Discussion
Internet domain name (ex: example.com) are a reasonable option for making identity on the Internet more human-friendly.
But, Internet domain names are a poor choice as the base primitive for identity.
At best you rent an Internet domain name. But, they can be lost if you don't pay the rent. They can even be seized — even if you do pay.
There are many examples of this this, but — consider Sci-Hub.
How many times has Sci-Hub had its Internet domain names seized. Numerous!
@reiver@mastodon.social okay, fair, but I think dids are not a technically feasible solution because it is confusing for now (sorry @silverpill@mitra.social)
Maybe I just need to read up on DIDs and just do it... but domain names have the weight and inertia of decades of implementation.
I was not trying to make an argument for DIDs.
I was (also) not even trying to make an argument to stop using Internet domain names. (I think Internet domain names can make things more human-friendly.)
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I was trying to make an argument for there being something lower-level than Internet domain name based identity (such as acct-URIs). Something that can survive people loosing their Internet domain names.
I.e., let's make using Internet domain names better.
The question in my mind that motivated me post that is:
Are there "good" ways of having identity on the Fediverse survive people loosing their Internet domain names.
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The solution doesn't have to be cryptographic keys or DID.
And, I don't want to get rid of Internet domain names (or acct-URIs).
But could we make things better.
@reiver@mastodon.social Sorry for assuming — that seems to be the typical progression of these types of threads... domain names suck → use DIDs instead
Would love a third option heh.
@julian @evan @silverpill @ropoko
I didn't intend to suggest other options here with that post, but —
And, I think there is more than just one other alternative option.
But, here is one —
@reiver @julian @silverpill @evan
interesting, how?
@julian @reiver @silverpill There are about 390M registered domain names. The system has, in fact, been used for decades. The Web and email depend on DNS.
Cryptographic keys as the root of identity are extremely hard for people to use -- about 10% of all Bitcoin wallets with money in them are lost for good. And there's actual money in those.
DNS >> cryptographic keys
@evan @julian @reiver Cryptographic identity is also not a new technology, PGP was developed more than 30 years ago, and a lot has happened since then. Hardware keys, HSMs in smartphones, etc. And DIDs.
DID is an abstraction that allows key rotation and delegation of key management to a trusted 3rd party. Bluesky uses DIDs for identities but most of its users never touch a secret key.
Anyway, in Fediverse we don't need to choose between domain names and DIDs. We have both, because FEP-ef61 is a backward compatible protocol upgrade.
I agree that using cryptographic keys are difficult for regular people. Although I do think the BTC and crypto people have improved the UX a lot since the days of PGP & GPG. But still not easy.
FWIW, I was not trying to make an argument (here) for cryptographic keys (as identity) either. (Even though I have talked about that in the past.)
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