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Fediverse

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Re: Fediverse

#21

Post by BaseballPhysics »

Ambolia wrote: post #3

Which are the platforms that let you own your data cryptographically and let you move your account around seamlessly for yourself and your followers? Basically the network should be in the data and the servers should be replaceable. I think those are very obvious bottlenecks that affect most of these alternative networks. On the other side, censorship is also very important, nobody wants to have to dwell into spam an…

What you describe is essentially Tim Berners-Lee's vision for Solid: https://solidproject.org/

The idea is that every individual person has a container for their own data, and then platforms interact with that data using methods built on the Semantic Web.

I frankly don't think it has a hope in hell of succeeding, but I love the concept!

Re: Fediverse

#22

Post by taurusnoises »

I have tried to wrap my head around how this works as a total outsider noob, and I just can not get it! But, I want to.

I get the email comparison (different platforms can all speak, so why not have social media be the same?). But, then the white sheets are just all php and python and all this stuff that doesn't make any sense (I know what they are, just not what to do with that info), and for better or worse doesn't make sense to anyone I know. I'm, like, doing the Odin Project, actively trying to learn, and I still can't really get it. How is this supposed to translate to anyone else?

But, again, I want it to.

Re: Fediverse

#23

Post by [deleted] »

Ambolia wrote: post #3

Which are the platforms that let you own your data cryptographically and let you move your account around seamlessly for yourself and your followers? Basically the network should be in the data and the servers should be replaceable. I think those are very obvious bottlenecks that affect most of these alternative networks. On the other side, censorship is also very important, nobody wants to have to dwell into spam an…

[deleted]

Re: Fediverse

#24

Post by grishka »

echelon wrote: post #20
grishka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, P2P is impractical and it inevitably leaks into the UX, making it significantly more cumbersome. With a P2P system, you can't just send someone a link to something you found — you either expect them to have a client for the service, or use a web proxy. > Sign and publish with a pubkey No, absolutely not. Public keys make terrible identifiers. You leak it and anyone can impresonate you, with you having no recourse…

> No, absolutely not. Public keys make terrible identifiers. You leak it and anyone can impresonate you, with you having no recourse. You lose it and you have to start a new life basically. Most average people can't even get the platforms to deal with ATOs. I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys. But beyond the status quo, I can easily imagine dozens of mitigat…

> I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys.

Of course it is accepted, but so it is with passwords. And people are terrible enough with passwords, yet here you are suggesting that they use something that can't even be (easily) memorized, can't be invalidated, and has to be stored reliably yet secretly, as "the" identifier. You're putting too much trust into your average user.

None of these cryptography-based identity schemes can possibly work in the real world, period.

Re: Fediverse

#25

Post by grishka »

Ambolia wrote: post #18
grishka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, P2P is impractical and it inevitably leaks into the UX, making it significantly more cumbersome. With a P2P system, you can't just send someone a link to something you found — you either expect them to have a client for the service, or use a web proxy. > Sign and publish with a pubkey No, absolutely not. Public keys make terrible identifiers. You leak it and anyone can impresonate you, with you having no recourse…

Couldn't this be solved by chains of trust and "blacklisting" accounts? This is pretty much how it already works in the most annonymous corners of the internet, and those are the best corners.

Chains of trust would not solve the problem I mentioned but simply kick it further down the road.

Re: Fediverse

#26

Post by Ambolia »

grishka wrote: post #24
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, absolutely not. Public keys make terrible identifiers. You leak it and anyone can impresonate you, with you having no recourse. You lose it and you have to start a new life basically. Most average people can't even get the platforms to deal with ATOs. I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys. But beyond the status quo, I can easily imagine dozens of mitigat…

> I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys. Of course it is accepted , but so it is with passwords. And people are terrible enough with passwords, yet here you are suggesting that they use something that can't even be (easily) memorized, can't be invalidated, and has to be stored reliably yet secretly, as "the" identifier. You're putting too much trust into your…

You could still have server-owned accounts with that setup. It just wouldn't be the only option.

Re: Fediverse

#27

Post by luciusdomitius »

taurusnoises wrote: post #22

I have tried to wrap my head around how this works as a total outsider noob, and I just can not get it! But, I want to. I get the email comparison (different platforms can all speak, so why not have social media be the same?). But, then the white sheets are just all php and python and all this stuff that doesn't make any sense (I know what they are, just not what to do with that info), and for better or worse doesn't…

Basically you have e-mail, which is a protocol (actually a set of protocols, but ignore for now). Thus you can e-mail a protonmail user from your gmail/corporate account without any issues. However Twitter and Facebook are proprietary black box services and beyond using a Facebook-provided identity to create a Twitter account, there is no way to 'friend' a Twitter user on your FB account or interact with content in any way.

Then there comes a protocol called ActivityPub[1], which "e-mailifies" social networking. So far Mastodon and their goodreads clone are harvesting modest success.

I am a great fan of the goal, but not of the top-down approach W3C have taken with ActivityPub. For example LBRY solves this problem in a different way and is way more successful than all of Fediverse in total.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub

Re: Fediverse

#28

Post by bduerst »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #21
Ambolia wrote: post #3

Which are the platforms that let you own your data cryptographically and let you move your account around seamlessly for yourself and your followers? Basically the network should be in the data and the servers should be replaceable. I think those are very obvious bottlenecks that affect most of these alternative networks. On the other side, censorship is also very important, nobody wants to have to dwell into spam an…

What you describe is essentially Tim Berners-Lee's vision for Solid: https://solidproject.org/ The idea is that every individual person has a container for their own data, and then platforms interact with that data using methods built on the Semantic Web. I frankly don't think it has a hope in hell of succeeding, but I love the concept!

I haven't dived into the specs, but how does solid solve bad actors getting access to your pod?

Usually today your data is fragmented across platforms (so damage is reduced) which have centralized authorities who can step in and fix bad actor issues.

Re: Fediverse

#29

Post by simonw »

DerekBickerton wrote: post #13

Is having both a normal social media account & a federated version okay ? I've seen a lot of people delete their Twitter and then hop on Mastodon because they're worried about Musk. Whether their concern about Musk is valid is another question. How do people see his acquisition of Twitter as a bad thing? If anything he will try to improve it no?

This is the best commentary I've seen about the Twitter situation, from someone who worked there for four years at a senior level (but isn't there now so is free to share their thoughts): https://mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2022/04/anchors-away

The short version: Twitter's challenges are not hard technology problems, they're hard social and community problems. These are not areas Elon has shown any interest in understanding or respecting.

Re: Fediverse

#30

Post by lumost »

grishka wrote: post #24
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, absolutely not. Public keys make terrible identifiers. You leak it and anyone can impresonate you, with you having no recourse. You lose it and you have to start a new life basically. Most average people can't even get the platforms to deal with ATOs. I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys. But beyond the status quo, I can easily imagine dozens of mitigat…

> I'm not into crypto, but it's also accepted in that community that you must safeguard your keys. Of course it is accepted , but so it is with passwords. And people are terrible enough with passwords, yet here you are suggesting that they use something that can't even be (easily) memorized, can't be invalidated, and has to be stored reliably yet secretly, as "the" identifier. You're putting too much trust into your…

The only time these systems will work is when the perceived risk of snooping is greater than the value of account recovery. There is certainly a niche for this, but it probably isn't very broad. The majority of internet users seem uncomfortable with surveillance, but accepting of it.

I suspect the pendulum will swing if users no longer feel they have anyway to opt-out of surveillance. e.g. private browsing and other systems are recognized as ineffective, or sensitive data such as chat messages become broadly leaked and accessible to the typical user.

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