Tag: mastodon

Fresh Fediverse ideas (what a great idea…)

I was talking with Evan recently in London and it spilled out to the Fediverse the next day. We talked about many things including a bit of passion for both of us, the absolute sorry state of online dating.

Its something I won’t even start on, but someone mentioned in a fediverse conversation a site called fediverse ideas.

Having a look, there were a ton of ideas to add from my head. However as they are proper Git issues, I decided its worth planning them out – likely over the holiday season.

Its a great thing to have for many reasons at such a early stage of the fediverse. Really speaks to the culture and innovation growing up around the fediverse and activitypub. My hope is this keeps going but I’m sure once the money comes into the space we will see less generosity, sadly…

Flipboard goes all out with activity pub in dotSocial

I had the joy of representing BBC RD in Flipboards new podcast series dot social.

Starting with Mike Masnick and moving through quite an amazing list of people including @evan key contributor to ActivityPub, @coachtony Medium‘s CEO, @WMitchellBaker CEO at Mozilla, chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation and many more.

I was surprised to be number 3 in the line up which you can hear here.

The series is exciting showing off the maturing of the fediverse and the diversity of activitypub.Thanks to Mike McCue for reaching out and his great decision to move Flipboard to the fediverse early.

It feels like a while ago but Mike’s protocols not platforms paper, I have been reading again recently for some related research work. I also recently spent some time with Evan in London. Remembering what wonderful people and the rich history activitypub has.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Feb 2023)

The Bank of Dave

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing last pass scramble, the royal mail cyber attack and apple’s data use.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with the new range of biobatteries, Mozilla planning their own instance of Mastodon and the drop in ransomware payouts.

Channel 4’s privatisation U-turn

Ian thinks: Channel 4 survives the governments privatisation plans for now, but I do wonder for how long till the plans change again?

The on-demand economy debate isn’t finished

Ian thinks: A really good summary of the debate which has gone mainly quiet since the pandemic put the whole thing on pause. There hasn’t been much discussion since and Paris highlights the need for society

Breaking out of the Crystal Prison

Ian thinks: Its great to hear Bunnie talking, as its been a long time since the xbox hacking and the controversy at the time. Its also a good relaunch of the EFF podcast which is always full of good ideas.

Encryption still a difficult debate in Europe

Ian thinks: There is a lot of great privacy laws from the EU but as this wired post with Andy Yen points out. There is a lot of tension around encryption, which could under-mind the privacy laws created by the EU.

Fooled by randomness?

Ian thinks: So many people think Tiktok is magic but as explained in this post, its relatively high emphasis on exploration is higher than others and likely fooling people. However the point about the user interface is critical to its success and something to remember.

Has China gained a foothold in the so called publicspace?

Ian thinks: The link between Twitter and China propaganda is quite striking, as talked about in this video. What happens next is a good question, Its also worth reading through the New York Times piece if you prefer text.

Mark think about your obituaries

Ian thinks: Nobel laureate Maria Ressa recently cleared of tax evasion in Philippines, has a lot to say about social media and even more to say to Mark Zuckerberg.

A business model which works for a community

Ian thinks: Its not common I mention a film in the notes but the bank of dave is actually quite a good watch. More importantly is the true story and the banking business model which has been distorted beyond its original roots.

See the archive here

Twitter is all but dead for me now

Dead twitter bird

Twitter is all but dead for me now, I’ve been fed up and rarely even look at it. However over the last week, the API change just put the last nail in the coffin for me. Last time they did similar I was close to leaving back then.

Even then I did say one client for twitter is a bad idea and its time to double down on mastodon. I do wonder how much of this has changed too?

Now Twitter clients, Cawbird (linux), Plume (android) are facing problems and I’m seeing problems with Crossposter too.

Its clear the owner and business model has decimated this microblogging platform and its time to leave it alone. Decided not to leave only because like a few other web platform, I hold on to the user cubicgarden and ianforrester just incase.

So glad I joined Mastodon in 2017. I can be found on the fediverse on @cubicgarden@mas.to (general account, one I use the most)
@cubicgarden@twit.social (tech account)
@cubicgarden@scholar.social (academic account)
@cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io (music and lifestyle account)
@cubicgarden@bookwyrm.social (books I’m reading and have read)
@cubicgarden on Pixelfed (pictures I’m sharing around the fediverse)
@cubicgarden on Peertube (where I’m sharing new mixes, likely to move in the future)

Expect a lot less of me tweeting from now on… Reading about Twitter under a public remit is just super sad reading now.

Adding activitypub or switching to peertube?

Mixcloud warning: You've reached your limit for published shows

In my latest mix the interdimensional transmission mix, I went to mixcloud to find, I’ve reached my limit for published shows. So been thinking about what mixcloud does do for me. Mainly distribution and a bit of charting.

On the distribution side, it seems like the fediverse could easily do a better job. Originally I would love to use funkwhale but from previous experience it doesn’t really support mixes well compared to single tunes. Which is why I setup my own webmixgarden.

Currently I’m using a static site generator (pubili) which is great because I could add webmonitisation. Although I’m wondering if I should switch to one which supports activitypub? However I feel there is a way which combines both and its likely another platform on the fediverse? I can’t be the only one who is putting out mixes right?

I tooted and had some suggestions. But decided to look at peertube to see if that could work. After finding a instance, which had rules which worked for what I was doing. I starter experimenting here but i’m waiting for my mix to be moderated (its a one man instance, so expect it might take some time). If things work out I might just install peertube on my server.

Update

My mix is now up on peertube via rankett.net, thats the big news.
However I wanted to talk through what happened.

William who runs the rankett instance of peertube messaged me via email asking about copyright details of the mix. This was a surprise because we are all use to faceless entities moderating via machine learning.  We had a little chat over email and I explained what I was doing and shared this blog post. Happy with the explanation, my mix was unblacklisted and its now available for all to play.

I’m currently looking at ways to add chapters markers to the mix, by slightly abusing the captions feature. I can’t really see another way to do it.

Another update

LPS messaged me on mastodon and pointing out a undocumented feature of peertube.

I can easily add time points in the description and with the correct formatting will automatically turn into jump points into the mix.

Adding jump points in peertube

We also talked about setting up peertube using yunohost, which I’m already using. So theres little excuse now for me to just set it up one day soon.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Dec 2022)

The branches of the Fediverse diagram

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the UK government setup a discord server, A podcasting app sharing user location to podcast creators and whats its like to work in India as a woman in tech.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this with India following the EU with USB C. Flickr putting weight behind ActivityPub and even more calls to make privacy a human right.

Gifts which don’t track your friends and family

Ian thinks: I actually chuckle at the #askfirefox videos but this video makes good points about buying a surveillance device for friends and family this festive holiday. Shop smart with Mozilla’s privacy not included.

W3C Solid working group

Ian thinks: Solid the personal data store has found its place in the W3C groups, Tim Berners-Lee’s welcoming email is beautifully written, starting a genuine new phase of the internet.

The UK parliament debates the future of public service broadcasting

Ian thinks: Its good to see this discussion at this level but am concerned there isn’t more focus beyond broadcasting. Public service is much bigger and its time to bring what makes public service unique to this space.

Mozilla’s future looks bright and sustainable

Ian thinks: Mozilla although well know in certain circles, has been losing a lot of market share. However has good plans to build on its community roots for a bright and sustainable future. Don’t forget the Mozilla festival’s call for proposals ends Dec 16th

Thoughts on Blockchain technology a decade ago

Ian thinks: Tim Bray’s measured thoughts on blockchain technology is a good read. Its easy to say blockchains were not mature back when AWS started but Tim thoughts today haven’t changed much.

Elon musk’s take over of Twitter

Ian thinks: There is so much to say about this take over of Twitter but I didn’t want to spend the whole newsletter talking about it. However I’m sadden by the lack of understanding from Elon and the way employees have been treated.. No way was Twitter the public square.

More thoughtful discussion about the future of decentralised social media

Ian thinks: Interesting points made and worthy of listening to in full. Likewise this small panel with the folks from Bluesky, Manyverse and others exploring the possibilities way beyond what’s currently available.

The EFF look at Mastodon from a security & privacy point of view

Ian thinks: Its always great to see new systems deeply looked at by the EFF and Open rights group. Mastodon comes out looking great. However you certainly have to go about it differently.

Don’t like microblogging but like the idea of the fediverse?

Ian thinks: This is great news Automattic (WordPress) are once again supporting the standard ActivityPub and joining the large open network of the fediverse. How Tumblr will work on the Fediverse is another question.

Find the archive here

Microblogging on the fediverse, leaving twitter to rot?

I was away during the weekend when the news that Elon finally bought Twitter. Since then, there has been a steady flow of people finally checking out Mastodon.

This is good news but its interesting how people are talking about it, literally a replacement for twitter. This is a mistake and will burn people.

Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, the fediverse is a number of different interlinking services using the W3C’s ActivityPub as the interlinking protocol. There has been a bunch of news stories which have highlighted this which is good, but too few are and think of Mastodon as a straight replacement without all the things which make it different.

Fediverse branches.png
Link

I have seen a bunch of complaints including too much choice in which instance to join. There is a bunch of reasons why this makes sense including more robustness to take over, but I’m more interested in the fact there is friction.

Friction to encourage people to slow down, think and act with some agency. Yes its painful when you are use to frictionless centralised services which happily lead you down a path which suits their business model. Having to actually read the rules of the instances/servers, what’s not/allowed, whats the manners, etc. Is important and makes for a better solution than everyone must abide by one rules. We already know scale is the enemy of humanity (well thats my thoughts) and the fediverse allows for things I personally find vaguer and distasteful if you look for it. But also delightful things which can be joyful if you look for it.

The Fediverse

Some advice for those new to the fediverse. Plus my own quick thoughts from things I have tooted over the last week.

  1. Don’t be a dick (this a rule for life to be fair)
  2. Read the instance rules
  3. If you don’t agree with the instance rules, move to another one. Its made easy for you.
  4. Consider the other fediverse services. For example you can follow someone on Pixelfed with a mastodon client.
  5. Support the development of the lesser known fediverse services like Pixelfed, funkwhale, Bookwrym, etc.
  6. Verification is free but you need to do some work, each instance and service will have different ways to support this. For example some of the scholar ones require you to link to different papers you have written. Others might need much more. Generally its done via the Microformats & W3C’s rel=”me”.
  7. Get use to the email like username, its super clear who you mean. Get out of the twitter mindset.
  8. Talk, link and expose others to the fediverse.
  9. Setup 2fa right from the start, what you waiting for?
  10. Don’t just look for Mastodon and install the first Mastodon app, there is a rich ecosystem of desktop and mobile apps. Its what makes the fediverse so powerful.
  11. Finally! – I recommend you should follow my toots using @cubicgarden@mas.to, @cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io, @cubicgarden@twit.social (of course this is just a suggestion)

Why is Slack storing passwords in plain text on Android devices?

https://mas.to/@cubicgarden/105712244073779967

I posted about Slack’s bug on mastodon. I knew this was going to be a pain the ass changing all those passwords, even with them all sitting in my password manager and most using 2fa.

However some of the users of Mastodon asked the question, why does the Slack app store the passwords on the device at all?

I thought about this and they are right. The app connects to a remote server and should request the user login. Once logged in, it should provide some kind of secure key/cookie/hash on the device not the actual password. On top of this, it certainly shouldn’t be in the form of plaintext.

Mistake, bug or not, this should not happen.

What is Bluesky doing which others can’t do?

A leaf, blueskies and clouds

Following Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey’s discussion about de-platforming Trump, there was mention about Decentralisating twitter and BlueSky.

He first made mention of this in 2019 in a number of tweets.

Researchers involved with bluesky reveal to TechCrunch an initiative still in its earliest stages that could fundamentally shift the power dynamics of the social web.

Bluesky is aiming to build a “durable” web standard that will ultimately ensure that platforms like Twitter have less centralized responsibility in deciding which users and communities have a voice on the internet. While this could protect speech from marginalized groups, it may also upend modern moderation techniques and efforts to prevent online radicalization.

When I first heard about Bluesky there was little information then at some point during the pandemic I heard about the iOS only app Planetary. My instant thought was oh no there going to try and bypass all the excellent work which has been done by others already. Especially with ActivityPub now a W3C recommendation.

I looked beyond the Techcrunch post (which is full of little odd bits) to see what I could dig up about Bluesky. Looking at the Github repo from Planetary it seems to be based on the Scuttlebot.io protocol? Its good to also see Scuttlebug to ActivityPub and RSS too. As its Scuttlebot, theres other clients for many other platforms.

So my question is what difference does it make over what already exists?
I get if twitter was to be a client of the protocol that would be generally a good thing and I imagine the publicity for decentralised systems would be welcomed but beyond that? Will their business model change? Will anything change? I guess does anything need to change from Twitter’s point of view?
On top of this all, will all the efforts before hand be forgotten now Twitter throws their hat into the ring? That would be awful for all the hard work others have put in for years and years.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Nov 2020)

How the fediverse deals with trolls

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed seeing the next big social network using the exact same centralised model as the existing ones; while us privileged dive into our exit pods.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this happening with do not track being rethought and getting some legal muscle.

The curious past and future of Signal CEO

Ian thinks: Good to hear more about the mysteries figure which is Signal’s CEO Moxie Marlinspike. His views of taking back our privacy, moving systems into the public infrastructure category and making encryption the default; is quite telling looking at his past. Unlike most, he has the knowledge and system to actually implement with others the reality he thinks about.

Is scale the enemy of human kind?

Ian thinks: This interview with Marina Gorbis from the institute of the future with Douglas Rushkoff is full of status-quo busting thoughts. The centre idea is how the allure of scale is actually the main problem the human race faces.

How to fight black box algorithms together

Ian thinks: Openschufa a project which aggregates your GDPR requested financial data with others to reveal bias, is the type of services I was hoping would come out of GDPR’s data portability rules. Look forward to seeing more like this.

Decentralized Social Networks vs. The Trolls

Ian thinks: This video is excellent and one of the reasons I have always been keen to use fediverse services like Mastodon and Pixelfed. This is another good talk from the Activity pub conference

How Ghent removed cars from the city

Ian thinks: When I visited Ghent last year I did notice the city centre was very quiet from the lack of cars. I had no idea but it felt like a place to live and walk. Lessons for other European cities?

Techdirt experiments with web monetization

Ian thinks: I personally have been following the web monetization protocol and grant for the web project for a while. Even adding it to my own personal blog, but its great to see Techdirt taking up the same protocol. Web monetization is growing and growing.

The role of design during Covid19

Ian thinks: This is a impressive list of 7 design based innovations which have helped and aided during the pandemic. All very different and all inspiration.

Understand digital identity beyond self-sovereign

Ian thinks: Centralised digital identity is easy to understand, but self-sovereign identity is being pushed as the way forward. However this essay by Philip Sheldrake, really shakes up the notions of identity in a way I’m still struggling to think about now.

Facebook won’t take the social dilemma lying down

Ian thinks: I thought Facebook would ignore the social dilemma as its not that great compared the great hack or after truth, plus there are many issues. But Facebook have hit back claiming the documentary as sensationalism. Seems to have touched a nerve I think?

Find the archive here

Telepath, yawn…!

Friendcamp

I have been hearing a bunch of stuff about a brand new social network called Telepath.

…Richard Henry and Marc Bodnick are. The duo, who previously worked together at the question-and-answer community Quora, today announced a wider release for Telepath, a new app for discussing your interests. The app, which like Clubhouse is available only in private beta and requires an invitation to use, resembles a hybrid of Twitter and Reddit. As on Twitter, the app opens to a central scrolling feed of updates from people and topics that you follow. And as on Reddit, every post must be created within a group, which Telepath calls a “network.”

Hearing about it, I was almost yawning. Another centralised social app trying to make its self bigger and better than whats come before using the tried, tested and very abused dark pattern of growth hacking.

For a very short moment I thought, maybe this is built on decentralised technology or works alongside other fediverse platforms? Something like hometown which powers friend.camp but heavily funded? That moment passed very quickly.

Who cares???

Its the same centralised system with a new face, its boring and I’m fed up of it all. Seriously! Don’t send me an invite, it will go straight in to my virtual bin.

 

Mastodon shows, social data-portability the way it should be

https://mas.to/@cubicgarden/104231400255269868

I recently moved from Mastodon.cloud to Mas.to. My main reason was for some (political?) reason mastodon.cloud was no longer accepted as part of the crossposter accepted domains.

I looked into hosting my own crossposter but decided there might be a reason why mastodon.cloud isn’t supported anymore? I had a look around the fediverse and read quite a few of the terms for each instance/domain. Mas.to looked good.

The actual moving was easily done as per the instructions here.

So easy and quick, if only it was always like this…?

Getting on the self-hosted train again

Map of the fediverse.space

A long time ago, accessing cubicgarden.com meant accessing my direct server sitting in my home. I use to run Blojsom on top of Resin server. I was self hosting from my 512k ADSL line with 256k up (remember how fast that use to be to!?)

There were a lot of problems I grant you that but it mainly worked ok, although I didn’t like the sysadmin side of it all, as I was using Windows 2000 as the operating system. At some point I decided to switch to wordpress only because PHP hosting was cheaper than Java, although I got some incredible breaks during my time. In 2014 I moved my blog to WPengine thanks to dotBen

That was a while ago and since then I have massively upgraded my connection speed to 1gigabit up and down thanks to Hyperoptic and upgraded my server quite a bit (6 core AMD with 16 gig of memory). The first thing I did was installed Plex server.

Since then I have been slowly adding more services to my server. I guess the most noteworthy ones being tiny tiny rss, icecast2, plex and zerotier vpn (which I’m considering changing to wireguard with the recent announcements). Tiny tiny RSS is useful as I don’t like what feedly and others are doing with my data. Zerotier VPN is very cool and very much like the old and forgotten Hamachi. Because it uses internal ip addresses (non-addressable?) any device I have it connected with can access those addresses like they are on a internal network. This ultimately means I can access all my services including tiny tiny rss without opening up ports on my firewall and exposing it to the internet.

Anyway I’ve been thinking about adding more services to my server including Wekan (alternative to trello), Pixelfed (feiverse instagram), wisemapping (web based mindmapping tool), wallabag (alternative to instapaper), standardnotes server, mastodon (fediverse twitter), funkwhale (fediverse spoitfy), language tool (alternative to grammerly) and matrix (powerful alternative to slack).

Doing it under Ubuntu isn’t a problem as theres lots of tutorials and theres plenty which use Docker to manage everything.

But there is issue it seems when installing multiple services on top of each other. Most of the tutorials require a Apache or Ngnix then some SQL database. The tutorials are written like you are running just one service alone and things become more tricky when you have services using certain ports, etc. Trying to move the ports, database tables is sometimes tricky to follow.

Right now, I’m focused on doing one service at a time or really getting to grips with Docker which was meant to make this easier to deal with???

Ok so why selfhosting (and there is a lot of self-hosting services as I found here) and all the hassle?

I found something which sums it up nicely from a different but connected context.

Decentralized, peer-to-peer networks are evolutionarily superior to the bastardized corporate ‘sharing economy’ platforms like Uber and Lyft. Their billion-dollar budgets won’t save them from the inevitability of the blockchain-based peer-to-peer economy.

The decentralization revolution is here.

Public Service Internet monthly newsletter (Jan 2020)

Greta Thunberg

Good day, happy new year and looking forward to a new decade with you all!

We live in incredible times with such possibilities that is clear. Although its easily dismissed by looking at the next US election or at the endless denial about explainable algorithms.

To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

You are seeing aspects of this happening with Finland’s new prime minister, Sanna Marin at the age of 34, focusing on climate change.

 

The threat of quantum computing explained

Ian thinks: This is a serious challenger for so much of the encrypted systems we rely on daily.

Why do people listen to Greta?

Ian thinks: Makes a really strong point about creativity. It something I also worry we forget as it doesn’t conveniently fit our tired metrics.

A critical look at economical value

Ian thinks: Mariana makes some great points about different types of value.

Anarchy, Federation, IndieWeb the Fedverse

Ian thinks: Defining yourself in opposition to something else, doesn’t give you enough conceptual space is why I always quoting Buckminster Fuller

EFF’s deep dive into public key encryption

Ian thinks: Its one of those things which is banded about but few people when asked can explain it as well as the EFF

Webxray gives an insight behind the webpage

Ian thinks: The Webxray tool which runs on Linux & Mac is quite impressive to use. Gives a real insight into whats going on in the web when it comes tracking and the advertisement ecosystem

Decentralisation isn’t just about the internet

Ian thinks: The importance of decentralised networks applies to more than just the internet

Jason Silva interviews Kevin Kelly

Ian thinks: Technology, drugs, spiritualism its all in there and its quite a interview too.

Real People, Doing Real Things segment on teamhuman

Ian thinks: The new segment is welcomed on teamhuman and botsentinel is a good project to start with.

Jack Dorsey funding a decentralised twitter

Ian thinks: When I first heard this I almost fell off my chair, then thought this is classic innovators dilemma or twitter seeing the writing on the wall?