What is this?
Nabz (نبض, Farsi for “pulse/heartbeat”) is a censorship-resistant daily check-in protocol. It lets people under internet shutdowns send a cryptographically signed “I’m alive” ping that anyone can verify — with automatic fallback through 4 transport layers.
Built specifically for the human cost of internet shutdowns: the 77-day Iran blackout, Sudan, Myanmar, and every future shutdown.
Why now
Iran’s 2026 internet shutdown is currently on its 84th day. There is an active humanitarian crisis — families abroad have no way to know if their loved ones survived the latest bombing. People disappear into a digital void with no way to signal they are safe. This is the exact problem Nabz solves.
The problem
When a government cuts the internet:
- Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp all go dark
- Families abroad have no way to verify their loved ones are safe
- Activists, journalists, and ordinary people disappear into a digital void
- Existing tools require full internet connectivity
How Nabz works
4 transport layers, tried in order:
| Layer | Transport | Works when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Telegram bot | TG is reachable |
| 2 | HTTPS POST | Partial web access |
| 3 | DNS subdomain query | Only port 53 open |
| 4 | Waku p2p | All centralized routes blocked |
The DNS transport is the key innovation — the ping is encoded in the DNS query name itself:
[sig8].[nonce4].[userid].[date].p.nabz.io
No HTTP response needed. The query is the ping. Iran-style shutdowns almost never fully block DNS, making this highly resilient.
Logos stack integration
- Waku — transport layer 4; Light Push to send, Filter protocol to subscribe; content topic
/nabz/1/ping/proto - Nomos — roadmap: replace centralized registry with on-chain ping verification (no trusted server, fully decentralized)
- ETH identity — EIP-191 personal_sign; wallet address as self-sovereign identity anchor alongside Telegram/X OAuth
Working implementation
We have a working scaffold with all 4 packages:
- Telegram bot (Telegraf + Node.js)
- Fastify API server + Postgres
- DNS wildcard log server (Go + miekg/dns)
- Waku transport (
@waku/sdkLight Push + Filter) - Next.js public dashboard at
nabz.io/@handle
The repo is currently private while undergoing security review, documentation, and beta testing preparation — it will be cleaned up and publicly released ahead of any prize submission.
Why this fits the λPrize
Logos is building infrastructure for parallel societies — free, self-sovereign, censorship-resistant. Nabz is exactly that applied to a real human problem. It demonstrates the Logos stack’s value beyond crypto-native applications and into direct human rights infrastructure.
Prize scope
- Working PWA with 1-tap ping UX
- All 4 transport layers functional end-to-end
- Nomos registry contract on testnet
- Live demo: simulate shutdown conditions, show ping delivery via each layer
- Open source
Interested in discussing this further — would love feedback from Logos CCs on whether this fits a future λPrize scope.