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How to set your domain as your handle
- mg 3y agoWhat the AT protocol got right is that your handle is also a url. Because it is a hostname. I always thought ActivityPub should have used hostname/username instead of @username@hostname for the handle. Then they would have that advantage too. And one less char in the handle. What I find a bit cumbersome with the AT protocol is that it uses DNS records to store the metadata of an identity. I wonder if it should have used a simple json file instead. So that the protocol would not look at the DNS records of a hostname for the metadata but at hostname/at_identity.json That woule make it much easier for owners of a hostname to use it as their AT identity. Building tooling around the AT protocol would also get easier.
- cmckn 3y agoHow is running a web server for a JSON file easier than creating a TXT record in your DNS?
- mg 3y agoThen when you want to use the AT protocol without a webserver, you would have to set a DNS entry (CNAME) that points to a service like Bluesky. So for users without a web server, it would stay the same amount of work. And for others it would be just echo 'my metadata' | ssh myhost "cat > /my/web/dir/at_identity.json"
- aaomidi 3y agoBut why
- blitzar 3y ago> And for others it would be just + hosting the server + admin the server + securing the server + keeping the server up all the time For trivially small amounts of data it seems a massive waste of time and effort. If however, you are storing and verifying identity of 100's+++ of users within said domain then hosting that makes sense (pgp for email should probably work this way).
- cmckn 3y agoNevertheless, they’ve added this a couple days ago. Someone has already created an S3 bucket called “xrpc” and is using s3.amazonaws.com as their handle. :) —— From @emily.bsky.team: you can also use a non-DNS option — serve some JSON at a well-known endpoint (similar to webfinger) GET https://<users-handle>/xrpc/com.atproto.identity.resolveHandle {"did":"<users-did>"}
- bnewbold 3y agoatproto handle resolution tries DNS TXT first, then will try an HTTP endpoint. the endpoint is not a ".well-known", it is an "/xrpc/"-prefixed endpoint with a query parameter, which is workable on some static hosts (like github pages), but not others. not well documented yet. may try to do a ".well-known", but don't want a sprawling set of options with complex priority levels and caching behaviors.
- mg 3y agoNice! So the file approach does work. Do you have a link to the documentation of the file approach? Why does the DNS approach exist at all? Couldn't users who own a hostname but have not connected it to a webserver have achieved the same by adding a CNAME to a service like Bluesky?
- bnewbold 3y agoI don't really understand your question. Maybe it helps to clarify that the concept of a handle is totally distinct from the "Personal Data Server" or PDS. You look up the PDS for a handle by resolving the DID first (via DNS TXT or HTTP fallback), then get a DID document, which has a URL to the PDS. This is a bit confusing and multiple steps, but is what makes the handles so easy to use. It is totally fine to have a cool domain to use as a handle and just not have a webserver associated with it. If you pointed the domain with a CNAME to a particular service, you would need to update that every time you change hosting providers. Which is maybe not often, but it would be disruptive and potentially poor experience because of DNS propagation issues. For a hypothetical brand like google.com, look up the TXT records. There are a bunch of verifications for various services. This is a relatively standard mechanism. TTL and caching are built-in to DNS, or you can punch through with a recursive query when needed.
- mg 3y agoThe challenges around changing hosting providers are the same for websites, aren't they? It seems to me they are well understood these days. I don't hear many people having a pain point around it anymore. A short TTL usually is enough to avoid a lot of DNS caching issues. And wouldn't changing the name server have the same effect on the DNS solution? "Every time you change your name server provider ...". Which for many users is the same as their hosting provider. Do I assume correctly, that you don't link to the HTTP fallback documentation because you don't want people to use it?
- tedunangst 3y agoActivitypub identities are URLs, nothing more. https://social.example.com/pickleman https://social.example.com/pickleman is an activitypub identity. Some people layered webfinger mentions on top of that, but the protocol neither uses nor depends on it.
- mg 3y agoUnfortunately not. Activitypub Identities are @username@hostname. When you have one of these and want to find the user, you have to ask hostname at ... https://{hostname}/.well-known/webfinger?resource={...} ... for more infos about the user. {...} being an urlencoded version of "acct:{user}@{hostname}". Then you will get a bunch of stuff, including so called "aliases". Which are urls. Many services provide aliases of the form hostname/@username or hostname/users/username. Which are endpoints that display something about the user. But that is not part of the protocol and differs from service to service.
- tedunangst 3y agoTotally backwards. The AP identity is whatever url endpoint you want it to be. People use webfinger to turn @handles into that url, but you can also just use the url directly. Grab the actor, find the inbox, send your post.
- mg 3y agoThat is not how I read the specs. Let's look at an example: My handle is @mg@masto.ai What is my "AP identity" in your interpretation of the AP protocol?
- sieabahlpark 3y ago[dead]
- tedunangst 3y agoIt's https://masto.ai/users/mg https://masto.ai/users/mg. You can see it by running curl -H "Accept: application/ld+json". https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#obj-id https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#obj-id
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- amadeuspagel 3y agoIf you have your domain pointed to a substack, you can still edit the DNS records, but you can't upload JSON files.
- rvz 3y agoI am still predicting that BlueSky is the real Twitter alternative. [0] All it needs to do is to get rid of the invite system (early) and open up its web app [1] and you will just watch it grow faster than the rest of the alternatives, and over time Twitter users will naturally move to BlueSky. What they got right is that they have both iOS and Android apps early and there is no 'choose an instance' mess, with proper search functionality and there's a official default server to avoid first impression confusion. We'll see what the normal users (non-techies) will choose in a few months time once the invite system is gone and the web app is ready and how strong Twitter's network effect is against BlueSky. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34137385 [1] https://staging.bsky.app/ https://staging.bsky.app/
- mmahemoff 3y agoFederation is still planned, but by the time it happens, there will be (a) a critical mass of users on the original server, including high-profile accounts (b) more consideration of UX under a federated model. It may be that the official app defaults to the original instance, perhaps with a de-emphasized way to switch it. It may also ask for favorite topics first and suggest an instance based on that. However the onboarding works, I'm confident the solution will be cleaner than Mastodon's. Lessons will have been learned about how clunky federation can be and how much problems it causes for features like search and recommendations.
- vidarh 3y agoThe main reason search and recommendations are clunky on Mastodon is user resistance against being more like Twitter. As someone who'd like it to be more like Twitter that is annoying, but people also need to understand that to a significant number of people not being like Twitter is a major selling point.
- mmahemoff 3y agoYea, there’s a strong resistance because somehow the community thinks algorithms are only there for the benefit of investors and could actually be of benefit to users who don’t want to micromanage who they’re following. As for search, it’s bizarre any community would be against such a basic feature. From TechDirt: “I would talk about some of the cooler Mastodon algorithms I’d been finding, but after a few them then were yelled at by a bunch of Mastodon users, I’ve generally decided it’s not worth promoting those useful tools, for fear that people yell at them to shut them down.” https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/28/six-months-in-thoughts-on-the-current-post-twitter-diaspora-options/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/28/six-months-in-thoughts-o...
- stanislavb 3y ago[flagged]
- _1tan 3y agoAlso looking to test the protocol. Mail is „ajabell (at) protonmail.com“
- kyle_o 3y agoAlso hoping to score an invite, email is in my bio. Thanks if you can, and good luck to OP!
- whyrusleeping 3y agopretty far down in the thread, hope no-one but you sees this: bsky-social-fupii-zizug
- howenterprisey 3y agoI stole the code, sorry! I thought I was going to be able to generate more codes myself and my friend really wanted an invite, but it seems like there's a bit of a cooldown period first. I will email kyle_o the first one I get as soon as I can.
- kyle_o 3y agoThanks for emailing me! Was able to use the code successfully.
- howenterprisey 3y ago...that was someone else (I still haven't gotten mine somehow) but I'm happy you got in!
- seaghost 3y agoI’m also looking for an invite. Could you send it to seaghost at gmail. Thanks!
- rustybolt 3y agoBut... What is Bluesky? What is a handle?
- LatticeAnimal 3y agoJack Dorsey is creating distributed Twitter
- dgellow 3y agoNot Dorsey, it’s Jay Graber and the rest of the team. Dorsey created the team and is board member but doesn’t have control over the operation. Also, they aren’t creating distributed Twitter, AT protocol is the infrastructure for any social decentralized service we will want to create in the future. Bluesky is the first use case, but the team is building something way bigger than just the microblogging application. It’s worth checking ATP docs, they are quick to read and well made: https://atproto.com/guides/overview https://atproto.com/guides/overview
- threeseed 3y ago> but doesn’t have control over the operation And who owns the Bluesky company that is paying the wages ?
- neilalexander 3y agoJack is a board member and has contributed funding but does not have a majority control and doesn’t “own” Bluesky.
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- DANmode 3y ago"rustybolt" is your handle on HN.
- 3y ago
- jimsimmons 3y agoSimple and fundamental. I’m behind this. I don’t fully understand how decentralized these alt-twitters are. But to the extent they can replicate the basic functionality while not requiring mega cap profits it might be a win for us all. I hope it’s not just a fad.
- ryan29 3y agoI always try to distinguish between decentralization of infrastructure and decentralization of control. I think the former is very difficult to achieve, but that’s ok because the latter is by far the more important of the two. As long as I can (technically) take my domain based handle and move to another host I’ll be thrilled. I also hope it’s not a fad because I think it’s a huge win for users, especially small businesses. I wonder how they handle dropped domains that are re-registered.
- bnewbold 3y agodropped domains will be a bit of a UX problem. the human root of identity is the handle (memorable/recognizable), but the real identity root for the account is a DID. which is a pretty open/wild spec, so we mostly use did:plc ("placeholder"), which is a self-authenticating tricky tricky. withing the protocol and applications, everything under the hood works via DID references, not handle references. a domain handle works by pointing at a DID, but does not control the actual DID ("DID document"). so any old users/followers/href will still be attached to the "old account". and it would be possible for the old account to recovery and set up a new handle. but the superficial bits (anchor text), and human identity for new lookups, are attached to the handle, and could get pointed to a new DID, or just not resolve. that would be messy.
- ryan29 3y agoSo the domain is a mutable pointer to an immutable DID? That’s pretty much how I’d do it too [1]. Very cool! 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32755618 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32755618
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- wyclif 3y agoWhy won't Bluesky allow use on the desktop instead of only mobile?
- bnewbold 3y agoYou can point your web browser to https://staging.bsky.app https://staging.bsky.app The team is too small to develop and maintain even an electron desktop app or something like that wrapping the existing react-native-web SPA. But this leaves space for fancy third-party apps, or integration into multi-protocol desktop apps, as needed.
- crossroadsguy 3y agoIt asks for an invite code, or there is a waitlist? Is it invite only/exclusive or something like that?
- whyrusleeping 3y agoits currently an invite-only beta, but i feel like we've dealt with worse randos than late night hacker news commenters, so here you go: bsky-social-55rkz-5aago
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- crossroadsguy 3y agoHaha. Thanks. It's mid day here. Couldn't use the code. Looks like someone else beat me to it. But that's okay. Very kind of you. I think I will check it out later then.
- grose 3y agoIf I host my own identity server can I bypass the need for an invite? Maybe it's this? https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo https://github.com/bluesky-social/indigo
- jeroenhd 3y agoIt's pretty funny how this supposedly decentralized platform is currently invite-only.
- gfodor 3y agoIt's not funny, it's called a smart rollout strategy by people who actually know how to build a decentralized social network that stands a chance of beating twitter.
- Kye 3y agoI don't know much about the people behind it. What Twitter-scale decentralized social network did they build before to get that know-how?
- whyrusleeping 3y agoHi, i'm the guy who built IPFS and Filecoin which are moderately large decentralized networks, and both me and Martin Kleppmann are technical advisors to the project. Additionally, Jeremie Miller (of XMPP) is on the board. The core team consists of developers who have many years of experience working on decentralized technologies (Jay, Paul, and Daniel have been in that space for a long time) and the others have plenty of other relevant experience (Including Docker and the Internet Archive). Sure, nobody has ever built a decentralized social network at scale before, but we're not blundering our way into this.
- Kye 3y agoI was asking about their specific claim. People bring all kinds of genuinely impressive credentials to efforts like this and still can't pull it off. I've used just about every social network since the first, and it seems like the problems are always human, not technology. Social networks seem to bring together and amplify all the problems of every other technology. It's the final boss and no one's cracked it. You gave me a list of people and technologies they worked on, but you didn't answer the question. How do you bring that together into a decentralized system that can absorb and succeed Twitter?
- bullen 3y agoActivityPub atleast can use HTTP. To force HTTPS is not the way forward: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2289 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2289 To rely on another centralized solution (DNS) is not the way forward either: http://radiomesh.org http://radiomesh.org
- charcircuit 3y agoHTTP is insecure. There is no reason to use HTTP anymore now that a secure alternative exists. If you are making a new protocol there is no reason to support HTTP because there are no legacy systems still using it.
- bullen 3y agoYou didn't click that link? Maybe you didn't understand it? Simplicity is a good reason to avoid HTTPS, also freedom and economy. 30% of internet is still HTTP. 100% of non-stupid internet is still HTTP. Security is not needed in the base layer. You can superpose it.
- pwn0 3y agoHow do you prevent man in the middle attacks if you're not using https?
- bullen 3y agohttps://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2289 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2289 It's also quantum safe for eternity.
- threeseed 3y agoI clicked the link, understood it and have no idea what its relevance is to HTTPS. OTPs is not going to prevent governments, internet service providers, cafe owners etc from being able to intercept traffic and determine exactly what a user is posting. Which is not something anyone should want from a social network.
- Animats 3y agoSo who is Bluesky, and do they matter? Do they have more market share than Mastodon, etc.?
- Hamuko 3y agoBluesky is currently invite-only closed beta, so it's not gonna be competing in market share for a while. There's probably around 30k-50k people there right now.
- input_sh 3y agoThey absolutely don't matter at this point in time, and the only buzz they get are from Twitter users asking for an invite code to use their half-finished product. A fair amount of influencery types from Twitter have created an account already, but only time will tell how many of them are going to stick around.
- layer8 3y ago> Domain Name System (DNS) acts like a phonebook for the internet I wonder if this analogy doesn't become increasingly inscrutable for younger readers, because phonebooks aren't a thing anymore. It also seems to me that you don't actually have to know about IP addresses to understand why domain names as handles could be useful.
- Takennickname 3y agoIt's a contact list for the internet.
- Hamuko 3y agoI'd compare domain names and IP addresses to street addresses and GPS coordinates. We could just drop all street addresses and numbers and just use GPS coordinates, but that'd be a massive pain in the butt to use. So we'll just keep to simple, human-readable text instead.
- OJFord 3y agoBut there's not really a mapping between them. Combined with GP's suggestion that it isn't really necessary to understand IP addresses (GPS coordinates) it works well though - you have some address, you follow signposts starting from the bottom to the broader area, culminating in road name signs and a number on the door. (i.e. 'the town is this way' road sign is like 'authority for ycombinator.com is blah')
- layer8 3y agoThe important thing to understand is that the domain name system provides an authoritative source of information linked to the domain (DNS entries). One type of such information is IP addresses, but that is not really relevant in this context. I haven’t looked at the AT protocol, but in principle a domain doesn’t even need to have an IP address in order to provide information about handles and fediverse identities (only the DNS server needs an IP).
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- botanical 3y agoIt seems I'm the only one that didn't know of the AT protocol and Bluesky. Any differences to Mastodon?
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- olah_1 3y ago> Any differences to Mastodon? https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub
- lumenwrites 3y agoCan someone who understands these things compare the tech BlueSky is using to Nostr?
- hammyhavoc 3y agoSomeone should ask ChatGPT first and then we can judge the output versus that of an actual human being.
- olah_1 3y agoOne thing about Nostr is that there is no authentication to retrieve data. So the data can be spread far and wide, without permission. This can obviously be both good or bad depending on what your use case is! I think that BlueSky has authentication so that the data only is retrievable on the server specified by the user. Because of this, I think BlueSky is better for personal social use cases where the user wants to maintain control and feel a bit more safe.
- silasmcpherson 3y agothis would be pretty nifty. Wondering about the implications for domain ownership - feels like that aspect can be a bit tricky / ownership isn't always clear to non-tech folks. But conceptually very pure.
- ericzawo 3y agoWould be really appreciative of anyone who could send me an invite :) My contact info is in my profile.
- dahwolf 3y agoAbout half the content on Mastodon is usually complaining about Twitter yet this week the attention turned to Bluesky. What a depressed cynical bunch they are. Several have found the TOS, screenshot it, and wildly proclaim that "Bluesky will own all your content!", all commenters gullible enough to accept this proclamation. Whilst the TOS is just the standard legalese needed to run a user-generated content site. These people are incompetent or misinformation agents, or both. They zoom in on a missing feature and declare the product DOA. Whilst it is very obviously a beta. They found "nazi content". It was actually a user replying to some progressive post expressing their dislike for the BLM movement. A raw opinion, not one I personally agree with, but not even close to "nazi". But even if you do think it's out of line, it's a bloody social network. They go on to bash the moderation options of Bluesky, which I honestly find refreshing (if they actually work, that is). The idea is that the user can pick per controversial category to hide, warn, or allow. But the fact that you can chose "allow" is a problem, according to them. Except for porn of course, because the anarchist furry sex worker should most definitely not be censored. Oh, and also, Musk is a nazi and so is Dorsey. None commenting seem to have a clue how these two characters relate to Bluesky, but better be safe than sorry. It's just one bad take after the other, expressed by sour miserable people without investing a second in what they're so confidently judging. I don't have any stake in Bluesky, but I feel for teams releasing amidst such hostility. If they can pull of nomadic identity, "chose your algorithm", functional federation, moderation without tyranny, we're looking at something quite exciting.
- aprilnya 3y ago> About half the content on Mastodon is usually complaining about Twitter yet this week the attention turned to Bluesky. What a depressed cynical bunch they are. No it’s not? You’re just following people that talk about that, I don’t see any Twitter/Bluesky discourse on my timeline
- migf 3y agoYou're describing humanity, lol
- beej71 3y agoRoughly 0% of my feed is full of that kind of talk. Why would you choose to have a feed like that?