Stegstr

Privacy

What leaves your device, and when

Stegstr is built so that the answer is usually "nothing". This page says exactly what changes when you turn Network on or upload a picture.

Local mode

Network is off when you first open the app. In that state, embedding and detecting run entirely on your device, and the web version runs entirely in your browser tab. No image, message or key is sent anywhere. The only way data travels is the image you choose to share, and the message inside it is encrypted.

Network on: relays

With Network on and a Nostr identity, posts, reactions and direct messages are published to Nostr relays. The default relay is wss://relay.stegstr.com, operated by Web3 Services LLC, the maker of Stegstr. Public relays can be enabled as secondaries in Settings. The relay list the app starts from is published at stegstr.com/config/relay.json.

• Posts and reactions are public Nostr events, readable by anyone connected to the same relay.
• Direct messages are encrypted to the recipient before they reach a relay; the relay stores ciphertext.
• Relays keep events for as long as they choose. Deleting a note sends a deletion request, which relays and other clients may or may not honour.
• A Local identity never publishes, even with Network on.

Media uploads

Profile pictures, banners and post attachments are uploaded to nostr.build, a third-party host, signed with your key (NIP-98). They are stored unencrypted and readable by anyone with the URL. The app says so next to the upload buttons; you can paste a URL to an image hosted elsewhere instead.

What Stegstr never does

• No accounts, no email, no analytics, no telemetry.
• Keys are generated and stored on your device only.
• Images you embed into are never uploaded by the embed step itself.