cdp1337

cdp1337 , 6 days ago

@BeAware "How can the fediverse be more private"...

Hang on, let us exchange GPG public keys before we proceed. ;)

cdp1337 , 5 days ago

@Larvitz @BeAware

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cdp1337 , 5 days ago

@BeAware @Larvitz In short, each key is in 2 parts; the public and the private.

I (as a third party), can take your public key and use it to encrypt a message that only the matching private key can reveal.

You can also use multiple public keys to encrypt a message, so you can chat with multiple recipients at once.

Signing works on a similar premise, where you can sign a plain text message with your private key, and me (again as a third party), can use your public key to verify the plain text message was not altered.

The main unfortunate part is access to the private key; email clients like Thunderbird support it natively and transparently, (sending/receiving encrypted messages "just works"), but Mastodon being a web application, doesn't have access to your private key, so a desktop app would be required (or a browser plugin would be needed).

cdp1337 , 5 days ago

@BeAware @Larvitz Oh yeah, when I encrypted that message to Larvitz, I just entered their email as the recipient.

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any desktop clients for Mastodon which have native support for this, but that would be an amazing feature for one!

cdp1337 , 1 month ago

@BeAware Alright fine, I'll give it a watch while I work on this network diagnostic tool.

cdp1337 , 1 month ago

@BeAware

They were chatting about "quote posting", I have no idea WTF they're referring to. Is it using > to create a blockquote in a message? I don't know... probably some twitter term hence why I wouldn't know it.

They chat about the Bluesky bridge; I still fail to see why there's a bridge that's needed in the first place. They developed a social media platform with the intent to be federated; just use the already accepted standards instead of trying to reinvent it themselves. It's like Novell trying their hardest to push IPX when IP was already in place, then additional software translation needing to be built to support this arbitrary protocol.

5% search selection sounds about right. Mastodon has a lot of work needed to improve the UX, this stat is indicative of that; most users don't even realize there's a "Settings" section of any of their accounts.

37min: I'm sorry, I can't do long-form content on Mastodon? Have you SEEN some of my articles? Some of them are pretty damned lengthy! They're correct that it's server centric, but fail to go into the tidbit that it's open source, so the operator can choose to modify the software to allow for things like long-form content.

39min: Eh? Wasn't the idea with Threads and Bluesky to be federated platforms from the get-go? Or were they originally just aiming for the traditional (and failing) monolithic centralized concept? If bluesky wasn't originally federated, but added it afterwards, that's even more irritating that they didn't use a published standard for a new feature.

He reminds me of a buddy of mine who built an eCommerce bridge application to cross sell/dropship between Amazon and Ebay. I don't know how I feel about that...

I still don't understand WTF Flipboard is; it appears to just be Yahoo news, ie: a bunch of public news articles plopped on a page... How is that federation? Is it considered federated as Wordpress has a federated plugin where blog posts can be sent to users directly via follow requests? Clicking "follow" on a topic just takes me to the register page on Flipboard...

56min Yeah, the dude in the red shirt has a good point, how "federated" follow count and "internal" follow count is a little awkward. Why is there a differentiation between federation system, (at least when possible).

Their lack of split screen feels off. Why does each speaker require full screen one-at-a-time when they're having a conversation with each other? It would feel much more natural if they were side by side as they were conversing.

Yeah... probably not quite the feedback you were interested in, but those were my thoughts as I was listening to the video.

cdp1337 , 1 month ago

@BeAware Yeah, I don't have an issue that he's making a bridge or how that bridge handles opt-in / opt-out; I have an issue that he needs to make a bridge in the first place.

Bluesky should have implemented ActivityPub when they rolled out federation. THEIR software should handle .....

OH, wait.... does Bluesky just not want to federate or something?

cdp1337 , 1 month ago

@BeAware ..... yeah, that's fucking useless. That's just twitter with a reskin.

But from a corporation standpoint, that move makes sense. Why allow users the freedom to choose where they reside? You are just losing market share (and thus losing stock valuation, which we all know is the only thing most corporations give a fuck about).

cdp1337 , 3 months ago

@BeAware I particularly like the feature added in that release; "Add an hourly check to change registrations in absence of mod for a week"

It may be controversial, but I feel this would be a useful change for users as well; who wants to join an abandoned instance?

cdp1337 , 4 months ago

@BeAware Alright, I've seen you mention opt-in/opt-out over the past few days now...

What are you referring to in regards to opting in or opting out? What are you opting-out from? Do you have a link to an article talking about whatever this is in regards to?

cdp1337 , 4 months ago

@BeAware I read the article, but feel I am still at a loss. Following the source link to the github issues page revealed issue #835 [https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835] however, which if this is what the debate is about, does make more sense.

While I personally do not agree with Mitsunee's thought that public posts on the public internet should NOT be available to the public, despite being posted on the ............. public.....internet, if they have that desire they're more than welcome to ask their server admin to just block that particular bridge endpoint. It does not strike me as a controversial topic.

If the debate is more around benaryorg's comment, it seems to me that some of their points are understandable and some less so. They are correct in stating that (let's use my instance and your instance as examples), the two of us have never signed any official terms of service agreement, and some of my content may not be suitable for your audience, and vice versa. I do not see it as being illegal for you to see my posts on your instance; moreso it would simply mean that you would just have no legal course for pursue action based on breach of contract/TOS.

A more realistic scenario would be my instance and FB/Meta/Threads; adult content is allowed here but presumably not on Threads. If content they pull in violates their internal TOS, that's THEIR problem, much like how instances which post content which violate MY TOS is MY problem and generally get blocked when brought to my attention.

Their application not respecting the DELETE command does seem problematic, but that's more of an issue with their implementation which should be addressed.

As for "posting my data without my permission", well.... the user is not writing content stored on their private computer which someone is breaking into and stealing; the data is being published on a PUBLIC forum in microblog format. Being available to the public is kinda the entire point of this platform. If the user is posting content which they would prefer not be accessible by the global public internet, maybe they just shouldn't post it on the global public internet.

It seems to me that benaryorg and presumably other users who posted under that thread would instead prefer to use an instance firewalled off from the general public internet and require a VPN for access........ also known as an intRAnet site. They seem to be confusing intERnet with intRAnet. Understandable as they are very close in spelling.

That or their logic is just going completely over my head and I am not understanding their concerns. Either are very possible. Anyway, thanks for linking the article!

cdp1337 , 4 months ago

@BeAware Oh ok, good, I'm not going crazy. (well...... I very well may be going crazy, but at least not due to this.)

I thought you were being serious; it's difficult to interpret sarcasm when the industry-standard "/s" is omitted.

(Maybe we should add a feature request for "mark this post as sarcastic" to ActivityPub/Mastodon.)

cdp1337 , 4 months ago

@BeAware No worries, I personally have a hard time containing my snark as well.

I find that writing an opinion article in a local text editor and just letting it sit there, only to come back to it later and re-read helps. One several occasions I've found myself thinking "woah shit, yeah, I REALLY need to tone this back"