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ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

w3.org

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Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#2

Post by douglaswlance »

The only way to prevent Facebook and Twitter from strangling Free Speech and manipulating the public is by using an open source protocol.

This is true of search as well. We shouldn't allow Google to monopolize the flow of information. They've proven they cannot be trusted.

Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#5

Post by kemenaran »

This protocol is a successor to OStatus (GNU Social), and mostly made by the same people.

From what I remember, Mastodon switched from OStatus to ActivityPub a few releases ago. In the past they had to extend the OStatus protocol for private messages, which meant some clients may not honor the private status of theses posts. ActivityPub has private messages defined properly in the spec.

It seems PeerTube (https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube) will also use ActivityPub.

Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#7

Post by jeswin »

From my quick read of the spec, server-to-server federation assumes that servers can be trusted. That need not be the case; unless a message is signed it should not be assumed to have come from a specific user. I don't know if there's an easy way to share keys in a decentralized way, but that'd be an interesting problem to solve (some blockchain maybe).

The other question is whether we want server-to-server federation at all instead of a P2P network like bittorrent. With the decreasing cost of compute, I am also optimistic of everyone being able to run a little sandbox on the cloud to exchange data with others, instead of routing it via FB/Twitter.

Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#8

Post by Ajedi32 »

jeswin wrote: post #7

From my quick read of the spec, server-to-server federation assumes that servers can be trusted. That need not be the case; unless a message is signed it should not be assumed to have come from a specific user. I don't know if there's an easy way to share keys in a decentralized way, but that'd be an interesting problem to solve (some blockchain maybe). The other question is whether we want server-to-server federatio…

Seems to me that they _did_ consider those concerns to some extent, but the specification doesn't really address them:

> Unfortunately at the time of standardization, there are no strongly agreed upon mechanisms for authentication. Some possible directions for authentication are laid out in the Social Web Community Group Authentication and Authorization best practices report.

https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#authorization

Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#9

Post by detaro »

jeswin wrote: post #7

From my quick read of the spec, server-to-server federation assumes that servers can be trusted. That need not be the case; unless a message is signed it should not be assumed to have come from a specific user. I don't know if there's an easy way to share keys in a decentralized way, but that'd be an interesting problem to solve (some blockchain maybe). The other question is whether we want server-to-server federatio…

That need not to be the case, but realistically it is the case for Mastodon & co for now. People are looking into various signature schemes, potentially as extensions of the protocol, but it would have moved the entire thing into very untested waters, which is bad for a new standard.

Same with federation: It's what you need right now for "normal" users (e.g. compare user numbers of Mastodon etc to purely p2p alternatives). While I personally self-host a lot of stuff and would be willing to run a Mastodon instance for friends and family, I can't expect or even recommend they run something themselves individually. Thanks to federation, nothing is stopping those that can to run their own single-user software speaking the protocol, or for instances to only serve very small groups.

Re: ActivityPub: decentralized social networking protocol

#10

Post by ocdtrekkie »

jeswin wrote: post #7

From my quick read of the spec, server-to-server federation assumes that servers can be trusted. That need not be the case; unless a message is signed it should not be assumed to have come from a specific user. I don't know if there's an easy way to share keys in a decentralized way, but that'd be an interesting problem to solve (some blockchain maybe). The other question is whether we want server-to-server federatio…

I think there's a few major reasons servers is still the way to go, albeit numerous much smaller servers.

- Mobile users content should remain available when they are disconnected.

- Participating in a federated environment still contains plenty of technical challenges, if we want non-tech-savvy users to participate, we need admins.

I personally would like to see servers for web applications, be they Sandstorm.io-type app platforms or Mastodon-type social networks, in a family-and-friends scale operation. I'd happily host resources for family and friends, for instance. While most people may not be able to run their own server, almost everyone is either family or friends with someone who can, and corporate offerings will fill in the gaps.

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