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Any arguments against separating identity from instance/platform? (single identity across the fediverse) (lemy.lol)

submitted 2 months ago by matcha_addict@lemy.lol to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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I am sure it was discussed here before, but I can't find a good way to search this community.

Are there any arguments against having a user's identity federate, and be compatible across platforms?

For example, let us say I sign up with my instance, matcha_addict@lemy.lol

But what if I go on mastodon, and I want to have my own micro blog. Or maybe go to write freely and post some blog posts. I'd have to make a different account on each one.

What if mastodon or write freely could just let me log in with my lemmy account (or lets call it federated account). This has several benefits:

users don't have to scratch their head on if I am the same person or not across these platforms
theoretically, someone following my feed can get updates on what I do on multiple platforms

Now I understand this would be difficult to implement and iron out all the edge cases, but am I missing anything on why it wouldn't be a desirable feature, given it is implemented?

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[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why would you need a password if you already have a private key?

Also, one possible way to manage private keys is to split the key (and the risk/burden) using shamir's secret sharing and use that process for key recovery if you ever lose it. For example you split it among 6 people you trust and to recover the key, 4 of them need to give you a fragment of it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_secret_sharing

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yea in theory you wouldn't need the password if you have the private key but here the key is only used for signing, maybe not for login. If it also needs to be backwards compatible. In any case, I don't think user-held private keys is viable.

Sharing with trusted parties... I dunno, I think again it's too technical and complicated to do it. And you'd need people on the platform you trust to already be there.

[–] Omniraptor@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No, the key fragment is just a bit of text you can send to them by whatever secure side channel you want down to handing them a flash drive. Then when you need to recover the key you ask for it back

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 points 2 months ago

a bit of text you can send to them by whatever secure side channel you want down to handing them a flash drive

Normal non-technical people are never going to do this. It needs to be easy as clicking a button, otherwise it will never happen for them. Again, this is a neat technical solution but it completely forgets the human.