different   purposes,   you know, to you know, things that we're gonna do with the things we calculate,   which makes it sound like a intractable problem, but it's not. I don't believe it's a intractable problem. It does it does feel, as we've talked before, that it could it could it could fractal outward infinitely. And frequently, this is what happens.   People think, oh, here's a problem. Web of stress can solve it.  



[00:11:36] Shawn Yeager:

You know, like If all you have is a hammer.  

[00:11:38] David Strayhorn:

Well, actually, no. We don't have a hammer. That's   is kind of search of it. There are just so many you know, I wanna know what are the most trustworthy   eCash mints to use.   And, well, I know some I want the people who I follow   to tell me who are the most trustworthy eCash Mints. So we're gonna build this put that in code. We're gonna build it so you can do that. That's an example of a problem you would use. Or if we if we zoom out perhaps,  

[00:12:06] Shawn Yeager:

which   publication, which website, which news organization should I look to for a particular set of opinions about a particular set of subjects,   which health care institution,   to something I presume more trivial,   which  

[00:12:22] David Strayhorn:

bicycle helmet should I buy? Right. Exactly. There is I mean, there there are so many different problems. With different clearly different stakes. With different stakes. And what what often happens is that a group of developers get together and users and, like, oh, alright. Well, let's let's make it where you can do a rating, one to five or zero to five. And then, oh, let's make it just thumbs up, thumbs down.   And the and then, you know, there you get to be so many more so many details that people can't agree on all the details, and it falls apart. Cannot be reached. It gets too complicated,   too fast, and it falls apart. And this is a this is a I've seen this happen over and over and over and over and over again.  

It can so how do we deal with the complexity? What   I believe that we need to deal with complexity is your web of trust, and this is what Grapevine   is going to do. GrapeRank, that's the algorithm that it uses. It's extensible.   Right. So the web, you you're gonna have   as simple very simple web, you know, tools that just do weighted averages, basically.   It will be extensible, meaning   you can have create a someone who you trust, hopefully,   or somebody who knows someone who can create a new algorithm   and   put that algorithm your database can have a table of algorithms.   And then you can use this new algorithm to calculate a new type of stress score. I can do that myself, but I'm probably most users can be like, I I love it for other people to help me to do it.  

So when it's so so question, you know, what kind of what's the nature of the database? What's the nature of the web of trust? So just trying to build it. Is the database gonna be a relational database?   I actually think graph database is the way to go, but   I don't think there's just like there's not one hashing algorithm   that will work to   to implement   Nakamoto consensus. Right. Maybe maybe shot you know, what we what we have is the best, but we could argue.  

[00:14:18] Shawn Yeager:

And it is there in in   for those perhaps less technical,   you know, today, everyone's got a documents folder on their laptop. Yeah. I've got my iCloud Drive on my phone. Yeah. It is a given that I have a personal store of data. Yeah. In this case, documents. Mhmm. And so   if we go forward along the path that I think you envision and you've been working on for for a decade plus,   we simply have another just to zoom out, we have another data store. We have another   component of technology,   laptop,   phone running in the cloud under our control   that manages   the subject matter, the data store Mhmm. The context, and then   the ultimately   presentation   of, Dave, you should, David, you should   presumably look to this person on this subject. You should look to this person on this. Or you can just query it. Right? And say,   I want the best Thai food in DC. Yeah. Who should I message? Right.  

And so so we fast forward and and and if this is successful,   then we have this just running. I mean Mhmm. You know, we could use various, I think, terms.   I was,   another conversation interview that I had yesterday   was with,   Marks, who's cofounder CEO of Open Secret. We were talking   about   artificial intelligence   and the   cyclical nature of, you know, what is old is new again. And in the nineties,   intelligent agents now and now we have agents again. Right? And maybe they'll work this time. But my point to all that being,   we could probably generalize this to an agent of sorts Mhmm. That is just running in the background somewhere on our behalves Yeah. Doing the research,   strengthening the scores, finding,   you know, the experts and and those in our web of trust who   the the system would bubble up Yeah. Suggestions on. But I go through all that to say,   let's talk about where we are today   in terms of how we   approximate trust   and and the bridge that we have to cross to get to web of trust. So so   what are the   current state of affairs Mhmm. That are going to be altered   and improved hopefully by web of trust. So scenarios perhaps. And, again, I raised, you know, shopping for a bike helmet. Yeah. Finding   a physician for for a particular   problem I need to solve. Yeah.  



[00:16:51] David Strayhorn:

So so we have lots of different solutions for lots of different types of problems. So what what we do is we go to Yelp Right. Or we go to Amazon, and and Amazon tells us this is the best product, and you trust that or you don't. Yeah. And are the how many of the reviews are doctored and botched and Right. Which is everyone knows that's a big problem.  

[00:17:10] Shawn Yeager:

Amazon spends tons of money trying to get rid of the the BotFox. Firefox is an extension, you know, that they do a third party. Mhmm. They'll they'll normalize the Amazon score. Yeah. And often, it's pretty shocking. You know? Yeah. A five star actually ends up being a c minus by way of Mozilla's sort of extension as in Yeah. And so so we use these tools because they're better than no tool. Right. But  

[00:17:32] David Strayhorn:

we have nothing better. And so what our goal in is in is Freedom Technology   Builders is to build   the next best thing.   So,   yeah, then then all of those services.   Yeah, to answer sometimes   questions that are just subjective, what's the best coffee shop Right. But sometimes very important. You know? Who's the best doctor in some specialty?   What's actually happening in the world? Do you trust ABC News? Do you trust this   news organization or that news organization?   Those are the only ways   you know,   right now, we have only basically centralized   entities to go through,   but we often don't know how are they filtering the information,   and can we trust them. Right. And You and I talked earlier there.  



[00:18:20] Shawn Yeager:

There's a piece I read this morning.   I think,   I'll find it linked to it. It's the free press, organization.   They referenced a subsegment of Gen z who went through lockdowns Mhmm. And who have come out the other side   trusting nothing Yeah. Effectively. And, you know, this is my generalization. But what they referenced and and it was an interesting term   that   these individuals   who went through formative years in lockdown had only the Internet   as their as their,   companion   would now rather, as they say, magpie Mhmm. And source this information broadly Yeah. And find ways to reach consensus among their peers Yep. As to what is real or true or valuable Yes. And have wholly discarded  

[00:19:04] David Strayhorn:

traditional institutions. Right. And and tools that do exactly that are what   I want to what I'm attempting to build Right. And that we will build.   So, you know, I didn't grow up through the lockdowns,   but I also don't trust our institutions nearly as much as five, ten, fifteen years ago. Absolutely. So I think they have good reason  

[00:19:24] Shawn Yeager:

for that.   Skepticism is is is well founded. Yeah. And and and so with this as the next major sort of hurdle   in how   we arrive   at   who who   or what we trust about what. Mhmm. What are the major hurdles to get there? What are the   difficult to intractable problems that you're   knocking your knuckles on now and trying to solve or others are working to solve? What what what's in the way of getting getting there? So, really, for me, it's just a matter of enough time to build it because I'm not you know,  

[00:20:04] David Strayhorn:

being a developer was not my career. Right. And it's not what I dreamed about. I wasn't eight years old, you know, and and dreaming about maybe building computers   or writing assembly code or anything like that. So I'm,   that's the slowest thing.  

[00:20:19] Shawn Yeager:

I mean And are you are you   certainly, I appreciate that. Are there   we talked about PGP early nineties, you know, as perhaps one of the first implementations or approaches   to a web of trust.   Are the domains,   be it the science, the computer science, the algorithms, are they well established? I mean, so, you know, to what degree can you stand on the shoulder of giants, or to what degree must you   invent a lot of this from scratch? I think it's,  

[00:20:50] David Strayhorn:

I think it's a whole new thing. Like, imagine   if you were trying to build Bitcoin, if you were Satoshi,   and you asked the same question. You know? What would he say? He would have said   difficulty adjustment. I just thought of that yesterday in the shower.  

[00:21:05] Shawn Yeager:

Yeah. He did have eCash. He did have Right. So definitely Chami and eCash, etcetera. Yeah. We did. You know, there's that timeline showing all the component.  

[00:21:15] David Strayhorn:

Models. Pieces to the puzzle. Yeah. And I think that, you know, Bitcoin is one of those if you have nine out of the 10 pieces of the puzzle,   it doesn't work 90% of the way. Still some critical breakthroughs there. It doesn't work. Yeah. It's   the last piece and and then putting it all together.   And and,   avoiding the temptation   to do ad bells and whistles Mhmm. Because this is the nature of freedom technology is that,   in order to you have to anybody can walk away from it. You know, if   if Satoshi had made Bitcoin, the consensus rules more complex than they were. If he had added more,   parameters   to make it so that he can add more, he or she or whoever, make more,   features.  

That way, every additional parameter is one more thing that people can disagree about. Or stumble across.   Stumble,   one thing. Just fight over. Fight about. I mean, one parameter,   the block size   almost completely   you know, destroyed. We had we had block size wars about that.   Every arbitrary parameter that you add is a reason for people to say, well, I would have used a different value for that because of this and that and the other. And then your community never forms. Right. And it and the entire endeavor fails.   So   in, you know, in that case, I think it was not only getting all the pieces of the puzzle together   and figuring out how they fit together, but avoiding the temptation to do anything more   and   find and figuring out what that means.  

And so in web of trust. Well, I'm trying   to learn   from that example.   I want the simplest   product that will be a store of information, a web of trust, extensible   so that because if it's extensible And I wanted to make it as simple and bare bones as possible,   knowing that if it's extensible, then   you can start to add more trust algorithms.   Let's say you start out with just a very simple database, a couple of tables, table of users, table of events.   Your web of trust is going to be able to hopefully keep out the spam. That's all it does.   But it has the ability to make you know, your web of trust can say, you know what? You need another table of trust algorithms.  

You need another table of   e cash,   mints, another table of this, that, and the other, and   it can   become   as sophisticated   as it needs as as you want it to be.   But you have to this is what I I'm trying to you know, the the discipline is to avoid the temptation to add all the bells and whistles. It's don't add those things that that need to be done because   your community has to do them.   Because I could say, here's the best way to categorize trust, but then, you know, you put two developers in a room on how to categorize trust, you're gonna get five different opinions.   So your community has to  

[00:24:11] Shawn Yeager:

that's the only way to make it make it happen. And is that I mean, you and I spend a lot of time on using and talking about Nostr.   There's a lot of development going on within   or on Noster.   Is is it I I I I don't necessarily   have   enough insight into other domains to know if web of trust work is developing   well Mhmm. Or rapidly   elsewhere. Mhmm. So  

[00:24:40] David Strayhorn:

is is it the hot spot? Is Nostra the hot spot for web of trust? Nostra is definitely the hot spot for web of trust. So before I discovered Nostra, I was working on IPFS, a different technology base.   And,   but I when I there people are definitely excited about Nostra and optimistic about it and building tools that are actually working. And what's your take on why?  

[00:25:01] Shawn Yeager:

Why Nostra? Why  

[00:25:03] David Strayhorn:

are people excited? Why is So I I think that the reason that   Nostr is the place to be is because Fiat Jaf   made Nostr as simple as possible. Exactly what I was just talking about. Bitcoin   was complex enough to do the thing and no more complicated.   And then all the complication is on layer two, layer three, layer four. This is what Fiat Joffe did. Nostra   is   as simple bare bones as it can possibly be to   implement the vision, and then the complexity   is added on top of those. So I think this is why Nostra is working.   And and and this I mean, this is why I'm so excited about it. And  

[00:25:48] Shawn Yeager:

And and and is there a clear sense in your mind of why it lends itself   to solving the web of trust problem?   Well,  

[00:25:59] David Strayhorn:

you know, because it's not a cathedral. It might Mhmm. Maybe just what I'm I  

[00:26:04] Shawn Yeager:

was just trying to make a book. The Cathedral and the Bazaar.   Oh. If that's a rep yeah. So it's,   I'm suddenly drawing a blank on the author, but it it it it presents the two approaches Uh-huh. To build the cathedral versus an open bazaar. Yeah. And Noster is the bazaar for sure. Right. And, you know, blue sky would be the cathedral. Right. So the fact that Noster is the bazaar, it's as simple as possible. It allows people to experiment. Right. And  

[00:26:31] David Strayhorn:

and I Yeah. And people are experimenting with so many different things. The portability of the social graph.   Yes. You have all these different   apps with all these   different   purposes.   But imagine if you could port your identity and your social graph between   Twitter and Facebook and Instagram.   Nostra can do that. Right. And different people can so that lends itself to the web of trust because of the portability. Right. So yeah. And so and and and, again, for those who may be coming up to speed or new,  

[00:27:05] Shawn Yeager:

the social graph is  

[00:27:08] David Strayhorn:

a crux or key to a function in web of trust? Yeah. So and so the social graph for Nostr is usually people think of follows. Mhmm. You know, I follow you,   and you you know, I follow 500 people. You follow 500, whatever, a thousand people. And and the people who have implemented web of trust,   are  

[00:27:28] Shawn Yeager:

doing basically, that's the raw data Right. Follows. Those are the strongest signals   we have or they   have determined that we have? Those are,  

[00:27:38] David Strayhorn:

I think that we are we are accustomed to using follows data. That's what legacy social media uses. And, it's,   social   media uses. And,   it's you know, the data is available, and it means something. You know, if I follow you, I've got skin in the game. I've chosen I've supposedly   followed you. It's not an empty gesture. I'm actually gonna see your content on my feed, so   skin in the game. It means something.   And and this is a conversation that I that I see happening in Nostra. I've seen nowhere else is what should be the best raw data to use to calculate how much you trust somebody in a context, certainly in a given context.   The obvious critique of using follows   as   a trust indicator is that I might follow you. It doesn't mean I trust you. You know? I might I might wanna see your content, but I'm not gonna trust your advice, financial advice Right. Or this or that or the other. And it certainly doesn't   lend itself to contextual trust. You know?  

I can't say I followed you for this reason.   And so   so many people in Nostra, we we've had conversations.   Follow doesn't mean I trust you. Mhmm. So where do we go next? Since I'm interested in what you have to say. I'm interested in what you have to say, but I but I but if I want you know, trust needs to be context I I wanna say I trust you  

[00:28:55] Shawn Yeager:

for this context. Because I follow you or rather that I follow you because you post great memes Mhmm. Does not mean Does not mean I mean I wanna hear your opinions about I wanna know events. Who are the best  

[00:29:07] David Strayhorn:

people to tell me about   the overlap of Bitcoin and monetary policy. I want my I want   my web of stress to tell me that Lynn Alden is the best, even if I don't already know. She's two, three, four, five hops away from me. This is a topic I wanna know about. It's a needle in a haystack. Can you give me   this needle in this haystack?   And   how do we do follows doesn't do that. So   a year ago, I would have said what we need are explicit   trust attestations where I can just say   I trust,   you know, Lynn. Mhmm. You know? And I'm very confident   in this because I've, you know, read a lot of stuff. Or maybe I'm not confident because this is based on one tweet that she did. Sure. But, you know, 99 of a hundred, you know, this is why I trust her in this context.  

And then and and a lot of people will say we need explicit contextual trust attestations. That's better than   follows because you don't really know what that means.   And the obvious objection to that is that it would make for an awful user experience. Yeah. We're always in. We're just not gonna do it. Yeah. Yeah. For whatever reason, you know,   anyone who's good at product is just gonna tell you no one's gonna do it. Bad UX. It's just not gonna work.  

[00:30:23] Shawn Yeager:

For whatever thread that needle?  

[00:30:25] David Strayhorn:

So   I believe that   what we need to do is use all of the data that is available to us.   It follows  

[00:30:36] Shawn Yeager:

whatever if What other signals   are there that you see are useful? So just as an example.  

[00:30:42] David Strayhorn:

The in in the personal WebTrust Relay that I'm building right now,   it calculates a whitelist   and a blacklist.   And so   that's based off of follows, but it's also based on mutes and reports. Right.   And that's to make do a little better job of   keeping the high quality content   but getting rid of the spam and the bots. Right.   So follows. That's and then then reports and mutes. But there's lots of other signals. You what if z what if you don't like Volos, and what if we'd rather do Zaps Mhmm. Or replies? Right. Or,  

[00:31:18] Shawn Yeager:

But it's some sort of engagement metric.  

[00:31:19] David Strayhorn:

Right. Exact maybe something I've never thought of as a developer.   And so the solution   this thought process is what led me to design how the grapevine's gonna work.   It will   one of the most important steps in the grapevine is something called influence,   or I'm sorry, interpretation.   And,   so imagine if someone you trust   writes   a script that will take whatever piece of data you think is useful,   you know, replies or or zaps or something.   And that   takes the data and puts it into a format that is ready to be   utilized by the grape rank calculation   engine Mhmm.  

Then,   then you can calculate a new kind of trust score using new using whatever data is possible. And so or whatever data exists, whatever data you want. And how by the way, David, how,  

[00:32:16] Shawn Yeager:

it might make sense to take a moment and talk about grape ranks   or PageRank, Google's PageRank's influence on GrapeRank. So Yeah. Give us give us a brief understanding of PageRank that many of us   have,   in effect, trusted for our web searches for fifteen plus years now. Yeah.   How does it work at a high level,   and how has that now influenced  

[00:32:42] David Strayhorn:

your idea for GrapeRank? I so I think that's a great question because,   Nostra developers probably should have a greater appreciation for PageRank. It changed the world. In   1998,   it launched Google. Mhmm. Google is a trillion dollar company Yep. Because of this algorithm, which is a very simple algorithm,   but  

[00:33:03] Shawn Yeager:

got rid of the spam. I mean, how How many percentage of the population could explain it? I can't.  

[00:33:07] David Strayhorn:

I couldn't have until I started, really,   thinking about this. All I knew I remember in 1998   when keyword search if you did a key a search for whatever keyword, nine out of 10 results are just junk. Sure. Then PageRank comes, and nine out of 10 are what you're looking for. It was magic. All I knew is this was magic. Right. Get rid of the speed. Got the job done. The outcomes were great.   Despite the fact that it's pretty simple. So the basic idea is, so instead of follows, it's   calculating a score for every URL,   and it's based on a hyperlink. If my website links to your website, it is an indication you're probably not spam.  

And so it's not a trust score. It's an important score. Right. It is not   explicit. It's not an endorsement, but it is It's just a thing that's useful. It's a signal. And so if I link to your website, then it boosts your score.   And if the if my score is higher, then it has   a bigger boost of your score. Right. That's it. And so   that's pretty simple. But it was ridiculously   good at getting rid of spam.   Not contextual, but it didn't have to be. So job one is,  

[00:34:15] Shawn Yeager:

deflect the barbarians at the gate. Right. Hold back the spam, hold back the junk, and I'll you know, we could I'm sure have an interesting conversation about where we are today in that regard. And, you know, I use Kaji   Yeah. As a result of not no longer, you know, wanting to see all the paid ads and the sponsored links, etcetera. But as you say, in the beginning,  

[00:34:35] David Strayhorn:

it was novel, and it was incredibly effective. Incredibly effective. Yes. And and and what we are finding in Nostr is just using follows   is incredibly effective at getting rid of the spam. And so the   the bridge from page rank to page rank to great rank So the problem that so I'm gonna aim it kind of   in reference to page rank.   Page rank,   just calculates one number, not contextual. Mhmm. Grape rank is designed to be contextual   and to be able to use data from any source.   That's the main  

[00:35:09] Shawn Yeager:

difference. Well well, I guess Rather than just an inbound link,   to  

[00:35:14] David Strayhorn:

ascribe a certain PageRank score, you have the potential for multiple You can use signals. Follows. Or you can use like, I've already built, you can use   reports and mutes,   or you could use zaps.   You could use whatever.   You could interpret any piece of information that you see and that you want that you trust, that you think is gonna be useful   and create a different score for a different category.  

[00:35:41] Shawn Yeager:

And does this look like I mean, if we if we lay out,   a bit of an ecosystem   or layers from   grape rank as an   algorithm, as   a machine   to the end user who   will probably never care deeply Mhmm. To understand all this. Exactly. Yeah. Are there are there obvious layers? So we've got an engine Mhmm. Grape rank. We have a it affects a web of trust. Mhmm. We have plugins. Mhmm. We have providers. I mean, in any sense, I know we're we're a little early,   but how does it stratify,   in in your view?   Or how rather do we get from   this web of trust engine, my words, not yours,   to an end user   who finds these delightful moments when they pick up their phone. You know, Apple intelligence doesn't look like it's going to be it, at least not for a while.  

And I've got recommendations on that great Thai restaurant. I've got recommendations   on that specialist. I've got recommendations on that bicycle helmet that I'm Yeah. I'm looking for. So so my product road map,  

[00:36:48] David Strayhorn:

I've been in basically in r and d mode for a long time, but I   my next iteration, I think, is gonna be something that's actually   useful for actual users. And it's going to   all it's gonna do at first is is personal level trust relay for and so you will be able to get it running, and you'll be able to connect to your relay. You can tell your friends, here's a relay. It does a good job of getting your spam. Right. And it has   it it it processes as follows, mutes, and reports.  

[00:37:16] Shawn Yeager:

So And it does the job. I mean, I I  

[00:37:19] David Strayhorn:

love the jobs to be done approach. And the job it will the job I'll hire this to do To get rid of spam. Just to get rid of spam. That's it. To for starters. Right. You're gonna you're gonna get it running, click a button, and that's it. It'll work.   So then   I what I want to to showcase is the ability of the grapevine and grape rank to curate specific lists.   So let's say you want a list   of   of different Nostra applications.   You wanna know what's the best   or or just what are my options. What are the what are the different ecommerce apps? I don't know. What are they? So there's a NIP called NIP 89, which generates data that can be useful for that purpose.   And it's not perfect, but the whole point of the grapevine is it doesn't have to be perfect.  

So   one of my, you know, I'm going to one of my iterations is probably gonna use   nip 89 data, which exists.   And you're gonna be able to go to a page, and you're gonna be able to see here's a list of apps   curated by   your grapevine.   And it will be a   list.   It'll be I mean, there are lots of people who have   different   you can go to different websites and find, here's a list of all the different nostra apps, but someone's always in charge. Yeah. And it's that's a grab bag. And it's a grab bag. And maybe this one is great, but what if this person gets bored and stops maintaining it? Right.   What   this,   what brainstorm   if I if that's what I decide to call it, I think I may call it brainstorm,   is going to do is   it's going to be   a list that is that is maintained   not by one person, but by your entire network. Right. And maybe this person does a great job today. Maybe these three people contributed to it to it tomorrow.  

No one there's gonna be no point of failure. This will be a list that is very   contextual   and curated by  

[00:39:14] Shawn Yeager:

your community. And so There's something I want surfaced to me. At least that's the way I think of it. It's something that you want. The ability to what's my next read?   You know, I can go to Goodreads. I can ask Yeah. On Noster or whatever social media, but, you know, I I would love the, the ability to   have among my   friends' followers' web of trust Mhmm. That   next book that I should read in a given category, fiction, nonfiction,  

[00:39:42] David Strayhorn:

whatever it is. I mean Yeah. Is that is that a suitable application for this? So as long as there's data out there that has signal. Right.  

[00:39:49] Shawn Yeager:

That's that's the it. If there is data that has signal. And and and how how structured are unstructured? I mean, I think about It doesn't matter the structure. Okay. If you can if the fact that somebody posted about a great read,   presumably, that can get ingested. That can inform somehow this So yeah. So if,  

[00:40:09] David Strayhorn:

if somebody could write an algorithm   that will ingest the data and know what it means,   Then so someone would have to write a script. But you don't have to be the developer yourself. Just someone Yeah. There's a there's a marketplace of plug ins, extensions. Call them what we will. And and it will be something that interprets data, that that spits out effectively   ratings,   interpreted ratings of books.   And then   once you have that, the great rank engine takes care of the rest, and now you've got ratings that is decentralized. It is curated in a by your web of trust. I've got my own personal tomato ometer, my Right. Yeah. Phone calls through. And you don't have to wonder, well, okay. Well, did the people who run this website take a lot of money in order to promote this product? Right.   Because if someone gets into your community who's doing that, then,   see, eventually, what's gonna happen is that you're gonna route around all the bad bad bad apples, and the problems will be fixed before you even know about them. And I'll tell you one product I really want to see built in the not too distant future is a is Wikipedia.  

The, Nostra pedia is Yes. And there are   you know, we have in Nostr. We have decentralized wikis.   Question is, how do you know which authors to trust in which context? So And and and the the prop that solves  

[00:41:30] Shawn Yeager:

tell me a bit more   about Wikipedia.  

[00:41:34] David Strayhorn:

So   so the problem with Wikipedia   is that there, you know, there are many people who feel that   it is politically biased on certain topics. Mhmm. I think it's great on Sure. Many topics,   but, you know, there are  

[00:41:49] Shawn Yeager:

it is ultimately centralized. The history of the baleen whale Yeah. I can probably feel good about that. My son is my son is very into Ah, okay. You know, wait a sec. Baleen is the French word for whale. I forget. I'm embarrassing myself.   But the point is there are certain subject matters that That you don't that you wonder. Even in America, we can't politicize,   and there's probably little question as to whether it's somebody's camped out on that page Exactly. And making edits versus those things which are Right. So we want something that cannot be taken over  

[00:42:19] David Strayhorn:

by any centralized entity. Right. And so maybe all of it is very trustworthy, but do you know that? Can you feel confident in it? So I would like to see an alternative to Wikipedia,   which I believe is gonna be built on Nostr,   and where   you can see, okay,   five people wrote an article on this topic,   and my community trusts this person. And I you can actually if you want to, you can dig in and see why. Like, how is this number calculated? Do I trust   the metric? Or maybe you don't wanna dig into the details. You'll just know that   that that it was, you know, I trust people who trust people,   or I chose the people who choose the people who chose the authors of this topic right here. They chose different authors for that topic. Maybe and so all there has to be a signal. So maybe the signal is that   people who have a high trust score in your network, they gave thumbs up   to these   three articles written by this author   in   the category that and, you know, the author   might say, here's an article I wrote. Here's the category.  

Lots of people you trust gave it thumbs up. Here's another author in the same category, and people you trust said thumbs down. So   so a score gets generated from this data. You don't have to know exactly how it's done, but you just know that But it's auditable if I care to. If you care to, it's auditable, and you're not wondering,   did the   this particular large entity  

[00:43:49] Shawn Yeager:

influence it for reasons that I don't may or may not know what they are. Now on the one hand, I see that, and I think in my mind, I'm thinking   almost like a diff,   a git diff. You know, I'm I'm going to see a Wikipedia page   reflect   my web of trust. I'm going to see edits   that are closest to or most enforced by my web of trust. Yeah. And that to me is interesting. Now on the flip side, I think, you know, does this just feed  

[00:44:18] David Strayhorn:

the already fractured nature of what is fact, what is truth? We all get to see our own little version of it. Yeah. So It's a fantastic question, which comes up a lot, and I think about it a lot. Are we gonna make better echo chambers? Right. Or, you know, more powerful, more echoey echo chambers? And   and I don't want that to happen. And so I do think about this. And and,   I think that if you want to build a better echo chamber, you will be able to. Sure. I cannot stop you from doing that.   So   so that's but, you know, my answer to that would be   we don't we already have echo chambers.  

If you want an echo chamber, we've got them. You don't you don't my tools,   you don't need them. The web of trust, you don't need those.   But what if you wanna get away from   the echo chambers? I don't want to know the political answer to this question. I wanna know the actual truth. Right. So As measured by  

[00:45:16] Shawn Yeager:

So I want five neuroscientists   in my web of trust who   have, at the very least, the background, the,   credentials.   Yeah. You know, I can sort of maybe flip that switch and show me the most   normalized   factually  

[00:45:32] David Strayhorn:

Yeah. Show me. Sound Here's a question I have, and I want to know the answers by people who are board certified in this. Right. And I want it to be not filtered by any large news organization,   not filtered by   a,   by a social media company Right.   Whose motives I may or may not know. Yes. Advertorials and all these other things. Yeah. So say what you will about credentialism as some Right. Maybe you trust that. Maybe you don't. That's part of the thing that you have control over the algorithm   that you don't have. So  

[00:46:05] Shawn Yeager:

Yeah. No. No. At no point, and I think it's, you know, certainly a a a firmly held belief that I held hold,   is that   if you want to  

[00:46:16] David Strayhorn:

if you want to engage in the digital equivalent of locking yourself away in your basement Mhmm. Not my job to stop you. Okay. Right? But what I can't what we well, our job is to give you tools to walk out. Right. Is to leave, to exit this   this,   jail cell Yeah. Yeah. That that don't really exist   right now.  

[00:46:36] Shawn Yeager:

What would stop someone   at Meta   Mhmm. From having an and maybe they are, from having an epiphany Mhmm. And deciding to do this? What what is   inherent to the incumbent  

[00:46:49] David Strayhorn:

Mhmm.  

[00:46:52] Shawn Yeager:

Social media companies, I think, most relevantly.   Maybe you'll have a different opinion on that.   What's in the way of them embracing web of trust?  

[00:47:01] David Strayhorn:

I think that if they wanted to find the solution, they would have found it, but it is not in their financial interest to implement things this way. They they   ultimately, they make money by monetizing data. Sure. And so   they they wanna   gather that data and then control it and monetize it.  

[00:47:20] Shawn Yeager:

And some would argue they also monetize outrage.  

[00:47:24] David Strayhorn:

Exactly. This is one of the things that's very pathological.   The the more your eyes are glued to the screen,   then the more   money they make because they have more users who are on there for more time. They can get more advertising dollars. Right. And so their AI algorithms, they don't even it's not that they're trying to generate outrage. I don't think they have to be doing that. But AI just discovers, hey, if I show you this thing that outrages you, you stay on longer. I'm going to do more of it. Correlation is not causation and vice versa, but AI isn't trying. It just does what works. And what works is we want to make more money. And   so   they don't really have an incentive to fix this problem.  

What I want to see is   a world where   your data   is not monetized by these large entities.   You have the option of giving it away if you want or you monetize it yourself. So for example, let's say you are an excellent movie reviewer,   and my web of trust says you you're two, three, four hops away from me, but everyone recognizes, you know, you're Roger Ebert.   And and I might be willing to pay you some Satoshis.   Right. And   so   you monetize   your   what you know, not the value that you create.   It's not Twitter that's monetizing it. So these tools   have the ability to do that, but why would they build them? Yep.  

We have to this is this is why we have to build these tools, and they can be done. I know.  

[00:48:59] Shawn Yeager:

And does that present to those incumbents? I mean, you know, it's why   the numbers on Nostra are relatively small, and and I will continue to use it as an example throughout these discussions. But I think it is   the   counterexample   to these centralized   social media giants. Mhmm.   Do they need  

[00:49:22] David Strayhorn:

to break in order for Web of Trust to succeed? I mean, what's your take on I don't think they success? I don't think they have to break, and I don't think that they're gonna see, you know, Oster as a threat. No. Just like   the, you know, Federal Reserve didn't see Bitcoin as a threat, still doesn't.   You know, we all thought it would, but that was probably very naive. Right. And there's   no. Those don't have to break. All we have to do is is build,   options, build alternatives that don't exist, and people   and we and and that allow you to do things that you cannot do anywhere else. And and that's a great point I was just going to ask. I mean, what  

[00:50:04] Shawn Yeager:

what is the what do you think are the intrinsic motivations or the incentives   that   not billions, but some significant number of individuals   need to have Mhmm. To   embrace something like this. Assuming we get over the UX hurdles, assuming it becomes consumer friendly Mhmm. You know, assuming in my mind at least that there's   an agent, I'll just use that term very loosely Uh-huh. That employs this web of trust engine to get jobs done for users. Uh-huh. What do my motivations need to be in order to take a to take a risk, take a leap, and try this? What what gets me interested as a I think the same reasons that people use, you know, Facebook for the first time,  

[00:50:46] David Strayhorn:

their friends use it, and they tell them, hey. I I'm I'm using this new platform,   and I love it because   it   does this thing that I no one else does, or it does it better than anyone else. I think, ultimately, it's going to,   web of trust on top of Nostr is gonna just simply do a better job at finding the content you want. And and people are going to say that it does that. They're not gonna be ideological.   Right. We we will never   Nostra's not gonna win because people are purple pilled. Right. Just like Bitcoin's not gonna win because people are ideologically   love it. Yeah. People Bitcoin is going to win because people ideologically hate it, but use it anyway Right. Because It's a superior store of value. It's better payments. It's whatever.  



[00:51:30] Shawn Yeager:

They're gonna be like,   I'm not using it, but I'm Yeah. But, I I'll use it over watching my my USD melt away. Or yeah. They they'll just  

[00:51:39] David Strayhorn:

even not that. They're just gonna be like, well, because the person down the street takes it. Or Network effects.  

[00:51:44] Shawn Yeager:

Or or what's that? Network effects? Or yeah. And I mean, I guess that cuts both ways. Right? I mean, so, you know, we see we hear many critics,   who might otherwise be,   I think, prone toward Nostra as an example, dismiss it Yeah.   Because ex Twitter   has that has that tremendous network effect. Well,  

[00:52:05] David Strayhorn:

Do we have to do we have to get that? Do we have to get do we have to clear that hurdle? Well, I mean, that is a hurdle, but we clear it when we can offer things that no one else can offer. Right. Right. That's that's it,  

[00:52:16] Shawn Yeager:

and that will Do you have a and this is this is, perhaps a tricky question, but do you have   an image in your mind, David, of what that moment looks like when someone says,   I'll step away from x. I'll step away from Facebook. Or rather, you know, not either or, but I'll spend some of my time Mhmm.   Using product x, product whatever,   that employs web of trust. Like, what is that   magic moment look like do you think?  

[00:52:44] David Strayhorn:

I I'd say I don't know. It might look very different for lots of different people. Just like why do people use Bitcoin? There's no one answer to that. Right. It's gonna be lots of different reasons for lots of different people. Yeah.  

[00:52:56] Shawn Yeager:

And and so for those who are building products, who are engineers, who are heads of product,   founders,   what's in it for them? Why would either   maybe it is   a media product, maybe it's a social media product, maybe it is   a networked application. There's some social element. Presumably, there's a there's a network effect at play.   Mhmm. Why should they consider this? Why should they put some some engineering effort Into Nasr. Into Web of Trust. Into Web of Trust. Presumably, Web of with Nasr as maybe a a a a path to adopt Web of Trust. But Mhmm. Why should they be experimenting with Web of trust? That's  

[00:53:38] David Strayhorn:

a challenging question. I mean, ultimately, you cannot say I have a hammer.   What can I do with it? Right. You have to say I have a problem. Sure. And how do I solve it? And so,   you know, what is the problem that other companies   what are the problems   that that exist that,   Yeah. What's deeply broken that you think is And so that they should be looking at? There's gonna be lots of examples. So one example   is that companies   have data. Now we've talked about how the fact that companies monetize your data, but also company data can be toxic. Mhmm. It can be hacked. Yep. There are a lot of companies who would love to not have to hold your data. I would love to not get one of those emails every week offering me for, you know, free credit monitoring Right. In return for having linked my personal health information, you know, whatever it is. So if you have,   if you would like to somehow   not have to keep track of all your customers' data,   I think we're gonna end up  

[00:54:37] Shawn Yeager:

offering solutions to that problem. So the personal data store, which some would call it,   I've I've worked in that field previously where, if I if I hear you correctly,   web of trust can operate on a personal data store, which is that I am holding Mhmm. Those data, not company a b c. Yeah. Yeah. It is the whole  

[00:54:56] David Strayhorn:

philosophy is that you can you are in charge of your data. You're not  

[00:55:02] Shawn Yeager:

So if if we take and maybe this is the way to go at it. It's something I think about.   It is a big if, but if we take as a given that   there is a trend toward personal data ownership   Mhmm. And that's a big if. I mean, I've I've,   we've we've all seen, I think, many, many attempts at this. I've I've taken a shot at it myself. It is tough.   Many people would give away everything for a free slice of pizza, so how do we get across that? But if that's the arc, if if personal data ownership is is where we're headed,   would it be fair to say that web of trust   is a means of,   while I may lose access to your personal data because now you own it, I don't have to lose access   to useful operations on it,   and therefore, delivering value as a product.  

Say that again.   So if in the future,   you as Meta don't hold all my data Yeah. A billion users  

[00:55:57] David Strayhorn:

hold their data. Hold their data. Yeah.  

[00:55:59] Shawn Yeager:

Doing useful things with that data Mhmm. Is the next, I think, opportunity to monetize   or becomes the core. I can I can no longer sell your data, and so I have to find a way to do something useful to do operations on that data? So maybe companies should be thinking not not what is the problem we wanna solve, but what is the problem that our cuss our future customers wanna solve. Certainly. And  

[00:56:23] David Strayhorn:

how can   that happen using these tools that are being built by Freedom Technologists?  

[00:56:30] Shawn Yeager:

And and what what are the we talked a little earlier about some of the challenges to getting here.   What perhaps are the next few building blocks that take us to,   a minimum viable,   you know, web of trust that the   average individual, maybe early adopters, going to find useful?  

[00:56:50] David Strayhorn:

You I mean, we already have   webs of trust that people find useful. We already have   personal level of trust relay Mhmm. That your colleague, UTXO,  

[00:57:00] Shawn Yeager:

has built. That is and and many obviously, many people credit that. I use it. You use it. Now I'm a hyper nerd, and, you know, I've got a virtual private server that I run it on, etcetera, etcetera. So Yes. But you for the normie. But but you can,  

[00:57:14] David Strayhorn:

establish one, do the work to get one running, and then It's official one. And then your friends can connect to it. Yes. And you can connect to five different personal web of trust relays, and now your feed is devoid  

[00:57:26] Shawn Yeager:

is is much, much higher quality. Yeah. I mean, for me, it has all but eliminated spam. Exactly. And so I'm you know, have the ability, and I'm sufficiently motivated because who wants spam? Right. So we already have tools that are Great point. That are doing that people are using.  

[00:57:41] David Strayhorn:

And and so we just need to make them   we need to we need to make them more sophisticated.   Yeah. So this, for example, point and click. So maybe someone like,   like, Relay Tools, CloudFinder's Relay Tools could make a point and click version of that.   Or, you know, CloudFinder   has is   is one of three people who have built the grape rank   calculation engine.   He's he's just built the code just to to see how it works.   Manny Me has done the same. He is his one of his goals is building a a library that other other developers could use to implement this.   So making it point making it easier.  

Packaging.   Packaging definitely is always important. It needs to be easy. It needs to have it needs to be able to do more things,   but not too many things. Right. And so I think the extensibility   is gonna   be a big   no. That doesn't really exist yet. Yep. But it can. So making it so that you can decide   that's gonna be a big step   where you can decide what data you wanna use,   and then that can happen   without   me or Sure. Doing it. So a tool that allows the extensibility to happen. So you're you're  

[00:59:00] Shawn Yeager:

obvious,   perhaps obvious customer at this stage,   not an end user, of course. Mhmm. But it is someone building   Nostra apps. It's someone  

[00:59:09] David Strayhorn:

My users for when I right I right now, I've got this alpha product brainstorm. My initial user is gonna be people like you who already have a personal level of stress relay and are sophisticated enough to do that. So the bleeding edge early adopters?   At first. Yeah. At first. And then gradually   make it easier to use   and gradually   start to add features that no one else is is is  

[00:59:31] Shawn Yeager:

offering. Now you reserve the right, of course, to to change these   predictions, but   how much time would you say, David, until   well, so in phases,   you've got something that the early adopters will use.   What are we looking at? Six months? What do you think? I would  

[00:59:49] David Strayhorn:

I think there's a good chance that within a month Okay. Great. I'll have something that you can play with like I just described. Forward to it. Not all the blood bells and whistles. But but you'll be able to load it, pull it up, click a button, start my relay,   turn on my white list, turn on the black list Mhmm. Or not. And then that'll like, just that right there, that right there actually already works in alpha, but it's not Yeah.   So I think in a month, I could   have that running.  

[01:00:18] Shawn Yeager:

And then beyond that, when   when does it become a software development kit? When does it become something that someone who's, I don't know, you know, a talented TypeScript developer   understands the basics of the Nostra protocol   can can build on?   That's,  

[01:00:38] David Strayhorn:

that's a tough question. You know? A year out, do you think? Is it yeah. Yeah. So so my goal is to have something that users are using   and and say,   builds I wanna get to a point where it's something that cannot be done else otherwise. Right. And then I want users and developers to say I wanna learn more. Sure. And then I can have that conversation.   How do we work together Right.   To to do this. So Yeah.  

[01:01:03] Shawn Yeager:

Nice. And I mean and and the the reason I ask these questions is to sort of level set for for the audience.   Right now, we're in the bleeding edge. Yeah. But we've got proof of concept. We've got running code. Yeah. And it sounds like though there is a very healthy debate about   how one should implement web of trust, what are the signals, what are the data points that that that's progressing,   call it six months to twelve months away. We've got,   a stable foundation to build on. Yeah. And and then   what is your crystal ball for when do we go mainstream? When does web of trust become something   not even so much grape rank per se, but,  

[01:01:46] David Strayhorn:

when does it become something that is out in the wild and cannot be ignored? You know, the future is coming at us faster and faster. If you want time predictions,   I just started using AI to help me code   maybe three weeks ago, and I felt like I went from one of me to five of me. So Watch out. Watch I mean, this the we're going to be able to we've been having these kind of high level debates   on   at the abstract level of how to solve, what's the problem,   what's the solution.   And we are now,   I think,   transitioning into building we're starting. I mean, we've actually already done this to an extent, building actual tools. How many roughly roughly how many people would you say are involved,  

[01:02:27] Shawn Yeager:

actively involved in   the design phase of this?  

[01:02:31] David Strayhorn:

Oh, I think probably every every Nostra developer is talking about.   And   and, I just posted not too long ago that I so the one of the tools that Brainstorm is going to do is, you know, calculating the scores is the hard part. Once you've done that,   putting them in whatever format makes you happy   is is actually the easy part. Mhmm. So,   so Vitor has a, you know, he's the he's the chief architect of Amethyst, the the premier,   Android client. Android. Yeah. So so he has   a format for   for trust scores that I think he would like to use,   for a variety of purposes on,   you know, for himself.  

And so I've already built an alpha version that exports the scores in that format.   FranZap,   Papalia Absolutely. They have, the app store. App store. Very exciting. And they have a FranZap has authored a web of trust DVM, NIP. So it's another way to   for someone   for a product like Brainstorm, to offer personalized  

[01:03:35] Shawn Yeager:

trust scores to a product to a client developer. Can you can you describe, David? I mean, I think Zapstore, I'm very bullish on. And if we zoom all the way out,   can you describe Zapstore?   Yeah. I may not be able to do it justice. I I I know that they are calculating page rank. Or rather so so, again, if we if we if we zoom way out, we think about jobs to be done. It is an alternative to the Google Apple App Store. Mhmm.   And it is a web of trust applied to   what are the   so   broken free of a central authority, Apple or Google, who get to determine what I should run, what I can install Yeah. On my device. Correct me if I'm wrong. This   uses my web of trust Mhmm.  

To apply a score or or or some other measure of this code is good. You know, five other people that you trust are running   this application   Mhmm.   To   do whatever, Maps, Uber, you name it. Mhmm. So it if I understand, it's   it's a decentralized   app store Mhmm. Which gives me both the freedom Mhmm. To run whatever I want, should I should I choose, but also the safety and trust Mhmm. To know that I'm not out there in the wild Mhmm. Installing rogue code. Right. And obviously, a very important problem.  

[01:04:54] David Strayhorn:

Now maybe you know this I I don't I don't I'm not sure what is the raw data that they're using as a small signal. I don't. I don't. I I do know that they're they're use they're calculating page rank, and I'm glad to see that showing up in the Nostra ecosystem. Right.   And, you know, that's that's a step more sophisticated than just follows and follows,   or follows and follows.   Yeah. I I'd like to I I should know this, what what they're using. Yeah. We'll we'll dig in and and get that in the show notes.  

[01:05:23] Shawn Yeager:

Where do where does this take us? Where what does what does five years out look like? Do you have a I mean, you've been cranking on this for a decade. Yeah.  

[01:05:32] David Strayhorn:

What is your dream scenario? My dream scenario is that I build this to a point   where   it does the thing so so well that it can start growing on its own. And What does that mean? I'm building this so that I can use it. Right.   What does that look like? It means that you'll it means that people will I think   I I think once this gets good enough so that people can start discovering content in exactly   the   context that they want, I think we're gonna start seeing people migrate from the legacy social apps. And Nostra users' usership is gonna right now, it's about 20,000 act I think, per day ish. Yeah. The 30, I've heard, on a good day. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that that number is gonna start to grow when people realize it can do these things better than any place else. I mean, does it does does one of the potential outcomes,  

[01:06:23] Shawn Yeager:

I'm clearly not the demographic for TikTok, but, you know, it's it's a massive success in setting aside all the recent controversy about ownership.   It's a black box algorithm. It's a wildly successful black box algorithm. Right. You know, do we is it feasible that we get to a point where there's content suggested to us that could be as compelling?  

[01:06:44] David Strayhorn:

So,   you know, I've heard people talk about TikTok as addictive.   Yes.   And   this you know, what we're building, the the goal is not to be addictive. No.   It's a good question. Are people gonna leave the addictive stuff   for an algorithm that that is that they have control over. I mean, they, you could choose the addictive algorithm if you want. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That says you can't. People may, maybe,   I wonder if people are gonna try to emulate that.   I think if people have the tools to build better algorithms, it's it's gonna be hard to predict. I think people here's what I want.   And what I'm cautiously optimistic we're gonna see this is that   people are gonna say that I never knew thought this was possible. Mhmm. This just   is a different experience. So it's not replicating or knocking off. No. It's like asking to predict what Facebook is gonna look like before, you know, way before before even Myspace or Friendster.  

It's hard you can it's hard to predict that. But it was,   I mean,   astounding what people  

[01:07:48] Shawn Yeager:

what can be done. You think we're ready for that? I mean, are there   this is always the question, I suppose, with an emerging technology.   Is it a roomful of nerds who want something to exist and that's beautiful?   Mhmm.   Or   are you betting on the fact that this produces,   by whatever measure, a better, healthier   relationship   to   media technology, the things that we are   recommended  

[01:08:20] David Strayhorn:

choose to trust and pursue? I think it will ultimately be more healthy.   And   because I believe in free speech,   I believe in autonomy.   I believe in a system where you're not controlled by people who are going who have the power to abuse that control.   I believe that when it comes to money. I believe that when it comes to information.   And how exactly that plays out is gonna be   hard to predict, but I believe in the fundamental principles.   And I'm excited to see   how that's gonna play out.  

[01:08:54] Shawn Yeager:

Perfect place to end it. Thank you, David. Thank you, Sean. Pleasure. I look forward to following the success. And,   before we wrap, and I'll include these in the show notes, there are a number of places someone could go   to dig into your work to dig into the code. Mhmm. One or two sort of top points to to learn more about web of trust Mhmm. Perhaps broadly,   and more specifically,  

[01:09:16] David Strayhorn:

the work and the code that you're shipping. You know, I think probably the best places, and and I'm sure this will go in the show notes, is is just go follow me on Nostr.   I will keep that updated. Excellent. And and I do have, you know, a GitHub   my GitHub account, w d s four,   that has my thoughts   as they've been developing over years. If you wanna dig into how I think the database   should be organized   and how I think these two things fit together, Go and read about concept graph and grapevine. Just dig into my that GitHub account. Are you looking for contributors?   If someone's inclined? If someone is inclined, then contact me Okay.  

Through Nostra. That's the best way. Terrific. Alright. Thanks so much, David. Thank you, Sean.