This may be a very stupid idea, and I know blockchain has a bad reputation for scams, but I was wondering how viable the Internet Computer blockchain might be for a Fediverse universal ID. From what I read on their website, data is much cheaper to host on their blockchain (something like 70 million times less than on Ethereum). It is also possible to host entire websites with Wasm on it). So here are my questions:
- Is there an ongoing effort to make a universal ID for the Fediverse or are we not there yet?
- Does blockchain have its place in the Fediverse, not necessarily for crypto, but for decentralized data storage.
- Do you think something like the Internet Computer blockchain could serve as a universal ID for the Fediverse?
Again, sorry if this is a dumb post, I am really new to the concept of this space as a whole.
Sorry but I still see blockchain as a solution in search of a problem
Decentralization is the opposite of a Univeral ID.
True, and yet a blockchain has the seemingly paradoxical nature of being decentralized as well as universal (presuming everyone uses the same blockchain of course). But it’s still decentralized in that no one company or entity controls all of it.
Take blockchain and flush it down where it belongs.
Crypto currency was perhaps one of the biggest mistakes of the last 20 years
The tech is fine and actually pretty exciting. The shit coins need to go. I think we should separate the two concepts IMHO.
Have you looked at Nostr? It is based on public and private key pairs used for encryption. The public key serves as your ID. The UI is similar to Twitter and it allows for Lightning payments which are referred to as Zaps, i.e if you like the post, you can send the poster Satoshis. It also allows for DMs. Some clients provide a group chat feature.
IMO what you’re really describing is a cryptographically secure way to signify that I am the person you think I am. Some sort of PGP implementation within user profiles would be really interesting. Posts and comments could be signed by a key. Then, assuming you trust my home instance because of https certificates, your client could look up my PGP key directly from my profile and verify the signature to confirm that a rogue instance hadn’t impersonated me.
It’s not blockchain but I actually think that would be a really cool feature.
You could create an ED25519 keypair, then with each post, produce a sha256 hash of the post, create a signature of the hash using your private signing key, then include the signature with the post. Anyone could easily verify the signature with the verify key. You could add the verify key to a personal site or something.
What are you wanting to achieve or solve with this proposal?
Your account on an instance is more-or-less your “universal ID”. When you choose an instance, you’re trusting that instance to own your ID. Depending on what fediverse server software is used, you can follow your profile on other software and instances.
If this is to provide a directory of users: I’m not sure many people would want this. Personally, I’d prefer keeping my social media accounts separate unless I link them in my profile.
If this is to lay claim to usernames, I’m not sure anyone would benefit. If I create the account “a@lemmy.world”, should that block all Lemmy instances from allowing a “a@<instance>”?
You have the ability to add a bio on your Lemmy account where you can add links to profiles on other social networks if you so desire. Part of the relationship between you and your instance owner is trusting that your instance owner will not meddle with your profile data.
