mikedev

@mikedev@fediversity.site

Communications technologist. Internet, web, and fediverse pioneer. I build free communications tools in my spare time for free people based on common sense and what works, not on what sells. Systems integration, software development, and robot repair. Former music store owner. Plays a mean guitar, upside down and backwards.

Created fediverse technology long before it became cool. Still building the the most innovative fediverse servers you never heard of. You probably wouldn't like our software because we're big on privacy and online safety -- unlike the stuff you're probably using.

I came from the San Francisco bay area of the 1960s. Make of that what you will. I cut my teeth professionally in the bat-shit crazy world of Silicon Valley through the early 2000s, and have seen greed up close and personal -- and once played the tech startup game with gusto. I'm well and truly over it.

Currently living mostly off-grid on a modest farm in rural Australia. A free citizen of the world, with no lords, no masters, no allegiance, and no brands.

When the people making the rules are leading the world to the brink, maybe it's time to tell them all to bugger off and make your own rules.

Cheers.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

box464, to animals
@box464@mastodon.social avatar

Controversial discussion. Thinking it’s time to switch from #DogsOfMastodon #DogsOfPixelfed to something more generic.

Maybe #DogsOfFedi or #DogsOfSocialWeb as reach begins expanding beyond the known fediverse.

Maddie needs to be known across all platforms!

mikedev,

What's wrong with #dogs ?

mikedev,

Nah, but we can do something like https://fediversity.site/search?tag=dogs* and catch all of the matching tags.

Completely different way of looking at the fediverse. We were using #dogs and #cats long before Mastodon existed.

Since I have restricted (connections only) search permissions enabled and Mastodon doesn't support OpenWebAuth you'll need to do a signed ActivityPub fetch to find any results at that endpoint; but I assure you it works.

mitra, to random
@mitra@mitra.social avatar

#Mitra v2.19.0
https://codeberg.org/silverpill/mitra/releases/tag/v2.19.0
https://codeberg.org/silverpill/mitra-web/releases/tag/v2.19.0

  • Better support for Internationalized Domain Names.
  • Custom emojis can be added by providing name and URL (using add-emoji command).
mikedev,

I experimented with punycode usernames in streams (and its predecessor zap) several years back and we've got a feature toggle to turn it on. I keep forgetting it's there, so I should probably go back and double check everything still works (it should) and remove the feature toggle.

mikedev,

... and ... done.

mikedev,

You can pop over to /dev/finger on your favourite streams site and enter the following:

☮️❤️🎼@fediversity.site

J12t, to mastodon
@J12t@social.coop avatar

Anybody know what triggers a profile re-fetch in #mastodon ?

After an instance accessed a remote account for the first time, it fetches name, avatar, number of followers etc. When will it fetch it next to potentially update?

mikedev,

Can't answer that. Will only mention that I would consider it good practice to put an updated timestamp on the actor record, with a separate one on the profile photo and send an Update/(Person,Group, etc.) activity to your peeps when they change.

Probably a good idea to put a timestamp on followers and following as well, but my server has better things to do than try and keep accurate follower counts for the whole known fediverse. We have enough trouble dealing with the thousands/millions/? of Delete/Actor messages whenever anybody from anywhere in the Mastodon galaxy of the fediverse removes an account.

mikedev,

It's possible other instances can send these, and I can't rule them out - however the vast majority are sent by the original instance that hosted that actor. And each one is sent to every site in the known fediverse; regardless of whether they have ever interacted with the actor in question.

While I can see that as one way to ensure that the existence of that particular identity is completely removed from the fediverse, it doesn't really scale.

And to add insult to injury - if the identity is nomadic (I'm working on this now) it will require a bit more nuance - as you aren't removing the identity; but only a particular location for that identity.

jupiter_rowland, to random

I'm genuinely surprised that The Bad Space doesn't list loads of Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) instances. Not even on their 20% heat rating list.

After all, at least on the latter two, moderation is nowhere near Mastodon's level, and they seem to ignore reports from Mastodon. "Seem to ignore" because they actually don't support Mastodon reports AFAIK, but how are Mastodon people supposed to know?

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #FediblockMeta #TheBadSpace

mikedev,

Seen any bad content on streams? Spammers? Hate groups? Kiddie porn?

hrefna, to fediverse
@hrefna@hachyderm.io avatar

Part of my frustration with and one of the things I find baffling giving everything else in it: the lack of tools for backpressure.

Backpressure is fundamental in building reliable distributed systems (c.f., Notes on Distributed Systems for Young Bloods). From a C2S perspective I get why it wouldn't need to be specified, but from a S2S federated protocol perspective its absence is frustrating.

All that it says is to take care not to overwhelm others and a bit on rate limits

mikedev,

Yeah I've had a number of times where I wanted to query a collection - but hopefully something a bit more lightweight than a full blown query language.

And in the Nomad protocol, we've got delivery notifications. It's critical to finding out what happened to something in a decentralised communication system. It's 2024. Vanishing into space without any trace is not an option.

mikedev,

Most everybody uses followers, following and outbox in some form. We also use them for Access Lists (aka circles/aspects) and photo albums and search results. I'll probably use them for event calendars soon. And of course as mentioned we use them for conversations so that everybody sees the same view of the discussion. It's a very under-utilised organisational mechanism and that seems odd. They're quite useful.

Everybody has lists of all kinds of things on their server, but turning them into collections means you can share them.

mikedev,

That's fine for what you're doing, but we don't have a reply 'tree'. We have a conversation which is an object owned by its creator. They add and remove activities from it. If it wasn't added to the conversation collection, it's not part of the official conversation and supporting applications will ignore it. In this way we co-exist with microblogs, but we can do lots of things that they can't. Like hold a coherent conversation with a defined audience, and support circles/aspects and private groups, and have comment controls. And we can relay things without third party permission artifacts. And we aren't wasting time talking to people that never see us and don't even know we're in the conversation. it's actually a pretty clever construct.

evan, (edited ) to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Someday we should hold an in-person #Fediforum here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedExForum?wprov=sfla1

mikedev,

Maybe someday y'all will hold it in the fediverse. But I won't hold my breath.

mikedev,

I'm poor and on the other side of the world, and the online events are always at 2AM on some weird non-fediverse platform.

So no.

smallcircles, to fediverse
@smallcircles@social.coop avatar

Hey, which app allows an to be used as a ?

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/112414539433136490

#❓

mikedev,

#😊

mikedev,

Except the search will only work for my connections, who I've granted permission.

tallship, to privacy

#e2ee is a goal, not a promise. As far back as I can remember, forums like those supporting #Enigmail and #gpg were staffed with volunteers from the privacy community who repeatedly insisted on answering questions, like, "Is <this> (whatever this might be) totally secure?" with stock questions like, "What is it that you consider 'totally secure?" or answers such as, "Secure is a relative term, nothing is completely secure, how secure do you need your mission's communications to be?"

Phrases such as, reasonably secure should be indicators of how ridiculous it is to assume that any secure platform is EVER completely, and totally secure.

That begs the question, "Exactly how secure do you require your communications to be?" The answer is always, ... relative.

Which means that you should always believe Ellen Ripley when she says, "Be afraid. Be very afraid!"

https://www.city-journal.org/article/signals-katherine-maher-problem

#tallship #encryption #PGP #secure_communication #Privacy #FOSS

⛵

.

mikedev,

My experience is that state actors won't even try to decrypt your communications. That's old school - and a horribly inefficient use of resources. They'll come after you with a keylogger or manufactured legal nightmares or torture - to either or both sides of the communication; depending on the perceived value of your secret.

It all comes down to 4 fundamental questions:

  • What is the value of your secret to you
  • What resources do you have available to protect it
  • What is the perceived value of your secret to your adversary
  • What resources do they have available to divulge it
manlycoffee, to fediverse
@manlycoffee@techhub.social avatar

The whole idea of BlueSky supporting nomadic identities but the rest of the ActivityPub (plus other stuff) Fediverse being unable to do so is such an oversold idea.

A new service using ActivityPub behind the scenes (and not the AT Protocol) can absolutely support nomadic identities, even if the service doesn't treat a whole website as the actor.

It will still use did:plc, same as AT Protocol (BlueSky), but once done so, an application that understands how to work with did:plc can dereference an actor based on the DID.

That said, an existing service will simply not be compatible with this idea, without changing how it operates.

#Fediverse #ActivityPub #ATProto #ATProtocol #BlueSky #WebFinger

mikedev,

Shrug. I'm part of the "plus other stuff" fediverse and have had nomadic identity in the fediverse since long before either ActivityPub or Bluesky existed. I have it today. I already had it for years when Mastodon first arrived in the old StatusNet (plus other stuff) fediverse. I'm semi-retired but migrating that work to ActivityPub in my spare time. Whoever told you that we've been unable to do so is in fact spreading uninformed bullshit.

onepict, to random
@onepict@chaos.social avatar

I've never encountered a bear.

I have found herds of cows to be very disquieting. You do not want to be in a field with them when they are calving.

Although really they are scary all the time.

You hear a large rumbling. Then the herd appear and then they stop. Just watching you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI

mikedev,

Have had encounters with both. The bear - uneventful. It was a California brown, not a grizzly -- or it might have been a different outcome. We both sized each other up from 3 metres away and since neither acted aggressively - "have a nice day" and went along our separate paths.

In my experience, cows are gentle giants. They can be quite disarming when they've got horns and the herd is running to dinner - which is in a bucket under your arm; but give their bum a little scratch and you've got a friend for life.

jupiter_rowland, to random

So I've run this poll until yesterday. The question was whether the Fediverse has quote-posts.

20 users voted for yes, 8 users voted for no.

Of course, this poll wasn't representative. I dare say my "bubble" is more Fediverse-savvy than the average, and I know I had quite a number of voters from Hubzilla and (streams). So the result is greatly skewed towards "yes". And still, 40% of all voters thought the Fediverse had no quote-posts.

This shows how well especially Mastodon users know the Fediverse.

Oh, and by the way: The Fediverse does have quote-posts. Just about everything that isn't Mastodon can quote-post, and it all can even quote-post Mastodon toots with next to zero resistance. And in fact, quote-posts in the Fediverse are about six years older than Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares

mikedev,

We started doing quote posts as a way to bridge conversations from RSS feeds and StatusNet to Diaspora - since we could see all of them but they couldn't talk to each other directly. That would've been some time in 2011. I don't recall exactly when.

But people have been copy/pasting posts and snippets of posts and articles from external sources since forever. You actually can't stop them.

Eugen can't. Adam Mosseri can't. I can't. Nobody can. Pretend permissions aren't permissions.

liaizon, to random
@liaizon@wake.st avatar

I just had a radio flavored #activitypub idea. lets say I wanted to share a list of radio stations I like listening to: What if I had a list of them and each one was marked up in AP as a favorite that was linked to being a favorite of my account here maybe with rel="me" but like rel"my-stations" or something. and then other fediverse accounts could follow my list & automatically receive a OPML, PLS or M3U with all my stations that they could open in Transister or VLC or any app that supported it

mikedev,

Missed it the first time around. I'm not so much into stations as tunes; and my musical tastes are well off the beaten path -- but it's a cool idea.

mikedev,

I usually just tune into random internet radio stations with pretty random playlists of indie music. I call it the "infinite stream". You can listen to a different song every waking moment for the rest of your life and never hear the same song twice - if you want. I do find Uturn radio's dubstep channel is pretty good for coding to, without thinking too much about what's playing. I'm also kind of keen on Koori radio (aboriginal and south pacific islanders). That's usually just CDs that artists mail into the stations from all over Oceania.

I don't really listen to much of anything commercial any more. I stopped supporting the big 4 record labels about 20-25 years ago. More often than not if I want to listen to something I pick my guitar and play.

janettespeyer, to mastodon
@janettespeyer@flipboard.social avatar

I'd like to have all #Flipboard Users connect here on #Mastodon. For now, we are on Facebook until some of the logistics get ironed out. I strongly encourage #FlipboardUserGroup folks to get their Mastodon account and join the #fediverse. It's best to get in on the ground floor.

mikedev,

I thought flipboard was federated now. They're already part of the fediverse. Why would they need a Mastodon account?

Mastodon is a provider. Flipboard is a provider. Threads is a provider. Friendica is a provider. Pixelfed is a provider. They all work together and can all communicate with each other without everybody requiring accounts on every provider. That's what makes the fediverse work. For instance I'm on 'Y'. I don't have an account on any of those other things, yet here I am.

ricmac, to fediverse
@ricmac@mastodon.social avatar

While content is federated currently, #identity isn’t. And while that doesn’t diminish the decentralized nature of the #fediverse, having a single identity — that a user fully controls — would make it easier to sign up for multiple apps. My analysis of recent discussions here featuring @evanprodromou, @rabble, @deadsuperhero, @timbray, @osma & others. https://thenewstack.io/one-login-towards-a-single-fediverse-identity-on-activitypub/

mikedev,

I'm currently working on self-sovereign federated identity in the streams repository. I'm a semi-retired open source developer in Australia with a full time job and a farm and family and other commitments and nobody has shown any interest at all in helping me. So progress has been slower than it would've been had I done this 30 years ago. Although we provide crude but useful identity integration right now -- and have had working nomadic identity in the fediverse since 2012. The rest of the fediverse has ridiculed my work from the start and they are still doing so now. So it's unlikely you're even aware of the holistic vision of the fediverse and the integrated services that we bring to the table.

The framework and direction for the current work was laid out in FEP-ef61 by @silverpill . I've posted how this can be used cross-platform - it doesn't have to be "just" nomadic identity. It can also be an identity that you can re-use anywhere. Anybody can do this.

And it retains full compatibility with the rest of the fedi if your vision of the fediverse is to simply re-create Twitter or Instagram under ActivityPub. But for them to participate in federated identity, they would probably need to allow you to "bring your own identity" on sign-up. So they would need to lift a finger to participate -- if they wanted to take advantage of what nomadic and self-sovereign identity can offer them.

GhostOnTheHalfShell, to random
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@masto.ai avatar

#audacity #askfedi

So they've posted an update, but I wanted to ask around here, because audacity had taken some problematic steps in the past.

Is it radioactive or not?

mikedev,

I'm not intimately involved and haven't been keeping up, but from what I know, it's radioactive.

I bookmarked this for my next update:

https://tenacityaudio.org/

maegul, (edited ) to ghost
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

I think the and federations pose interesting questions about what platforms can and should be.

Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feed?

Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?

Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?

Are we worried that some choices by our platform or instance admin might hinder this process?

I'm rather skeptical.

1/

mikedev,

Yeah, I just read the entire thread and see what you''re getting at. I actually think it can work, but people need to change their mindset to focus on cooperation over empire, and some developers are a little slow getting the message. They're still building empires. That ain't gonna' work here.

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