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Bluesky adds direct messages

bsky.social

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Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#41

Post by mjg59 »

theeandthy wrote: post #38
gary_0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the early versions of Skype, which was coded by like 4 guys, do decentralized end-to-end encrypted messaging like 20 years ago? Before MS bought it and removed all the security at the behest of the government[0], I mean. So two decades later, when we now have so many widely available open source libraries for networking and encryption, that job is somehow too hard for a well-funded organization like Bluesky? T…

Curious if they could simply piggyback on the Signal source code. Lots of folks try to reinvent the wheel these days. Just like protocol buffers reinvented ASN.1 + PER and so-forth. Even the crypto folks at protocol labs opted for the former in place of an established standard.

No. I wrote about this a couple of years ago (https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/62598.html) and the answer is that while Signal solves the cryptography problem, the other hard problem (ie, everything to do with key management) is still up to whatever's on top of the Signal protocol.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#42

Post by summerlight »

TheBlight wrote: post #15
snapcaster wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel for them, because even if they (and weirdos like us on this site) value decentralization and other related values the average customer just DOES NOT CARE. They're trying to compete with other platforms without this handicap and very people people are willing to give them any "credit" for it

I thought the entire point of Bluesky was that it was to be decentralized? Did that change?

Decentralization is a solution for establishing a saner, fail-safe governance structure (or we can call it "billionaire-proof"), not the problem to be solved by itself. You need to have enough traction to achieve this goal and sometime it might make sense to compromise the decentralized implementation part.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#43

Post by Barrin92 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #26
ncallaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From using Bluesky it feels like the goal is to build a social media experience that’s as decentralized as possible without sacrificing the user experience. So, they want the experience to be like Twitter for the users that don’t care about decentralization, but to be backed by something like ATProto underneath for those who care. I’d say Mastodon is more “the entire point is that it’s decentralized”. Bluesky it’s a…

>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. And no, I'm not going to spend hours digging through docs.

>I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work

You go to https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go.

Why do people invent fictional horror stories about a service that's at this point functionally as easy to use as any bog standard website?

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#44

Post by shadowfacts »

snapcaster wrote: post #12
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

I feel for them, because even if they (and weirdos like us on this site) value decentralization and other related values the average customer just DOES NOT CARE. They're trying to compete with other platforms without this handicap and very people people are willing to give them any "credit" for it

I'm a little bit sympathetic, but they've also kinda tried to have it both ways. They spent ages inventing a new protocol for decentralized microblogging, and then ages more before you could actually use a server other than theirs. But DMs is now where they don't want to spend the time up front to do it the right way?

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#45

Post by ramesh31 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #43
ramesh31 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. And no, I'm not going to spend hours digging through docs.

>I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work You go to https://joinmastodon.org/ , click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go. Why do people invent fictional horror stories about a service that's at this point functionally as easy to use as any bog standard website?

>You go to https://joinmastodon.org/, click on "join" (or pick another server if you are adventurous), fill in your username and email and you're good to go.

And that gives me access to the entire service? Or just bits and pieces of it? And how do I find other services? Asking around? Who's seeing my data if I sign up on another server? What are the anonymous operators of said server doing with my password and email? How do I message someone from another server? Are those messages secure at all?

Decentralized works for motivated parties. It does not work for the masses.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#46

Post by pavel_lishin »

stebalien wrote: post #25
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed.

But we all know that the more temporary the fix, the more permanent it becomes.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#47

Post by CaptainOfCoit »

bakugo wrote: post #27

I pretty much haven't heard of Bluesky since it went public. Is it still a mostly cesspool of american politics-obsessed twitter refugees?

> Is it still a mostly cesspool of american politics-obsessed twitter refugees?

99% of social media on the English-speaking web is basically American politics obsessed, if you don't want that you need to branch out to other languages.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#48

Post by matsemann »

bakugo wrote: post #27

I pretty much haven't heard of Bluesky since it went public. Is it still a mostly cesspool of american politics-obsessed twitter refugees?

My experience is that it's the opposite. My twitter timeline got filled up with blue checkmarks spamming their things. Their comments are boosted in every discussion. And since it's a certain demographic that pays for twitter blue, it completely altered everything. So at least in my circles it's to get away from all the hate and outrage that was just to gain virality, and get back to actual discussions on the topics we care about (which is far from US politics).

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#49

Post by neiman »

stebalien wrote: post #25
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

It's a stop-gap because people want DMs and implementing them correctly (decentralized, e2e encrypted, etc.) is non-trivial. Rushing e2e encryption is not a good idea (and no, you can't just slap on matrix/signal and call it a day). The alternatives are to: 1. Wait a bit longer for something half-baked that appears to meet the goals (i.e., something you're going to regret but will be unable to replace). 2. Wait even…

> By making the protocol centralized and stupid-simple, it's also stupid-simple to replace in when everyone is done painting the perfect bikeshed.

Can you recall any example of anyone replacing a centralized protocol with a decentralized one?

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