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One of the core features of AT is the ability to move your repo hosting provider (PDS) at any time. This is the "data portability" problem that ActivityPub neve

One of the core features of AT is the ability to move your repo hosting provider (PDS) at any time. This is the "data portability" problem that ActivityPub never solved. Bluesky Social, PBC runs a PDS service (bsky.social) for free, there are a number of free public alternatives, and thousands of users self-host. Self-hosting your own PDS can be done with Raspberry Pi or $5/mo VM and requires very little work. It runs in a Docker container with SQLite. https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds

opem 4mo ago
Except it isn't as straightforward as most people would think. The last time I checked this, I think there were some issues with Bluesky app view and it didn't show accounts from a self hosted PDS
- jacobgold 4mo ago
  You may have seen a temporary bug. It's completely straightforward and it works. Tens of thousands of users are doing it successfully. https://blue.mackuba.eu/stats/ https://blue.mackuba.eu/stats/
- quasigod 4mo ago
  When was the last time you checked that? That is definitely not currently true and hasnt been for as long as I've used Bluesky.
mdasen 4mo ago
You have the ability to move, as long as Bluesky Social PBC allows it. They hold the keys for your DID. If they don't allow you to move to another PDS, you can't move. The original theory was that you'd hold the private keys, but that's something that would hugely limit adoption so they decided to hold the keys themselves. In terms of moving your backlog of posts to a new server, part of the issue is liability (not merely legal liability, but reputational as well). When you have a user on your platform and they're posting stuff, you're moderating them in real time. If they turn out to be a horrible troll, you've get the reports. Let's say a horrible troll has been on EvilServer and EvilServer has been ignoring the reports against them. They now want to move to your GoodServer and bring all their post history with them. As an admin of GoodServer, you can't see that everyone has been reporting this troll for years. They're now moving over lots of horrible, inflammatory, potentially illegal posts to your server.
- chuckadams 4mo ago
  You can add your own keys to your DID, and IIRC you can even remove bsky's keys within a given timeframe (days).
  - jacobgold 4mo ago
    You can also opt for a did:web identity using your own domain in which case did:plc is irrelevant to you. https://atproto.com/specs/did https://atproto.com/specs/did
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- quasigod 4mo ago
  You can register a recovery key which allows overriding the signing key. This allows users to move from an adversarial PDS. I do think Bluesky should push for more users to add a recovery key, but I also understand why they haven't. Moderation tools arent limited to specific PDS's, labels are public. If an account has received many reports it will have been labelled by Bluesky's moderation account and other independent labellers. A PDS can check against these before allowing an account to migrate if they choose to. I'm not sure any are currently doing this, but this is something that can absolutely be improved in current implementations, not an inherent limitation of the architecture.
  - verdverm 4mo ago
    How to adversarial migrate: https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/adversarial-pds-migration.html https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/adversarial-pds-migrat... *requires your own PLC key, which the vast majority of users do not have, protonmail has good prior art here (imo)
    - quasigod 4mo ago
      Yeah, I think Bluesky should put more effort in getting users to create their own PLC key. It's trivial for someone who knows about it to do it, but of course the average user has no idea what atproto is. They need to explain it in a user-friendly way and have a simple tool to do it. I'm not aware of what Proton does here, I'll look into that.
ascorbic 4mo ago
You can host it for free on Cloudflare using my Cirrus PDS: https://cirrus.earth/ https://cirrus.earth/
- CharlesW 4mo ago
  Brilliant, so happy to learn about this!
- skybrian 4mo ago
  For anyone curious about the issues discussed in this topic, see: Identity and your signing key https://cirrus.earth/concepts/identity/ https://cirrus.earth/concepts/identity/ > Cloudflare secrets are write-only: once set, they cannot be retrieved through the dashboard or the API. This is good for security and bad for recovery. The wizard prints the key exactly once during pds init. Save it then. Also: Back up your signing key https://cirrus.earth/guides/back-up-signing-key/ https://cirrus.earth/guides/back-up-signing-key/
  - ascorbic 4mo ago
    It's also worth noting that if you're using `did:plc` for your identity (the default for Bluesky and most places) then you can rotate your signing key if you lose it. It's only `did:web` that makes it impossible to recover or rotate a key.
kevinak 4mo ago
Yes you can but the vast majority don’t, and that is what matters. When Bluesky goes rogue because of profitability issues or VC pressure, the vast vast majority of users lose their identities on the wider network. Users will choose the path of least resistance. It’s all about incentives.

opem 4mo ago

Except it isn't as straightforward as most people would think. The last time I checked this, I think there were some issues with Bluesky app view and it didn't show accounts from a self hosted PDS

jacobgold 4mo ago
You may have seen a temporary bug. It's completely straightforward and it works. Tens of thousands of users are doing it successfully. https://blue.mackuba.eu/stats/ https://blue.mackuba.eu/stats/
quasigod 4mo ago
When was the last time you checked that? That is definitely not currently true and hasnt been for as long as I've used Bluesky.

mdasen 4mo ago

You have the ability to move, as long as Bluesky Social PBC allows it. They hold the keys for your DID. If they don't allow you to move to another PDS, you can't move. The original theory was that you'd hold the private keys, but that's something that would hugely limit adoption so they decided to hold the keys themselves. In terms of moving your backlog of posts to a new server, part of the issue is liability (not merely legal liability, but reputational as well). When you have a user on your platform and they're posting stuff, you're moderating them in real time. If they turn out to be a horrible troll, you've get the reports. Let's say a horrible troll has been on EvilServer and EvilServer has been ignoring the reports against them. They now want to move to your GoodServer and bring all their post history with them. As an admin of GoodServer, you can't see that everyone has been reporting this troll for years. They're now moving over lots of horrible, inflammatory, potentially illegal posts to your server.

chuckadams 4mo ago
You can add your own keys to your DID, and IIRC you can even remove bsky's keys within a given timeframe (days).
- jacobgold 4mo ago
  You can also opt for a did:web identity using your own domain in which case did:plc is irrelevant to you. https://atproto.com/specs/did https://atproto.com/specs/did
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
quasigod 4mo ago
You can register a recovery key which allows overriding the signing key. This allows users to move from an adversarial PDS. I do think Bluesky should push for more users to add a recovery key, but I also understand why they haven't. Moderation tools arent limited to specific PDS's, labels are public. If an account has received many reports it will have been labelled by Bluesky's moderation account and other independent labellers. A PDS can check against these before allowing an account to migrate if they choose to. I'm not sure any are currently doing this, but this is something that can absolutely be improved in current implementations, not an inherent limitation of the architecture.
- verdverm 4mo ago
  How to adversarial migrate: https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/adversarial-pds-migration.html https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/adversarial-pds-migrat... *requires your own PLC key, which the vast majority of users do not have, protonmail has good prior art here (imo)
  - quasigod 4mo ago
    Yeah, I think Bluesky should put more effort in getting users to create their own PLC key. It's trivial for someone who knows about it to do it, but of course the average user has no idea what atproto is. They need to explain it in a user-friendly way and have a simple tool to do it. I'm not aware of what Proton does here, I'll look into that.

ascorbic 4mo ago

You can host it for free on Cloudflare using my Cirrus PDS: https://cirrus.earth/ https://cirrus.earth/

CharlesW 4mo ago
Brilliant, so happy to learn about this!
skybrian 4mo ago
For anyone curious about the issues discussed in this topic, see: Identity and your signing key https://cirrus.earth/concepts/identity/ https://cirrus.earth/concepts/identity/ > Cloudflare secrets are write-only: once set, they cannot be retrieved through the dashboard or the API. This is good for security and bad for recovery. The wizard prints the key exactly once during pds init. Save it then. Also: Back up your signing key https://cirrus.earth/guides/back-up-signing-key/ https://cirrus.earth/guides/back-up-signing-key/
- ascorbic 4mo ago
  It's also worth noting that if you're using `did:plc` for your identity (the default for Bluesky and most places) then you can rotate your signing key if you lose it. It's only `did:web` that makes it impossible to recover or rotate a key.

kevinak 4mo ago

Yes you can but the vast majority don’t, and that is what matters. When Bluesky goes rogue because of profitability issues or VC pressure, the vast vast majority of users lose their identities on the wider network. Users will choose the path of least resistance. It’s all about incentives.