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2026-07-15 15:25:51

patrickleavy@mastodon.social

#fedi #askfedi
Is the #ActivityPub protocol any closer to having data portability?
And how about single ID usable in different apps?
And how about E2EE?

Thank you!

2026-07-15 16:07:04

tmaher

tmaher@infosec.exchange

@patrickleavy you should follow @soatok re e2ee

2026-07-15 19:15:30

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Patrick Leavy

Is the #ActivityPub protocol any closer to having data portability?

Have you read about nomadic identity yet? (https://joinfediverse.wiki/Nomadic_identity)

There is only one Fediverse server application that offers full-blown server-side nomadic identity via ActivityPub, and that's Forte (https://codeberg.org/fortified/forte). This won't change anytime soon. For there is one critically important thing that has never happened yet, and that's the conversion of non-nomadic, account-equals-identity, ActivityPub-based Fediverse software to fully nomadic, identity-uncoupled-from-accounts, ActivityPub-based Fediverse software.

Forte itself came to exist in 2024 as a fork of something colloquially called (streams) which is already nomadic, but based on its own protocol named Nomad with ActivityPub as an optional secondary protocol. And (streams) is a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla, the first nomadic Fediverse software, created in 2012 under the name Red and based on a precursor of Nomad.

A very long-term dream is a fully nomadic Fediverse. Not only would all Fediverse server software be every bit as nomadic as Hubzilla, but it'd be possible to move and even clone identities between different server applications. As it stands now, moving and cloning is only possible within Hubzilla, within (streams) and within Forte.

And how about single ID usable in different apps?

This would only be possible in an entirely nomadic Fediverse where you can clone your identity from anywhere to anywhere. And even then you'd have to first register a local account on whichever server you want to use and then clone your existing identity onto this account on this server.

Otherwise, this is not possible. And it isn't possible at all without registering a local account on whichever server you want to create.

I mean, I've read this request countless times.

Create an account on mastodon.social.
Go to peertube.tv.
Log onto peertube.tv with your mastodon.social credentials. Right away. Without first creating an account on peertube.tv.
Upload a video credited to patrickleavy@mastodon.social.

There are lots of reasons why this is technologically impossible.

First of all: Where would peertube.tv know your mastodon.social login credentials from? Your name and at least the salted hash of your passphrase?

Besides: Where would peertube.tv store your data?

On mastodon.social where your account is?

And, pray tell, where would mastodon.social store a video the same way as PeerTube stores it, all the way to PeerTube's trademark peer-to-peer load balancing? Also, how and why do you think should mastodon.social authorise peertube.tv to directly, remotely write to mastodon.social's local database and data storage?

On peertube.tv?

Well, that'd require peertube.tv to have a record of your identity in its local database. It can't store a video locally. and reference it locally through mastodon.social's local database. So peertube.tv's server backend would have to know you. It would have to have your identity.

Where would it get that?

Again, no, it can't just simply reference mastodon.social's database for that. It'd need that record in its own local database.

Do you really believe that peertube.tv could go and leech all your account credentials from mastodon.social and automagically store them locally? Do you really believe mastodon.social will let it do that?

And do you seriously believe that if free, open-source, amateur-developed server software can easily do that, proprietary, closed-source, professional, military-intelligence-grade (as in FBI, DHS, CIA, NSA, STRATFOR, MI5, MI6, Mossad, Shin Bet), ultra-high-end espionage and surveillance software like Palantir or NSO Pegasus has no way at all of doing that?

No, there's literally only one possible way for peertube.tv to get to know you and know whom this video belongs to if you upload one. And that's by you registering a local account on peertube.tv. Manually.

Okay, now you (or someone else) may come and say, "But Pixelfed can literally do that! I can log onto Pixelfed with my Mastodon account!"

No. No, you can't. Sorry to say, but you can't.

Pixelfed pretends you can. For the sake of convenience and ease-of-use. But it's bogus. All show. A smoke screen.

What Pixelfed actually does when you "log into it with your Mastodon account": It takes your Mastodon login name, it takes your Mastodon passphrase, and it registers a local account on that Pixelfed server with your Mastodon login credentials.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #PeerTube #Pixelfed #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #NomadicIdentity

2026-07-15 21:42:24

silverpill

silverpill@mitra.social

@patrickleavy It's getting closer:

https://codeberg.org/ap-next/ap-next/src/branch/main/nomadpub.md