@rauschma Having said this, however, of course email...

@rauschma Having said this, however, of course email addresses are also domain name system dependent. And if we had a system of user ids independent from server ids, then we would need some sort of registry which resolved a user id to the address of the place where that user's content could be found, which would be one of

1. Centralised; or
2. Hierarchical, like DNS; or
3. Easily manipulated by bad actors

#1/2

Like 1 December at 22:29 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.scot

5 comments

Simon Brooke

@rauschma
Continued

Given that choice, tying user ids to server ids, especially given that we now have pretty good user migration tools, looks like a very reasonable choice.

#2/2

1 December at 22:30 | Open on mastodon.scot

Axel Rauschmayer

@simon_brooke One simple approach we could copy from Bluesky:
– Optional: a domain name as a user ID.
– At the domain, a document (either a DNS record or a file at a well-known location) points to the (local) server ID.
– The local profile points back to the domain name.

1 December at 22:41 | Open on fosstodon.org

Simon Brooke

@rauschma That's an awful lot of complexity which gets you back to the same dilemma you had in the first place: either the user owns their own domain name (hosted on the domain name system) *and* a server they can point that domain name at; or they're dependent on someone else to host it.

I don't think you win anything at all.

1 December at 23:23 | Open on mastodon.scot

Axel Rauschmayer

@simon_brooke
– It’s for advanced users only.
– You only need to own the domain *or* the server.
– Upside: If the server suddenly disappears (for technical, legal, financial etc. reasons), then you haven’t lost your identity.

1 December at 23:25 | Open on fosstodon.org

Simon Brooke replied to Axel

@rauschma If the registry with which you have registered your domain disappears, (for technical, legal, financial etc. reasons), then you have absolutely lost your identity.

This is the same problem. Domain registries are these days just commercial entities like any other, and they're frankly often not at the more ethical end of the commercial entity spectrum.

1 December at 23:29 | Open on mastodon.scot

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