code(Eric)
@eric.vicenti.net
150 followers 270 following 55 posts
Building a decentralized publishing network with built-in collaboration and trust @seed.hyper.media
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eric.vicenti.net
Awesome! Is there a guide for using did:web on my own PDS?

By default it seems to be using did:plc and I got stuck trying to set up my own identity
eric.vicenti.net
Oh, thats's awesome! I thought that:

1. I would loose/replace my identity if I did that
2. Bluesky doesn't talk with random self-hosted PDSs, so my sovereign content would be invisible to bsky users

Would be sweet to have ID independence while staying connected to this network. I'll try it!
eric.vicenti.net
I apologize for saying "disinformation". It was too harsh, because I don't believe you are intending to spread wrong information

Also, AtProto does offer some forms of decentralized identity!

You said Bluesky. Which, with my limited understanding, does not 😢
eric.vicenti.net
What was the other inaccurate comment that I made?

Boris confirmed that the plc is centralized.

But hey, I'm often wrong, and I'm constantly learning!
eric.vicenti.net
I'd LOVE to be wrong on this. I'm a huge supporter of any sovereign/decentralized identity system for the web.

In my first post I accidentally said that users don't "own their keys" on bksy. I meant to say they don't own their identity, because you claimed that bsky has decentralized ID
eric.vicenti.net
Sorry for bothering you with this, Boris 😅

I was pretty sure that the bluesky PDS holds a rotation key, as discussed here: github.com/bluesky-soci...

Also I'm not sure how the "lost password" workflow (email validation) would possibly work if the bsky service can't rekey my identity
How to edit `did:plc` rotation keys · bluesky-social atproto · Discussion #3366
I have migrated my Bluesky handle rekmarks.com to my own PDS. I am trying to replace one of its rotation keys. Here's what I observe: I check the rotation keys returned by com.atproto.identity.getR...
github.com
eric.vicenti.net
The ICANN-governed DNS already exists- already distributed across every nation. To me it feels like this whole mess could have been avoided if bsky used did:web identities (or better, did:dns)

The auditing+tamper-resistance features of the ledger can be implemented in a decentralized way, right?!
eric.vicenti.net
The worst part is that Bluesky pretends that you get a sovereign ID when you add your own domain, but it is just a proxy to the centralized did:plc

No wonder people are confused!
eric.vicenti.net
But.. who owns the identity? Bluesky does, because they can re-key people.

It's definitely an admirable intent to decentralize one day. But clearly people are thinking Bluesky already offers sovereign identities.

Hence the "disinformation"
eric.vicenti.net
This feels like disinformation to me. Bluesky uses did:plc which is highly centralized

I’d love to be proven wrong, because the world desperately needs a decentralized identity system

I’m really hoping that Bluesky sees the light and allows users to actually own their keys
boscolo.co
chrisb @boscolo.co · Jun 20
When a platform for social engagement grows large enough, the identity used on that platform becomes a standard for global communication.

Telephone network gave us phone numbers.
Internet v1 gave us email addresses.
Bluesky (AT Protocol) gives Decentralized Identities (DID)
🧵
eric.vicenti.net
So Zooko eventually got it right, but wikipedia (and therefore everybody) kind of missed it.

Interestingly, you patched the triangle differently, by adding "Globally unique"

Anyways, thanks for indulging my rabbit hole!
eric.vicenti.net
The 2002 version said: "Decentralized, Secure, Human-Memorizable" and this is a much better description of the triangle!

Using web of trust and the techniques in your paper, we can reach "Human meaningful" with security and decentralization. But the identity is still not Human Memorizable 😁
eric.vicenti.net
Actually I think the biggest fault lies with Wikipedia editors, who quoted "Human meaningful, decentralized, secure"

This is from the original publication by Zooko which says at the top: "Please do not propagate this information widely yet. I'm still working on it." But there is a newer version! 😂
eric.vicenti.net
It’s beautiful! Animating the border radius is a great touch
eric.vicenti.net
Which means the gateway server doesn't even need to be online for the gateway/https URLs to work in the app, as long as you have peers who can provide the content.
eric.vicenti.net
Consider yourself lucky that it doesn't have an app with mandatory SaaS + subscription model, like 8sleep or other enshittified appliances 😅
eric.vicenti.net
I pretty much agree! But we could maybe introduce one extra step in the onboarding where the user selects a gateway server and could even choose "no gateway", so p2p URLs would be exposed instead of the https-ified ones.

But the app already converts gateway URLs to native p2p URLs under the hood...
eric.vicenti.net
This post by @dustyweb.bsky.social et al is an absolute banger

files.spritely.institute/papers/imple...

It has been a major inspiration for our implementation of "web of trust" in @seed.hyper.media

Although, there is a slight mis-representation of Zooko's triangle. I should write about this...
Implementation of a Petnames System in an existing chat application
files.spritely.institute
eric.vicenti.net
We built a decentralized publishing app with a UX that is so good, its not immediately obvious that our server is optional.

Do we add friction to the UI that helps users realize this? Or should we address this in our communication/marketing strategy?
eric.vicenti.net
There must be a better way 😅
eric.vicenti.net
Hah! I realized that I only use the dock for one thing: to move the cmd-tab app switcher to a different screen (because it always appears in the window where you have most recently used the dock 🥴)
eric.vicenti.net
The crazy part is how common IG is for messaging in Europe (and probably other places 😅)

So you’re forced to endure horrible spam notifs if you want to see when your friends message you
eric.vicenti.net
Oh that’s cool, I couldn’t find this feature before when I was looking for it.
eric.vicenti.net
What is a self-hosted user? Like if you run your own PDS?

How do you connect the bsky client app to your own PDS? I thought bsky forces you on to their servers?