Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

Jesse Skinner :javascript:'s posts Post Back to profile

@MikeBeas Except that's not true - at least not _yet_.

They're promising it, but unless I'm very out of date, they have not yet delivered it.

I'm aware it is theoretically possible to do this. But there are leagues between "theory" and "reality," and last I heard, they still don't even have a real plan for actually _implementing_ portable identity.

(eta: To be clear, if they actually manage to pull it off: great! _I'm for it_. But they haven't _yet_, and there exist what historically have been very strong pressures _not_ to actually follow through. I'd love to see those pressures fail this time.)

Like 18 November at 22:38 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

17 comments

Mike Beasley

@moira No, it's true right now. Nearly every part of the infrastructure is open source.

18 November at 22:41 | Open on mas.to

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas I'm unaware of any other... what do they call them, collector nodes? The stream collectors through which everything must pass. I mean, _I have seen people running BlueSky instances talking about this_, and they were saying that they don't exist yet, that everything has to go through central.

I mean, it's possible they're _also_ out of date, but I'd think people actually running their own instances would be caught up on this stuff.

18 November at 22:46 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas (Also also I'm not beating up on them for not having portable identity figured out with only a quasi-functional placeholder in its stead. Last I heard it was even called something like PH for PlaceHolder, which I found pretty amusing. That's a hard problem and good luck to them getting a real version to work.)

18 November at 22:48 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Mike Beasley

@moira PLC, and it's not a placeholder anymore. It's now a backronym for "Public Ledger of Credentials" and they're looking to hand it off to a web standards body so they don't control it.

18 November at 22:49 | Open on mas.to

M.S. Bellows, Jr.

@MikeBeas @moira Hey, guys? Heuristics are a thing.

Here's a helpful heuristic: "Tech billionaires don't build commercial entities that can work just as well without them."

That's my helpful heuristic. Thank you for coming to my #HelpfulHeuristic Talk.

19 November at 2:39 | Open on c.im

Mike Beasley

@moira (Even if they retain control of PLC forever, all of the data is public so anyone could just mirror the data and it would be possible to point at that mirror instead of the official ledger, and nothing would be amiss)

18 November at 22:50 | Open on mas.to

Mike Beasley

@moira Relays. Nobody is currently running one because nobody needs to, but people have spun them up locally and done proofs-of-concept with them to show that it can be done.

18 November at 22:49 | Open on mas.to

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas Oh, okay, I thought they had gone to some other name.

I know why they set up the relay based system, and I understand their reasons for it, even if it feels kind of like Weirder Bigger Token Ring to me. I appreciate the arguments for things like preserving sequentiality and inter-instance reply consistency (something we have now here too).

But I still think they're a mistake _because_ of the structural requirements in running one at scale, which _will_ discourage others from being set up even if it is in theory possible.

They require large money. Inevitably. And that just leads back to centralisation again. Yes, I know, in certain ways it's more efficient, but to me it feels like just moving the football again, Lucy.

(1/2)

@MikeBeas Oh, okay, I thought they had gone to some other name.

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18 November at 22:57 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas I suppose I want to say:

_I'm not rooting against them._

I just think that they're never going to be the kind of distributed that AP can be and that creates a particular set of types of problems that can't be handwaved away, once of which being the _reliance_ on Relay.

Thanks for the update on portable identity. Assuming it's still blockchain-record based (as it was supposedly going to be) maybe it'll be the first actually _good_ use of that technology.

(2/2)

18 November at 23:00 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Mike Beasley

@moira it was never blockchain-based at all. it’s basically git.

18 November at 23:06 | Open on mas.to

Mike Beasley

@moira It may be a lot of money for you or me, but it’s relatively inexpensive for someone trusted like Cloudflare or the Internet Archive to run. The intent was never for everyone to run their own separate relay, or for individual users to manage them.

18 November at 23:03 | Open on mas.to

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas Oh gods no don't try to make users run/be their own relays, that way lies Nostr terrorism and I don't think _anyone_ wants that shit.

Including me, for the record. I'm not some crypto-Nostrite. xD

Well, okay. If you start seeing legitimate numbers of organisations actually _doing this_ - setting up Relays that people can use - then I'll start considering it a ... _reasonably_ distributed network. How's that?

But _until that happens_, it's just theory. Closer to realisation than I had been lead to believe, absolutely! And that matters.

But... still theory.

(And few of my reservations about Relays as requirements go anywhere, of course. It still just feels like moving the ball around instead.)

(Also identity still centralised)

@MikeBeas Oh gods no don't try to make users run/be their own relays, that way lies Nostr terrorism and I don't think _anyone_ wants that shit.

Including me, for the record. I'm not some crypto-Nostrite. xD

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18 November at 23:17 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Mike Beasley

@moira The thing is, if bsky the company is behaving well, there's really no *need* for a second relay right now.

if they go rogue, having the ability for the community, or some other org, or anybody else to stand up a replacement is a huge win. even just a partial relay for specific types of events, which the devs have said is fully supported and something they would expect instead of full relays, would be useful.

but there's no need to use the fire escape unless there's a fire.

18 November at 23:21 | Open on mas.to

Solarbird :flag_cascadia: replied to Mike

@MikeBeas ...you say that like it's _easy_.

hooooooooly shit it's not

that will be an _adventure_. It will be much harder and take much longer than I think you think.

But at least it will be possible, so at least there is that.

18 November at 23:37 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Mike Beasley replied to Solarbird

@moira luckily it doesn't need to happen right now, but i suspect if it did, you would probably see a coordinate effort in the community to get one up and running as quickly as possible.

there are already a number of apps besides bluesky using the protocol, so people do have an interest in keeping the network alive.

18 November at 23:40 | Open on mas.to

Solarbird :flag_cascadia:

@MikeBeas I'm sorry that "identity still centralised" was kinda mean on my part. I mean, I'm not wrong, but in real terms it's basically "DNS for AT Proto Social Media" and I just look forward to all the old jokes about DNS being repurposed for use whenever something with PLC is fucked up. xD

18 November at 23:35 | Open on mastodon.murkworks.net

Mike Beasley replied to Solarbird

@moira dns is a very good system! lol

but technically they do support did:web alongside did:plc. you have to set it up yourself, and because your did is your permanent identity, you can't migrate between methods, but it is supported and there are a few people in the production bluesky network using it right now.

18 November at 23:39 | Open on mas.to