3 ms·

Out of interest, why would you prefer not to use your domain? Privacy concerns?

raxxorrax 7y ago
Yes, mainly. I vastly prefer pseudonymity/anonymity on the net and would only reveal my real identity for services that explicitly require it. For shipping, banking, etc.
- jamietanna 7y ago
  I guess in that case, given it's just a URL you could use ie an autogenerated URL from Netlify or an S3 bucket etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be linked back to your identity
- floatboth 7y ago
  How is a domain not a pseudonym? With WHOIS Privacy + not even providing your full accurate identity to ICANN in private either :)
- southerntofu 7y ago
  Well a domain name is usually pseudonymous, although some registrars require some forms of official identification (for legal reasons). Many individuals & organizations hand out domains for free on their zone. That's the case with eu.org or netlib.re for example (among MANY others). Any sysadmin can - and should - run a name server with a simple web application to let other users register domains. See for example https://github.com/KaneRoot/dnsmanager https://github.com/KaneRoot/dnsmanager So domain name-based authentication can bring as much pseudonymity as e-mail based authentication. The difference is owning your name (as prescribed by the indieweb approach) allows you to choose your host for services (including selfhosting for your personal identity), whereas the traditional "identity provider" approach means you're dependant on that provider till the end of times. Of course, we could argue that by owning a name in a zone, your dns provider could just wipe your zone. Although not very likely (ISP-level DNS blocking is more common than actually "seizing" domain names), theses cases are addressed by so-called "nomadic identity" protocols such as ZOT (currently implemented by Hubzilla) which rely on public-key cryptography to die different names/identities together. Then, there's always the possibility of domain names outside of the DNS. A domain name is simply dots linking machine names together, where the DNS is the usual tree-based implementation. But many other protocols provide domain names, the most common being the tor onion services (.onion domain names). So i'll admit actual pseudonymity on the internet remains a research topic, but there's notable progress all the time. Personally, i think we should have a separate domain name / blog / mail for each and every one of our online identities.

Yes, mainly. I vastly prefer pseudonymity/anonymity on the net and would only reveal my real identity for services that explicitly require it. For shipping, banking, etc.

jamietanna 7y ago
I guess in that case, given it's just a URL you could use ie an autogenerated URL from Netlify or an S3 bucket etc. It doesn't necessarily have to be linked back to your identity
floatboth 7y ago
How is a domain not a pseudonym? With WHOIS Privacy + not even providing your full accurate identity to ICANN in private either :)
southerntofu 7y ago
Well a domain name is usually pseudonymous, although some registrars require some forms of official identification (for legal reasons). Many individuals & organizations hand out domains for free on their zone. That's the case with eu.org or netlib.re for example (among MANY others). Any sysadmin can - and should - run a name server with a simple web application to let other users register domains. See for example https://github.com/KaneRoot/dnsmanager https://github.com/KaneRoot/dnsmanager So domain name-based authentication can bring as much pseudonymity as e-mail based authentication. The difference is owning your name (as prescribed by the indieweb approach) allows you to choose your host for services (including selfhosting for your personal identity), whereas the traditional "identity provider" approach means you're dependant on that provider till the end of times. Of course, we could argue that by owning a name in a zone, your dns provider could just wipe your zone. Although not very likely (ISP-level DNS blocking is more common than actually "seizing" domain names), theses cases are addressed by so-called "nomadic identity" protocols such as ZOT (currently implemented by Hubzilla) which rely on public-key cryptography to die different names/identities together. Then, there's always the possibility of domain names outside of the DNS. A domain name is simply dots linking machine names together, where the DNS is the usual tree-based implementation. But many other protocols provide domain names, the most common being the tor onion services (.onion domain names). So i'll admit actual pseudonymity on the internet remains a research topic, but there's notable progress all the time. Personally, i think we should have a separate domain name / blog / mail for each and every one of our online identities.