Integrate Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) for Censorship-Resistant, Portable User Identities · Issue #5942 · LemmyNet/lemmy
github.com
Requirements Is this a feature request? For questions or discussions use https://lemmy.ml/c/lemmy_support or the matrix chat. Did you check to see if this issue already exists? Is this only a featu...

Here’s an idea to make Lemmy even better: true account portability.

Right now, your Lemmy account and all your content are tied to one server. Moving instances or having one shut down means losing your digital presence. Frankly, the server controls your online identity.

But what if you controlled your identity?

I’ve opened a discussion on the Lemmy dev GitHub about integrating Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). Think of a DID as a permanent, global ID you own, independent of any server.

Why DIDs are a game-changer for Lemmy:

  • Real Account Portability: Move your entire account – posts, comments, followers – to any new instance seamlessly. Your identity travels with you.
  • More User Control: Your online presence becomes resilient, managed by an ID you control, not governed by a single server’s policies.
  • Proven Tech: It works. Protocols like ATProto (Bluesky) successfully use DIDs for portable user identities.
  • Full Fediverse Compatibility: We can add DIDs to Lemmy while staying fully interoperable with Mastodon, Kbin, and all other ActivityPub platforms. No breaking changes, just a powerful upgrade.

This is a big step towards a more decentralized and user-controlled fediverse. If you’re interested in more control over your digital self, check out the discussion:

[GitHub Issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/5942]

If you’re on other ActivityPub platforms, consider pushing for similar solutions! The more platforms that adopt truly portable identity, the stronger the fediverse becomes.

  • danhab99@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Whelp here I go again

    Why not GPG!!??

    I’ve been working on my own idea for what the “fediverse” should be, I’m calling it userless because I want to avoid users in the database and I wanna use GPG as the individuals identity because it already exists and can yes perfectly verify for me who created a post, I’m not sure why we need more than that.

    I haven’t flushed the whole thing out yet and I plan to hand write proper docs for the protocol.

    But GPG has been around since forever. I’ve been told that it’s too hard to use, it’s insecure, it’s too old. And when I use the thing I just don’t agree, there is nothing technically wrong with the product like it should be way more popular.

    • muntedcrocodile@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      So Activpub needs an actor with an inbox and outbox to send and receive content. A did is a virtual actor that reroutes to a real actor and collects content across real actors. Ideally can send an activity to a did which is resolved to the current home instance. And the did stores ur profile picture a public key display names bio etc etc. U could use pgp as the key in the did if the devs want to support it as a cryptography protocol. The did is also used to sign each message similar to pgp. U simply need more functionality than what pgp provides

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        3 months ago

        A did is a virtual actor that reroutes to a real actor and collects content across real actors

        Where is that virtual actor hosted? If it’s centralized, I feel like it defeats the purpose of user-centric identity control. If it’s user-hosted, that sounds like GPG with extra, even more inconvenient steps.

        • muntedcrocodile@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          0·
          3 months ago

          Its both. It can we a json file served from some webserver. It can be a peer hosted thing where a bunch of instances host it on your behalf. It can be something that exists on your designated identity server. It can be a transaction on a blockchain. And as long as the software knows how to resolve it they all work.

          • zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1·
            3 months ago

            Having to figure out hosting, no matter if it’s self, peer, or whatever else hosting, kinda makes this proposal DOA I think. It’s kinda using a jackhammer for a problem that’s already been solved by a screwdriver.

  • flamingos-cant (hopepunk arc)@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Real Account Portability: Move your entire account – posts, comments, followers – to any new instance seamlessly. Your identity travels with you.

    This is nice in theory but comes with edge cases that are hard to account for. Like, what if you have a post and your new instance defeds the instance the post’s community is on? You either have to allow banned content onto the instance or the user loses data, neither of which are acceptable.

    This is part of why ATProto’s decoupling of user data from app logic is kinda genius and the direction we should go in if we want portable actors in Lemmy/thredi.

    Full Fediverse Compatibility: We can add DIDs to Lemmy while staying fully interoperable with Mastodon, Kbin, and all other ActivityPub platforms. No breaking changes, just a powerful upgrade.

    Not really, every fediverse platform that people use expects an Object’s id to be a https URI it can just fetch the resource from. This is part of why FEP-ef61 specifies a way of translating a DID to a https URI. That’s not to mention that moving existing actors from their current ID to a DID will cause all sorts of interop problems.

    Edit: Also, is this AI-generated? It has all the tells of Gemini output, especially the the issue on Github.

      • renzhexiangjiao@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        yeah, if I were a Lemmy dev, I wouldn’t take this proposal seriously because of this. I would be wondering if that person really knows what they’re proposing and if they’re planning to engage in the discussion themselves or let AI do it for them, and in the latter case it would just be a waste of time.

  • INeedMana@piefed.zipEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    DID as a permanent, global ID you own, independent of any server

    So there would have to be another server, hosting my identity? Would identities somehow be federated between identity instances?