#decentralisedidentity — Public Fediverse posts

@glyn There is no spec for nomadic identity itself AFAIK. In the Zot6 and Nomad protocols, it simply is part of the protocols.

What there is is limited to:

• the specification of the Zot6 protocol as implemented in Hubzilla
• the specification of the Nomad protocol (would be Zot12 if it was still compatible with Zot6) as implemented in (streams)
• ActivityPub FEPs, especially FEP-ef61 Portable Objects which implements Decentralized Identifiers as suggested by the W3C

Nomadic identity via ActivityPub is still very experimental and far from finalised. According to Mike Macgirvin, it is implemented in the streams repository and at least theoretically operational. But of the few (streams) users, nobody makes use of it, also because Nomad, which itself provides nomadic identity, is still (streams)' primary protocol whereas ActivityPub is optional. So when a (streams) channel is cloned, it's always cloned via Nomad.

His recent fork of the streams repository, a project named Forte, is basically (streams) without Nomad and Zot6 support, entirely based on ActivityPub, and thus the first publicly available ActivityPub-based Fediverse server software with nomadic identity.

But Forte itself is still seen as experimental. Even of the few (streams) users, nobody dares to test-drive it, also to let Mike go on tinkering with it without having to take care of support for instance admins or even users. Since Mike is officially retired and has slowed down his software development dramatically, things will probably stay this way for quite a long time. In fact, Mike himself is still running his own channels on (streams), so there isn't a single Forte server, much less channel, in productive use.

Last but not least, there is Mitra by @silverpill, the only Fediverse software not developed by Mike Macgirvin that is working on implementing nomadic identity. FEP-ef61 is implemented in release code, but full-blown nomadic identity only exists in a non-public development branch.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #DecentralizedIdentity #DecentralisedIdentity #NomadicIdentity #ActivityPub #FEP_ef61 #Zot #Nomad #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Mitra

@Ben Werdmuller What Bluesky is planning to do with the AT protocol looks like nomadic identity as ordered from Temu.

And nomadic identity is not a vague concept. It isn't futuristic technology either. It has been reality in the Fediverse for longer than Mastodon has been around. It was invented by @Mike Macgirvin ?️ in 2011 and then implemented in his own Zot protocol. Zot, in turn, was first implemented in 2012 in a project named Red, later the Red Matrix, known since 2015 as Hubzilla. And almost everything that Mike has made after Hubzilla had or still has nomadic identity implemented.

I'm writing to you from Hubzilla right now, so yes, it's very much part of the Fediverse. It's a rock-solid daily driver with a stable release (9.4.3).

Nomadic identity does not do away with a domain being part of your ID. What it does away with is the connection between account and identity and the connection between server and identity.

Nomadic identity means that your identity with everything that belongs to it (profile, posts, comments, DMs, connections, files, settings etc. etc. pp.) is no longer bound to any one Fediverse server. It can exist on multiple servers simultaneously. Not as dumb copies, but as clones. Bidirectional, live, hot backups in near-real-time.

Your identity always has one main instance which also lends the domain name. In addition, it can have one or multiple copies on different servers of your choice. Your accounts only serve to grant you access to the instances of your identity on a specific server. The main instance and the clones are constantly sync'd against each other in both directions. For example, after I've sent this comment, it was mirrored over to my clone.

Notice how I've written "bidirectional". For I can also log into my clone and use it just the same as my main instance. This is useful for when the server with my main instance on it is offline. When it comes back online, everything that has happened on my clone in the meantime is being sync'd to the main instance.

Granted, Mastodon and most of the rest of the Fediverse don't understand nomadic identity. When I post from my clone, they take my clone as an independent account with the ID [email protected]. But Hubzilla and (streams) do understand nomadic identity. Whatever comes from my clone, they'll correctly identify as being sent by [email protected] in spite of not coming from hub.netzgemeinde.eu.

Even "moving instances" is greatly facilitated. For example, if the server with the main instance of my channel shuts down permanently, I can make my clone my new main instance. That's easy-peasy: two mouse clicks and some 15 minutes of letting things settle, also because Hubzilla will have to go around and change all my connections from [email protected] to [email protected]. On the remote side, on people's Hubzilla and (streams) servers.

You've read that right: If you move, nomadic identity makes your nomadic followers automatically follow you at your new home. What's beyond science-fiction on Mastodon has been daily-driven reality on Hubzilla since its inception in 2015.

While nomadic identity currently only has stable support via Mike's Zot and Nomad protocols and on Hubzilla and (streams), its implementation using only ActivityPub has been in the making since last year.

CC: @glyn

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #DecentralizedIdentity #DecentralisedIdentity #NomadicIdentity #ActivityPub #Zot #Nomad #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)