If you are trying to #degoogle your life, be aware that one of the unpleasant side effects is that a shit ton of people will not be able to receive #email from you. I've been on an email address handled by my shared server provider for like 15 years now, and I can attest that #google and #yahoo are both pretty bad for blocking anything from a #domain outside the big providers.
My friend Evan Henshaw-Plath wrote recently about some concerns with ActivityPub. I want to go over his concerns one by one and give some assessment of how accurate and important I think they are. Rabble’s words in italics; my responses in just normal text.
User identities are tied to a server. This is only partially true; your user identity is tied to a domain, not a server. But most servers only handle one domain, and most people don’t move their domains between servers. We have a section on domain portability between servers on the ActivityPub Data Portability report.
Using domains is also how much of the Internet works. Email addresses are tied to a domain; Web sites are tied to a domain. You can move the domain between different implementations transparently. It’s a really robust architecture that has stood the test of time for almost 50 years.
Users can’t migrate between servers. Partially true. Rabble covers the essentials; you can move followers and not much else. It’s also possible to move your “stuff” between identities; that’s most of what our Data Portability task force is working on.
On a single server, it is impossible to change your username! Somewhat true. ActivityPub identities are URLs like https://social.example/user/vtles1XgZkPUEulBsFmRX . That identity URL is immutable; you can’t change it. Some implementations include a username in that url, like https://other.example/user/evanp. With that kind of server software, it’s true, you can’t change the username.
Also, we use a standard called Webfinger that maps an identity string like username@domain to an URL. You can read about it in the ActivityPub Webfinger report. Some servers use that string, instead of the ActivityPub ID, as the unique ID for a remote user. That’s discouraged, but if someone does that, changing your user ID will make you no longer findable for those other servers. I think as we stabilize our use of WebFinger, some of these usages are going to get better.
Fediverse servers have total control over your account and data. True. This is the “federation” part of the fediverse. It’s how Web sites and email work. Don’t use a fediverse server without a good trust relationship with your server admin; ideally someone you have a business relationship with, or your employer, or your university. Same goes for email!
It also means that if you control your own server, you have total control over your account and data. That’s a feature, not a bug.
Another option is using a cooperative server, like cosocial.ca or social.coop. A cooperative is a legal structure in which members pay for and manage their own service. I think cooperatives are awesome.
The fediverse is a network of fiefdoms, each server admin having total control over their users. This seems about the same as the previous statement, but OK. I think the key strength of the fediverse here is that we can have dozens of different models for server governance — coops, enterprises, city libraries, family servers, individual servers. That level of experimentation is a feature, not a bug. Governance is not baked into the protocol.
Each kind of fediverse server is isolated. This one is just plain wrong. ActivityPub is based on an open data standard called Activity Streams 2.0 (AS2) which models social data. There is an extensive standard vocabulary that can represent Web content like text, images, video and audio, and the social graph, but also well-known social interactions like check-ins, events, and groups. More importantly, Activity Streams 2.0 is extensible, meaning you can add properties to existing types, or whole new types of objects or interactions. And every ActivityPub server is built to handle AS2.
What is true is that we have had a lot of servers that only handle a subset of the AS2 vocabulary, and reject content they don’t know how to handle. This is mostly due to mimicking the siloed social networks; we’ve gotten used to thinking of different social networks for different kinds of content. I think this is changing, especially as new kinds of content hit the network. Developers are just learning how to effectively handle extension content with fallback representations. I look forward to this improving over time.
The fediverse has no privacy; there is no system of end-to-end encrypted messaging. The first part is false; you can mark your posts as followers-only, or directed to a single person, or a group of people. Servers enforce this privacy. You can also mark that you don’t want your public posts to be indexable or your public account to be discoverable.
However, the second part is true; we don’t have end-to-end encryption. So, if you send a private message to someone on another server, you message can be read by both your admin and their admin. It’s stored in the clear on both servers. This is also how email works, as well as most direct messages on commercial social networks. However, it’s something worth working on. I’ve sketched out an architecture for end-to-end encryption over ActivityPub, and I’ve got a proposal out to work on it for Summer of Protocols. I think it will be good to level this up!
The fediverse has no system for micropayments. This is true. The fediverse is also first and foremost for social networking — connecting to friends, family, colleagues and neighbours. Most of these interactions are not mediated by payment; in fact, payment cheapens those interactions.
However, there are other relationship types on the fediverse — supporting creators, journalists, or publishers. The main way to do this today is with paid subscriptions; for example, you can subscribe to evanplus@prodromou.pub to get access to premium content I publish. You have to send me US$5 out-of-band or I won’t approve the follow; that’s the state of play right now on the fediverse.
I think in-band payments are kind of cool for this kind of work, as well as for marketplaces — buying and selling services or goods over the fediverse. I think the easiest structure is adding payment URLs like a PayPal account, or blockchain wallets like a Bitcoin Lightning address.
Lastly, and most importantly for me, the culture of fediverse server admins and developers is vindictive. I don’t think this is the case; I love the culture of the fediverse, which is playful, conversational, and collaborative.
I think there are a plenty of good points in Rabble’s critique, but there’s one way that I think he’s extremely wrong. There is still a lot to do in the ActivityPub ecosystem, but we have the architecture and extension mechanisms to make them possible. It’s totally not required to go start a whole new social protocol to build those things in from scratch. In fact, it’s a real mistake; it’s far better to work from the existing standard and build on it. Open standards like ActivityPub have a legitimacy that ad hoc systems like Nostr can never have, and it’s the reason that there is so much interesting development going on in the ActivityPub world.
Gründer wissen es bereits: Ein #Startup braucht die richtige Domain, das ideale Webhosting und ein effektives Toolkit. Doch wo soll man anfangen? Unser neuester Blogartikel hält die Antworten bereit: jetzt lesen!
On another front, I am now in the process of setting up our new #thai#company together with my wife. The #lawyer is already at work. 🥰️
The name is set, the #logo and a minimal #corporate design are made (I used an #opensource font and did all the work in #inkscape), the #domain is bought and set up, the #website is in the works (with #grav) and our thai #friends are on board as shareholders as well. 😃️
Unfortunately I can't share the details yet, but I'm still really excited. 🥳️
KI-gestützte Phishing-Angriffe verändern die Landschaft der Cyber-Sicherheit radikal. Erfahren Sie hier, wie Sie den Betrügern trotzdem einen Schritt voraus bleiben. 🔗 https://bit.ly/3UTsTRC
Do you have any suggestions on where to easily sell a domain? 💡
It would be due in a couple of days. 🗓️
I have found many sites online, but I would like some advice from someone who has actually sold their domain successfully. 🙏 #domain#monetize
It's pathetic that the domain name for X is STILL called 'twitter'. It's very unlikely that Musk would be able to claim a domain name that's simply named 'X'
I'm considering creating another personal #website, but for more formal things like writing articles and programming updates, as opposed to the usual #blog stuff I have on my #Neocities site. It'll also have a simpler design, optimised more for reading than having a fun appearance.
I'll most likely buy a domain from #Namecheap; but Neocities requires a subscription in order to use a custom #domain, so does anyone have any suggestions for cheap or free web #hosting that I could use?
Hi Schwarmintelligenz, ich bräuchte mal euer geballtes Fachwissen.
Folgendes ist gegeben:
Domain ist bei Anbieter A
VPS ist bei selben Anbieter A gemietet und die Domain zeigt auf diesen VPS
Folgendes "Problem" soll gelöst werden: Auf dem VPS soll kein Mailserver installiert werden, trotzdem sollen aber für bzw. über die Domain Mails verschickt werden. Zum Bleistift für Registrierungsmails im Forum, Mails bei vorliegenden Antworten u.s.w.
Mein erster Gedanke war, für die Mails und der Domain mailbox.org verwenden. Allerdings funktioniert so ja nur der Empfang, allerdings kein Versand, da ja kein nutzbarer SMTP für die Domain verfügbar ist.
Zweiter Gedanke ist, bei demselben Anbieter ein kleines Webhosting Paket, das Mails beinhaltet, mieten und darüber dann die Mails verschicken.
Habt ihr andere/bessere Ideen oder Gedanken? Immer raus damit. 😉
Hi all. Hope everyone is doing well. It's about to be 3:00 AM here, and I'm about to get some sleep, but before I do, I wanted to ask for #advice from those who might know more about #technology, creating #websites, and #accessibility than I do. My mom runs a #construction#business and has a website she designed herself with drag and drop on #GoDaddy. She owns the #domain it's on and wants to move the site for a few reasons: it keeps getting hacked and she's getting a lot of spam and scam messages, customer service is poor, and GoDaddy isn't very #accessible with #ScreenReaders, so I can't help her manage her website at all. I've done some research and seen that other recommended no-code website builders are #Wix, #Squarespace, and #Weebly, but I can't find a lot of information on their accessibility. I've seen posts on #Reddit recommending hiring someone to design your website, but we don't know anyone who could do that, and our budget probably wouldn't be high enough. My mom isn't great with #tech and really needs a no-code solution. Does anyone know about the accessibility of website builders like the ones I mentioned, or can you suggest another one that might work? Thanks. #blind@mastoblind
What’s in a #domain name? From .ai to .vc, inside the weird and lucrative marketplace of #website addresses https://restofworld.org/2023/whats-in-a-domain-name/
“Cate estimates the revenue generated by Anguilla’s .ai domain — around $3 million per month — currently accounts for around a third of the government’s monthly budget”
If anyone wonders why nitter.net stopped working, it's due to Njalla domain provider suspending dev's account... after someone made a complaint about nudity images. More absurdly, links are from other instance: nitter.it https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1150
At best, this is extremely shortsighted and premature decision by Njalla because Nitter is simply Twitter's frontend. At worst, it's a deliberate attempt to pressure on Nitter devs once again
Ich werde der ein oder andere Person einen #Fediverse#Account auf meinen #Server ermöglichen und habe dazu eine allgemeinere #Domain als meine eigene crazy-to-bike.de registriert.
Nun stellt sich noch die Frage nach der richtgen #Software für die #Instanz.
Das gefällt mir aber im Vergleich zu anderen Möglichkeiten weder optisch, noch finde ich die #Zeichenlimitierung gut.
Derzeit bin ich ja auf #Firefish unterwegs, aber das scheint den letzen Prognosen zu Folge ein höchstwahrscheinlich totes Pferd zu sein.
#Sharkey als weiteren #Misskey-Nachfolger #Fork teste ich gerade auch, was für mich eine mögliche Alternative zu Firefish ist. Aber auch dieses Projekt ist ja noch sehr frisch und in meinen Augen einfach nicht absehbar, wie dauerhaft das Ganze fortbesteht.
Auf #Friendica war ich ja auch schon eine Zeit lang unterwegs, aber das ist optisch auch sehr angestaubt und hat bei mir auf dem Server auch datenbanktechnisch rebelliert.
Ich weiß, dass es noch eine ganze Reihe Alternativen gibt, will und kann aber nicht alles durchprobieren.
Daher hoffe ich auf gute Tipps.
Wichtig ist
kein, hohes oder einstellbares Zeichenlimit
gute Strukturierung und Kategoriesierung von Lesezeichen (wie bei Firefish und Sharkey mit den Clips)
Folgen von #Hastags und / oder Begriffen (wie bei Firefish und Sharkey mit den Newspickern / Antennen)
gutes, ansprechendes und leicht bedienbares responsive Design für die Nutzung auf dem Smartphone (oder volle Unterstützung durch eine App wie bei Mastodon)
Schön wäre
Konfigurierbarkeit des Speicherverbrauchs durch die Föderation (was wird wie lange auf dem eigenen Server vorgehalten) wie bei Mastodon
automatische Löschung von Beiträgen konfigurierbar wie bei Mastodon
hohe Wahscheinlichkeit einer nachhaltigen Weiterentwicklung
Moderierte Kontoerstellung wie bei Mastodon
Je länger ich hier schreibe, denke ich, dass Mastodon für sehr vieles davon wohl die richtige Software wäre - will ich aber eigentlich aus Gründen nicht.
Woot woot! My team is officially on Mastodon. We'll be posting on suspicious, malicious, and just plain curious things in DNS. Follow us @InfobloxThreatIntel !
This morning I woke up and one of the first things I did for the day, after getting my coffee of course, I renewed the AllThingsTech.social domain for another year!
It's crazy to think that we've been here for close to a year already and it's domain renewal time.
@beardedtechguy and I are very proud of what #AllThingsTech has become to this point and look forward to doing a lot of new things in the future!
Our hoster for linkstack.de has breached contract with us and seemingly has gone underground, causing the instance to be unavailable.
We currently have no access to the domain, but we were able to rescue the data and set up a replacement instance on https://de.linksta.cc until we get the domain back.
If you want, you can export your data to another instance or use the replacement in the meantime.