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Hmm, to my knowledge, followers only posts are ActivityPub feature, where you just shovel the message to inboxes of just followers. It is not sending it to all

Hmm, to my knowledge, followers only posts are ActivityPub feature, where you just shovel the message to inboxes of just followers. It is not sending it to all servers? It's also possible to send messages to part of the followers as well, some instances like qoto.org support circles. You make circles from your followers and post to just them. I wouldn't call these privacy features, but ability for sender to choose what it wants to say for certain group of followers.

password4321 4y ago
I believe followers-only posts are sent to all servers with at least one follower.
- Ciantic 4y ago
  That is given, how else could it work? This is pub/sub, it's not pull based, so every time you release something it is pushed to the subscribers, your followers servers. I would like to have a bit of pull based things as well, but ActivityPub is not built for it. Even though it's pushed to a server, doesn't mean it goes to everyone in that server.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Even though it's pushed to a server, doesn't mean it goes to everyone in that server. Right, the issue being raised is that there's nothing preventing it from going to everyone on the server except the server being nice about it.
    - Ciantic 4y ago
      How is this different from let's say email? It's in the specs what servers should do if it receives a message. If someone sends a message addressed to just these people the server then delivers it to just these people? Of course if you send something from foo@gmail.com to bar@yahoo.com the server at yahoo.com decides who gets it, hopefully just bar. In fact email analogy in my mind is most apt and easiest to explain, including the fact that it's not E2E encrypted. It's totally up to servers who gets your messages when you send them.
      - andrewaylett 4y ago
        A better ideal might be Matrix -- consider a private E2E room, with all your recipients in it, locked down so only you can post messages to it. Stuff you post will only be visible to the set of users you want it to be visible to. Writing software to present those posts in a suitable UI is left as an exercise to the reader. And it's a bit late to start now, but I really wish we'd been able to start our fediverse journey with something that's at least supposed to be secure, then opened up the stuff that's intended be open.
        Ciantic 4y ago
        Absolutely, I support E2E and signatures. It's funny that there is nothing new since GPG, it is decentralized identity with E2E encryption and verifiable signatures. But original poster was questioning the delivery mechanism. Given that there is no E2E, it already works as efficiently as it can with pub/sub. I don't want to start discussing what Fediverse should be, but I have had this discussion in past, few points: - ActivityPub has two signatures: HTTP signatures, which are ephemeral, and more persistent JSON-LD object signatures. They are contentious. Some servers disable JSON-LD object signatures, because they allow to proof cryptographically that someone posted something, thus deleted posts become "liability". - E2E encryption will have similar ramifications, because not all servers agree that crypto be used. Currently only way to do "privacy" is to deliver messages to just the people you want, and hope servers won't send them to third parties, like in email. That's what Mastodon does.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > How is this different from let's say email? E-mail has decent brand separation between the protocol and providers. People don’t talk about joining .social, they talk about Mastodon.
        drusepth 4y ago
        People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
tedunangst 4y ago
It starts getting weird when you reply to those posts.

password4321 4y ago

I believe followers-only posts are sent to all servers with at least one follower.

Ciantic 4y ago
That is given, how else could it work? This is pub/sub, it's not pull based, so every time you release something it is pushed to the subscribers, your followers servers. I would like to have a bit of pull based things as well, but ActivityPub is not built for it. Even though it's pushed to a server, doesn't mean it goes to everyone in that server.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Even though it's pushed to a server, doesn't mean it goes to everyone in that server. Right, the issue being raised is that there's nothing preventing it from going to everyone on the server except the server being nice about it.
  - Ciantic 4y ago
    How is this different from let's say email? It's in the specs what servers should do if it receives a message. If someone sends a message addressed to just these people the server then delivers it to just these people? Of course if you send something from foo@gmail.com to bar@yahoo.com the server at yahoo.com decides who gets it, hopefully just bar. In fact email analogy in my mind is most apt and easiest to explain, including the fact that it's not E2E encrypted. It's totally up to servers who gets your messages when you send them.
    - andrewaylett 4y ago
      A better ideal might be Matrix -- consider a private E2E room, with all your recipients in it, locked down so only you can post messages to it. Stuff you post will only be visible to the set of users you want it to be visible to. Writing software to present those posts in a suitable UI is left as an exercise to the reader. And it's a bit late to start now, but I really wish we'd been able to start our fediverse journey with something that's at least supposed to be secure, then opened up the stuff that's intended be open.
      - Ciantic 4y ago
        Absolutely, I support E2E and signatures. It's funny that there is nothing new since GPG, it is decentralized identity with E2E encryption and verifiable signatures. But original poster was questioning the delivery mechanism. Given that there is no E2E, it already works as efficiently as it can with pub/sub. I don't want to start discussing what Fediverse should be, but I have had this discussion in past, few points: - ActivityPub has two signatures: HTTP signatures, which are ephemeral, and more persistent JSON-LD object signatures. They are contentious. Some servers disable JSON-LD object signatures, because they allow to proof cryptographically that someone posted something, thus deleted posts become "liability". - E2E encryption will have similar ramifications, because not all servers agree that crypto be used. Currently only way to do "privacy" is to deliver messages to just the people you want, and hope servers won't send them to third parties, like in email. That's what Mastodon does.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > How is this different from let's say email? E-mail has decent brand separation between the protocol and providers. People don’t talk about joining .social, they talk about Mastodon.
      - drusepth 4y ago
        People also talk about "sending email", not "sending gmail". Brand separation naturally emerges over time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

tedunangst 4y ago

It starts getting weird when you reply to those posts.