Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree with the sentiment as I love RSS, but doesn't it have a different use case than ActivityPub or ATProto?
I mean, conceptually ActivityPub is quite similar to RSS. You might be able to call it Less Simple Syndication.
ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
41–47 of 47 posts
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#42Ok, since everyone's here, I'll ask: what is the credible exit from Bluesky - as in, not ATProto as a whole, but specifically the Bluesky PDS/AppView/etc - right now, in 2026? I have a Bluesky identity that I registered primarily to follow someone that I happened to meet in person while stumping for the Rio Grande Plan[0]. I only have like five posts on it, but I would like to migrate that over to the same domain I a…
The PLC keys are normally intended to be held by your current PDS. Not a hard protocol requirement, but without it, certain things like migrating to a custom domain handle cannot be done cleanly though the app, and would need to be done manually. It might be a requirement of the bluesky hosted PDSes though, as those have some extra requirements beyond the reference self-hosted PDS. The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC…
That I didn't know! So... Basically the whole solution is still "trust me bro"?
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The PLC keys are normally intended to be held by your current PDS. Not a hard protocol requirement, but without it, certain things like migrating to a custom domain handle cannot be done cleanly though the app, and would need to be done manually. It might be a requirement of the bluesky hosted PDSes though, as those have some extra requirements beyond the reference self-hosted PDS. The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC…
> The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC central server is supposed to be fixed by them creating a swiss association to run and control it instead, but while they announced this, it is unclear if it went anywhere. That I didn't know! So... Basically the whole solution is still "trust me bro"?
There are also read-only mirrors of the PLC, but that doesn't really matter, given that the whole point of the PLC is to be a trusted[1] entity for arbitrating identity conflicts. This is necessary because the PLC is what lets you register new signing keys to overrule an uncooperative PDS - otherwise, you have the moral equivalent of Mastodon instances where an instance admin can hold your identity hostage.
And, technically speaking, did:web is also "trust-me-bro", in the sense that it ultimately relies on DNS to resolve names to servers. DNS and PLC are moral equivalents[0] in that ultimately there is a central authority to arbitrate disputes over who owns what identities. In fact, there kind of has to be. Every proposal for a true distributed identity system ultimately boils down to either pinning a self-signed key or web-of-trust, both of which have undesirable failure modes due to the lack of a central trusted authority.
Ultimately, the choice comes down to: do you want to pay the DNS people $15/yr for a zone to host your DID on, or do you trust Bluesky's PLC server to offer that hosting for free?
[0] Almost. In practice, DNS is a recursively nested set of central governors; every TLD imposes an additional governor on top of ICANN root zone management. In practice, almost all DNS shenanigans happen at registrars; and of the shenanigans not caused by registrars, most of them happen at the TLD operators and not the root zone itself.
[1] PLC stores all identity updates in an append-only log. I'd call it a blockchain, but the Bitcoin people ruined that term. Practically speaking, if the PLC were to "turn evil" and mess with people's identities there'd be irrefutable proof of it. How much this assuages your concern depends on what you think about Certificate Transparency.
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC central server is supposed to be fixed by them creating a swiss association to run and control it instead, but while they announced this, it is unclear if it went anywhere. That I didn't know! So... Basically the whole solution is still "trust me bro"?
Kind of. From what I've been told, the non-trust-me-bro solution is did:web, which is just "you host a file on a web server containing all the same information the PLC serves". Problem is, if you already have a did:plc, you're stuck with it - you cannot migrate off a DID, as it's intended to be about as immutable as an SQL primary key. There are also read-only mirrors of the PLC, but that doesn't really matter, given…
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fact that BlueSky runs the PLC central server is supposed to be fixed by them creating a swiss association to run and control it instead, but while they announced this, it is unclear if it went anywhere. That I didn't know! So... Basically the whole solution is still "trust me bro"?
Kind of. From what I've been told, the non-trust-me-bro solution is did:web, which is just "you host a file on a web server containing all the same information the PLC serves". Problem is, if you already have a did:plc, you're stuck with it - you cannot migrate off a DID, as it's intended to be about as immutable as an SQL primary key. There are also read-only mirrors of the PLC, but that doesn't really matter, given…
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
here https://blog.bront.rodeo/setting-up-your-own-pds/
The answer here would be "there's no such thing as a generic "server" like in ActivityPub because it's split into different components, of which a PDS is only one". Honestly my main question here is "If you disagree with various ActivityPub instances' defederations, you can get around this by starting your own instance that federates with everything; is there an equivalent for bypassing Bluesky's moderation decisions…
Re: ActivityPub over ATProto (2023)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is a misleading message, according to the recent HN discussion, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48599515 .
I don't think it's misleading at all, the comment you're looking to is. People really do ask where "The AT Proto server is" as evidenced by this thread, and the really is no "AT Proto server" or "instance". AT Proto and BlueSky are a collection of services with no 1-1 relationship to a Mastodon or RSS server. There's absolutely nothing misleading about that.