ufm on Nostr: Are you suggesting shifting all of this work onto the relays? That would give relays ...

Are you suggesting shifting all of this work onto the relays? That would give relays yet another attack surface - they could simply be DDoSed through it.

And in any case, a blacklist is the worst possible approach. If a client really wants to protect itself, it should use a whitelist instead. Generating new keys is faster than clicking a “ban” button every time.

P.S. Even better would be to require PoW from anyone who isn’t on the whitelist. And ideally, charge a fee for mentions, with part of the payment going to the relay itself. Then let them spam away — I think both the relay operator and the user would be quite happy with that. :)