4 ms·

Domain names as handles are a cool idea, and you can already do a variant of them in the "fediverse" either by hosting your own instance of a service or by conf

Domain names as handles are a cool idea, and you can already do a variant of them in the "fediverse" either by hosting your own instance of a service or by configuring a WebFinger alias (which is what I do). I'm less convinced by DIDs[1], which is what Bluesky seems to run on: I've yet to see an explanation for why the DID standard exists, given that it effectively punts all semantics (including basic things like cryptographic verification) onto unstandardized "methods" in an uncontrolled global namespace. [1]: https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core/

pfraze 4y ago
We use DIDs to avoid NIHing everything (we already NIHed enough) but weren't pleased with any of the DID methods available, and are currently using did:web for self-hosters and then a registry for non-self-hosters that we're running (did:plc) which we hope to spin out to a non-profit consortium. If something else with the right properties comes along then we'll adopt it, but you're right about how much variance can exist between the did methods due to the light spec and we don't expect to support a lot of them.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Thanks for the explanation!
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  > If something else with the right properties comes along then we'll adopt it Have you looked at DID-SIOP?[0] It's based on the "Self-Issued OpenID Provider" extension[1] to OpenID Connect, to make it easier for existing OIDC relying parties to support those identities. [0] https://www.didsiop.org/ https://www.didsiop.org/ [1] https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.html https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.h...
  - pfraze 4y ago
    That must be relatively new - I read every registered spec last summer. I’ll give it a look, thanks for the pointer
esbeeb 4y ago
I have a mastodon user, and my own blog self-hosted using Jekyll (a static-content generator). I followed this tutorial to set up my own "well-known-webfinger" for my domain, which works: https://philna.sh/blog/2022/11/23/alias-your-mastodon-username-to-your-own-domain-with-jekyll/ https://philna.sh/blog/2022/11/23/alias-your-mastodon-userna... There's also a verification feature in a Mastodon user's profile, where you can put a custom html anchor (involving something like 'a rel="me"') in the footer of your website. Then you earn a checkmark, with green highlighting for your website when people look at your Mastodon profile. I've done this, as well.

pfraze 4y ago

We use DIDs to avoid NIHing everything (we already NIHed enough) but weren't pleased with any of the DID methods available, and are currently using did:web for self-hosters and then a registry for non-self-hosters that we're running (did:plc) which we hope to spin out to a non-profit consortium. If something else with the right properties comes along then we'll adopt it, but you're right about how much variance can exist between the did methods due to the light spec and we don't expect to support a lot of them.

woodruffw 4y ago
Thanks for the explanation!
dane-pgp 4y ago
> If something else with the right properties comes along then we'll adopt it Have you looked at DID-SIOP?[0] It's based on the "Self-Issued OpenID Provider" extension[1] to OpenID Connect, to make it easier for existing OIDC relying parties to support those identities. [0] https://www.didsiop.org/ https://www.didsiop.org/ [1] https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.html https://openid.net/specs/openid-connect-self-issued-v2-1_0.h...
- pfraze 4y ago
  That must be relatively new - I read every registered spec last summer. I’ll give it a look, thanks for the pointer

esbeeb 4y ago

I have a mastodon user, and my own blog self-hosted using Jekyll (a static-content generator). I followed this tutorial to set up my own "well-known-webfinger" for my domain, which works: https://philna.sh/blog/2022/11/23/alias-your-mastodon-username-to-your-own-domain-with-jekyll/ https://philna.sh/blog/2022/11/23/alias-your-mastodon-userna... There's also a verification feature in a Mastodon user's profile, where you can put a custom html anchor (involving something like 'a rel="me"') in the footer of your website. Then you earn a checkmark, with green highlighting for your website when people look at your Mastodon profile. I've done this, as well.