don't understand the imposter concerns with mastodon.
literally, that's how the internet is. people could register pnathan@ for every dang email provider out there.
it almost feels like a litmus test for "people who don't understand technology".
but maybe I'm just tired and cranky. (which is true)
@pnathan i am definitely tired and cranky but yeah I think you've got the gist of it, and I had to stop and remind myself that there's a shitload of people out there with the same name as me and why am I like "oh shit but what if any of them also got to use their name as their username" like i've got some sort of magical trademark on just being a person with a name
@pnathan there is an entire generation that has probably never even used email, since Facebook, let alone know there's something outside of gmail. I suspect that's what we're seeing
@mig5 i'm actually seeing it come up with sort of the peripheral-to-tech professionals: journalists, writers, etc.
unless their world is VERY DIFFERENT than my professional word, they live and die on emails.
@pnathan :o well then yeah, I guess 'it's social media' just sets some expectations thanks to the Big Guys. Email maybe feels baked into the internet rather than 'an app' so the comparison doesn't come naturally (other than to those that wonder about how stuff works under the hood)
@pnathan reminds me of how few sysadmins/devs who 'build the internet' have heard of BGP. Routing is just magic that happens right? :)
@mig5 wait that was dumb of me.
demonstrating my point.
frick why am I importing data from 2018.
I need to finish this and go to sleep for hours and hours.
@pnathan Hee, this is exactly how I feel.
@pnathan Nick collision is a known problem with IRC; why repeat the same mistake here? There's no reason not to have a blockchain like username registration in place in the network; federation doesn't prevent the problem from being solved.
@andschwa I have profound skepticism about the use of blockchain for *anything* to be honest.
@pnathan I did say "blockchain like" :P What I'm getting at is that the problem is tractable, and we've already encountered it before. Why not solve it instead of repeat the same mistake?
@andschwa that said, it doesn't address your core critique.
I'm not sure I would consider it a *problem. Any more than having other people with my own name. They are out there! Paul Nathan is not only a geek, he's a magician in Vegas/LA, and he's also a physician. I don't think it's realistic to demand uniqueness of nicks. Demanding uniqueness drives scarcity and nick-squatting.
There has to be a better way for identity than nicks.
@pnathan You know, that's true. And a good counterpoint in your direction would be lack of uniqueness around domain names: we saw that we quickly ran into squatting with .com, and eventually got many more TLDs.
@pnathan would be a non issue with integration from keybase.io
let them impostor all they like, without keys its obvious
@just_a_warning I've considered putting in a PR to add a "public key" field to mastodon. It's not Perfectly Secure, but it does raise the bar significantly....
.... for those people skilled enough to use that technology.
TBH I think a reputation/(ahem, WoT) idea is going to be much more useful and intuitive... with the right UX.
@pnathan I agree with the WoT idea, also follows the ideology that I'm finding here.
Still if corporate accounts start picking up, I can see issues with the technically challenged getting had
@just_a_warning There's absolutely a problem of educating mainstream & late adopters. I am not the right person to solve that by training, experience, or temperament. I wish those who do have that capability the best.
@pnathan feels like a prime candidate for a keybase certified identity thingy to me. Job done :)
@pnathan Dude, you admitted to being over 30. Of course you're cranky.
@snowcrashmike Well.
You may have a point.
@pnathan Mastodon looks like twitter, but addresses like email. It's an interface email.