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Any arguments against separating identity from instance/platform? (single identity across the fediverse)

I am sure it was discussed here before, but I can’t find a good way to search this community.

Are there any arguments against having a user’s identity federate, and be compatible across platforms?

For example, let us say I sign up with my instance, [email protected]

But what if I go on mastodon, and I want to have my own micro blog. Or maybe go to write freely and post some blog posts. I’d have to make a different account on each one.

What if mastodon or write freely could just let me log in with my lemmy account (or lets call it federated account). This has several benefits:

  • users don’t have to scratch their head on if I am the same person or not across these platforms
  • theoretically, someone following my feed can get updates on what I do on multiple platforms

Now I understand this would be difficult to implement and iron out all the edge cases, but am I missing anything on why it wouldn’t be a desirable feature, given it is implemented?

dch82 ,

IMO, if you choose a common username (except for alt accounts) for all your platforms (in my case, dch82) it’s fairly easy to find all the accounts. If you want to, you can also link your other platforms in the bio.

matcha_addict OP ,

If you choose a username, and I sign up with your same username before you do, then now you’re screwed. So I agree this is a solution, but it is not without faults. No one prevents someone from signing up with your username (either maliciously or they just liked the same name)

MartianSands , (edited )

That’s going to be a problem whatever solution you come up with, because of the federated nature of the lemmy system.

There’s no central authority to hand out usernames, so if two people sign up to different instances with the same username, any design which didn’t attach instance name to each username would fail. The only way around it would be for each instance to contact every other instance which exists, including the ones which haven’t federated yet, and negotiate ownership of the new username, and that’s just not possible

matcha_addict OP ,

That’s fine. I may be [email protected] someone else might be [email protected], but I am the only [email protected] and anytime someone sees that full ID, they know for a fact it’s me. But if they see [email protected], they cannot know for sure.

jelloeater85 ,
@jelloeater85@lemmy.world avatar

You can also setup a little linktree page and just have all your profiles link to that so you don’t have to update 10000 links on every profile.

RmDebArc_5 ,
@RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works avatar

AFAIK you can already sign into pixelfed with your mastodon account. It is a good idea, I think the only problem would be you would be completely reliant on Instance and if that goes down everything is gone

matcha_addict OP ,

I agree, but reliance on an instance is already a big issue.

Theoretically, if this gets implemented, it could be possible to federate the ability to sign up elsewhere, or at least make your user downloadable and sign up with it elsewhere

rglullis ,
@rglullis@communick.news avatar

This is a controversial issue.

Some people don’t care about having an unique identity and actually favor creating multiple accounts on each service, to present themselves with different avatars depending on who they are interacting with. They are not “attached” to their identities and see this an opportunity to stay pseudonymous online and protect their “real” identity.

Some people think that the instance you join should be also somewhat indicative of your tribe and that they should be able to filter out who they talk about by checking the domain. This view is especially favored by the Mastodon crowd.

And then some other people (I think I would include myself) would like to be able to not just “use” a single identity, but to have portable identity in the Fediverse as a way to ensure that we can remain sovereign over our online presence. I would personally love for Communick customers to be able to use their personal domain, because that would mean that if even if I closed down things tomorrow, they would be able to migrate easily and without depending on me.

matcha_addict OP ,

Some […] favor creating multiple accounts on each service

That’s fine, this feature wouldn’t prevent them!

What you mentioned in your last paragraph is in line with what I want, but maybe more of a next step from there.

rglullis ,
@rglullis@communick.news avatar

So far, the only Fediverse project that lets users with different domains (and identities) under the same server is Takahe, but its development is a bit stalled and it is only supporting Mastodon.

Are you asking all these questions out of mere curiosity or are you willing to commit some type of effort and/or resources to see this happening?

matcha_addict OP ,

It is regarding something I’m working on, but you may not find it interesting as it is not ActivityPub based (but a bridge will be implemented).

rglullis ,
@rglullis@communick.news avatar

If it’s open source, yes I am (very) interested.

matcha_addict OP ,

It will be yes! Right now I only have it locally and its messy, but the idea is like this:

  • Your home feed allows customizing the sorting algorithm. There’s a sensible chronological-based algorithm, but you can customize it more.
  • Content is organized into feeds.
  • By default, you have your own personal feed similar to a micro blogging platform.
  • but you have the ability to have multiple feeds. For example, maybe you’re into both technology and wood working, but not all followers are interested in both. So you have separate feeds, and users can follow one or the other.
  • A feed isn’t only for one person’s posts. For example, I might maintain a woodworking feed, but I’d “share” posts from other wood workers. In essence, I am a sort of “content curator”. I pick out the good woodworking content and put it in a single feed for you to follow!
  • A feed can be like a Lemmy community or a Facebook Group. So it can allow multiple posters, it can be open to anyone to post, or it can be approval-only (but submitted from anyone). It can also be private or public (though that’s a low priority feature)
  • A feed can use another feed as a source / baseline. This might mean that you get all the other feed’s posts, but maybe you as the maintainer filter it further, or add some of your own. Or you can use multiple feeds as the source, so maybe there are multiple good wood working feeds and I like them all, so I combine them

In my opinion, this replaces automated algorithms with manual curation. It also replaces moderation, as you might like a community but wish it was differently moderated, there might be another feed that sources the first feed but with extra moderation!

The project is still in its infancy and I don’t get too much time to work on it. But since you’re interested, I’ll try to get it into an open source-able state (albeit far from workable) and let you know when I do!

rglullis ,
@rglullis@communick.news avatar

I might have good news for you: you don’t need to drop ActivityPub to do that. Maybe what you are looking for is very close to my idea of a social web browser, i.e, an ActivityPub-based application that is controlled by the client and not the server.

What programming language are you working on?

Flax_vert ,

Why does it actually matter? If you’re that important, you should have your own domain and instance

matcha_addict OP ,

I already talked about why that matters in my post (didn’t mention anything about a person’s importance), but I’m happy to clarify and expand on it!

To summarize again, this would allow users to follow a person across platforms. Part of the benefit of the fediverse is I can choose to get content from a microblogging platform as well as macro blogging or threaded like lemmy. It would be a good feature for me to be able to follow someone across all federated platforms without having to scavenge for them.

Moreover, it would allow me to use other types of platforms without having to sign up on each one. This would also be useful for instance admins. If instance A trusts instance B, then it can allow instance B users to sign in without having to sign up separately.

This could also mean that instance A could be an identity provider only

Flax_vert ,

Ooh that’s nice. Wasn’t Kbin trying to do this?

AbouBenAdhem ,

AFAIK, the only practical thing in the way of having a separate server that just hosts identity accounts for all types of fediverse content (while the content itself is hosted on other servers) is that your host server is responsible for presenting the interface through which you view the rest of the fediverse, and the interfaces are specialized for a particular content type. You could have a server running a variety of fediverse software (mastodon, lemmy, etc.) which automatically generates similar accounts for each user on each service, so users could sign up once and then switch interfaces; but I think the rest of the fediverse would still treat them as separate identities.

Rooki ,
@Rooki@lemmy.world avatar

It will be difficult to implement and pretty much at the end of the list for the software you want to implement.

Users most of the time dont want to get identified ( some are here because of the privacy ) and if you want to get identified you can just use PGP signing.

matcha_addict OP ,

PGP signing is cool but it does not grant the benefits I was talking about unfortunately :(

will_a113 ,

It would be ideal If the big activitypub platform stacks like mastodon, Lemmy, etc could agree on some standard like a federated OIDC or DID approach for all authx/authn functions. then fediverse users could get cross-platform and even cross-instance logins “for free”

maegul ,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

I would think that it’s naturally an opt-in feature and therefore essentially fine with only a practical upside.

Rednax ,

It is a matter of responsibility. If you can log into any lemmy instance or mastodon server with the same account, then which server takes responsibility for your actions in the fediverse?

I have seen instances be defederate from because of their lax account creation requirements, or because of harrasment from users from a specific instance.

If an account can log into any instance, then who is responsible for banning the account?

matcha_addict OP ,

It is a matter of responsibility. If you can log into any lemmy instance or mastodon server with the same account, then which server takes responsibility for your actions in the fediverse?

This is a good point and I should clarify: in this model, you wouldn’t get open access to any instance. The instance has to explicitly trust (white list) instances from which it will accept log ins. It would be like federation is done today, but the lists would be separate ideally.

Another model is it could do it on a case-by-case basis on the user level instead of instance level. But it would still enable the user to keep their dame ID and original domain.

hendrik , (edited )

I don't see any technical limitations preventing that. And I think it's a desirable feature. Imagine a world where you don't have to come up with lots of passwords and sign up on dozens of websites, but instead have one identity that's saved in your device and you can access any free software service without signing up and it'll already tell you if your friends are there. It could interconnect content and features...

It's a bit difficult to get it right, though. The identities need to be secure and reliable. Servers can't vanish (or data needs to be distributed) or people will lose everything at once. We need pseudonymous handles, sock puppets and access control. And there is a lot of trust involved. We need to mitigate for spam and trolls...

And agree on one standard that gets everything right for any arbitrary use-case.

ada ,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

We host instances for trans and gender diverse folk, to provide a space that explicitly puts their safety first.

Take away the idea of an instance as a community/identity/distinct space, and the goal for these places existing is gone. Instead of a community and a safe space, we become a generic bit of hardware that enables transphobes as much as trans folk.

That’s not something I’d be keen to keep sinking my own funds in to to support.

What I’d much rather see is instance based accounts, however, with the ability to take over/migrate them from other instances, so that if an instance goes down, people can still keep their identity. It would also allow instances focused on protecting minority communities to keep doing that.

matcha_addict OP ,

This is a very valid concern and I should clarify a bit about the mechanism I have in mind.

An instance admin can decide which instances it federates identities with, similar to how regular federation is done (but maybe these would have separate lists)

So, in your case, you would only federate identity with instances you trust to have done proper vetting. It wouldn’t be by default that having a federated instance means you have access to login the entire fediverse.

ada ,
@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

White listing encourages centralisation because it makes it really hard for new communities/instances to develop the trust they need to be included in existing white list circles.

matcha_addict OP ,

This white listing will not impact regular federation, so smaller communities will still get the same benefit they get now. They will only not get identity (for logins) federation until they gain trustworthiness

nate ,

@matcha_addict There are very few drawbacks (assuming it's implemented in a way that doesn't break things). That's why it's part of two of the big three social protocols (Nostr & AT/BlueSky) and Activity Pub might get it soon.

I've written about and participated in discussions about implementing identities not controlled at the instance level and discussed bridges that connect activity pub to other protocols. The one major drawback people tend to bring up is moderation, but moderation is not effected like some people think it could be. Just like a PGP key doesn't force Gmail to host a user's email and a domain doesn't force Dreamhost to host a blog, even if identities are separated from instances an individual instance can still ban a user from participating in that instance or prevent other instances from interacting with your instance. The only difference is that if an instance goes down or bans a user the user can pick up and move to a different instance instead of having their account nuked. As somebody who lost a profile due to a SQL database breaking it would have been really nice to have been able to continue.

Also, in the thread here I heard a few people talking about it negating communities. We already can communicate with remote servers, I'm not fully sure where the argument that independent-from-instance-identities will break communities comes from. If something like nomadic identities are implemented, which again, they may be, your account will still be largely focused on one instance.

Say you're an arborist and join an arborist Mastodon community. You're still a part of the community, and your account is centralized there until you say otherwise. Yes, you can reply to a lemmy post or peertube post by authenticating on one of those instances, but you can already do that (there's just a lot of jank since Activity Pub's monolithic servers often have a hard time understanding each other). Yes, say you reply to a lemmy post about beekeeping that would show up in the local insatance timeline (assuming remotely authenticated posts are allowed to show up in the timeline), but again not only can you already do that, but it's not like you'd expect an aborist focused instance would have ONLY aborist focused discussions.

Lol, I hope I was coherent. I just misinterpreted a bottle of bottle of lime infused liquor as 30 proof instead of 30% ethanol so I consumed a little more than I expected. Anyway, regardless, personally consider identities separated from servers/instances a very big pro, with very little drawbacks (if implemented in a way that does not break existing implementations).

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