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If Russia can block it, it’s not distributed…
therecord.media/russia-cracks-…

🫧 socialcoding.. reshared this.

in reply to gabboman the wafrn dev

@gabboman I said “if.. then”, not “if and only if”

🤓

math.stackexchange.com/questio…

in reply to Ben Pate 🤘🏻

this is interesting.

Is there a *Sky in Russia, like Eurosky, Gander, Blacksky or Northsky? (I should know what these are called. I think it's more than a PDS, but maybe that's the right word.)

Trot-sky would be a sick name, but I don't think the pun would translate well.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

the reason I ask is that I wonder how well ATProto federation works across borders when there's this kind of lockdown.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

ActivityPub might work well in this case, but also badly. For example, if the Russian government blocked mastodon.social, the server-to-server data works on the same protocol and port number as the end-user interface and API.

But on the plus side, there are 40,000 other servers, so you'd still could stay connected to a big chunk of the Fediverse.

This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Evan Prodromou

that said, I was doing some data analysis on fedidb last night, and about 50% of Fediverse users are on the top 10 servers, so it wouldn't take a lot of work to really cut down on the addressable accounts.
in reply to Evan Prodromou

@evan

True… We are slowly centralizing.

I believe real data portability would address this. LOLA portability would even enable “hot backup” servers in cases where your primary server goes down.

And, I think Mastodon is making some progress on their signup page that will reverse this trend.

Look at me doing all this comms for Mastodon… Andy is going to owe me a beer 🍺

in reply to Ben Pate 🤘🏻

@evan

So what are all the possible ways they can block things, I wonder now. Not an expert. Couldn't they simply block all of #fediverse based on content-type or other aspects of #ActivityPub network communication? Deep msg inspection, etc. They want to drag their population over to that state-controlled platform I forgot the name of.

in reply to 🫧 socialcoding..

@evan

PS. I address 'points/risks of centralization' in my social experience piece and call-for-reflection on fedi's future, see..

social.coop/@smallcircles/1163…


#ThoughtProvoker 🤔

#fediverse is at an inflection point.

Either revival and course correction to the original #ActivityPub protocol power and promise. With the potential to #ReimagineSocial.

Or keep current track with fedi-we-have. Be content with a few great and reasonably popular app platforms. Surely some more to come. But with a messy wire protocol that stifles #innovation and isn't future-proof.

#AskFedi do you dare to dream?

This special thought provoker is based on personal reflection and 8 years of #commoning. Deliberately exposed to the inherent unsustainability of the #FOSS movement. Burning privilege by spending my savings.

Goal: 1st-hand experience to learn the #social dynamics that make a #commons tick.

I invite you to a #brainstorm & #ideation ride. To ponder how #fedi can organically evolve. Become unbeatable by #hypercapitalism.

coding.social/blog/grassroots-…

But in an age of #AI who still reads long handcrafted #blogs? Fill in the #poll.

#SX #SocialCoding #SocialWeb


in reply to 🫧 socialcoding..

@smallcircles I studied this last year, and @mallory worked on RFC 9505.

datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc95…

I think the hardware requirements for doing deep packet stuff are hard but not impossible. Don't forget, we use HTTPS.

If it were me, I'd download a list of the top 1000 fediverse servers from fedidb and block their DNS names and IP addresses. That'd probably cover 99% of user accounts.

🫧 socialcoding.. reshared this.

in reply to Ben Pate 🤘🏻

The lesson from China is that you don't have to block a site with no leaks. You make a service unreliable or complicated to access, and provide a local alternative that does 90% of what people want. People drift towards the easy option, and network effects lock them in.

Piercing the Chinese firewall is why I started experimenting with Friendica in 2011. Talking to people on the ground quickly made me realise how naïve that was. Whatever goals AP has, smuggling news into or out of totalitarian regimes is not one you should invest in.

in reply to Matthew Exon

Very true. Your points work for why people use commerical social media networks in europe and america as well. Its easy and the tradeoffs arent immediately obvious..

Making a solution easy to use but not centralised is difficult...but does seem to.be getting easier

Having said that .. im interested in how activitypub could make blocking external media more costly for those that want to do it.

in reply to Ben Pate 🤘🏻

even if the proto is distributed, if you put all the pods on the same server(s) and funnel all the data through single relay and app view then you basically have a monolith...