On the screen. Notes being shared at.

eventsdiscord.atprotocol.dev

#ATmosphereConf

Live stream of #ATmosphereConf at

stream.place/atprotocol.dev

youtube.com/watch?v=pCS4WTKqkA…

.

ATmosphereConf Seattle 2025!

^YouTube

"The Internet is a medium for creating new mediums — or at least it was."

— Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… )

#ATmosphereConf

My paraphrase of something Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) said:

The original idea of WebFinger was to separate your identity from the application and services you use.

Rather that bind then together (as on the Fediverse).

#ATmosphereConf #FediDev #FediDevs #Fediverse #WebFinger

Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) quoting someone else:

"Be the media."

#ATmosphereConf

Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) asked who knows the history of the telegraph.

( @reiver note: I do a bit. I learned Morse code as a young child — my father's sister's husband had me learn it.)

#ATmosphereConf #Telegraph

Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) going from history of Telegram to the Telephone.

( @reiver note: My father was a Telecommunications Engineer. He was in the industry during both when it analog and digital eras. I heard A LOT about the physics, math, and technology of telephone technology. )

#ATmosphereConf #Telegraph #Telephone

Paraphrasing Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ):

You could fix how Mastodon and the Fediverse uses WebFinger if WebFinger could point to multiple profiles.

It doesn't now. But it could.

#ATmosphereConf #FediDev #FediDevs #Fediverse #MastoDev #Mastodon

Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) top priorities:

• moderation tools
• fixing the relay problem
• lexicons
• plus A LOT more

(This was a ATproto specific answer.)

#ATmosphereConf #ATProto #ATProtocol #Bluesky #bsky

Boris Mann ( @boris ) recommended the book:

Rainbows End
by Vernor Vinge

#ATmosphereConf

Blaine Cook ( @blaine ) ( bsky.app/profile/blaine.bsky.s… ) mentioned that the new Raspberry Pi 5 has the same computing power as Twitter when it had 5 million users.

#ATmosphereConf #Twitter

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ) on stage now.

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

The 3 big efforts to try to re-decentralize the Web and Internet:

• blockchains <--- most money went here
• P2P
• federation

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

P2P has a lot problems.

For example — Creating a good comment section is extremely difficult if not impossible, with P2P

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

ActivityPump got renamed to ActivityPub — that was a good rename 🙂

#ATmosphereConf #ActivityPub #Fediverse

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

Social-Networks are very large public spaces.

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

The worst thing we (Bluesky) did to people was request them to understand DNS.

For example — one time we had to explain DNS to Flavor Fav.

🙂

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

"The company is a future adversary."

We tried to build for that.

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

"What if we (Bluesky) did P2P with servers — I'll call that server-to-server."

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

Bluesky / ATProto lexicon almost was RDF — and would have been if Paul had more time.

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

Bluesky didn't use ActivityPub for 2 reasons —

№1:

Because of the identity issue.

Once you make a choice (of server) you are locked in.

You cannot migrate freely.

(Current Fediverse migration not good enough.)

№2:

The culture on the Fediverse at the time.

There was a culture on the Fediverse of being hostile towards global aggregators.

( @reiver note: AFAICT, this is a very small minority of hyper hostile individuals.)

#ActivityPub #ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

Mentioned MLS (Messaging Layer Security).

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

Bluesky practical decentralization:

• cost reduction — cheaper relays
• AppView / self-hosted Bluesky — partial sync based on follow graph — can we reach $100 per month — build smarter sync engine — indiesky
• improve user-experience
• PLC governance — moving to separate legal entity

#ATmosphereConf

Paul Frazee ( @pfrazee.com ):

There is a GitHub discussion about ATProto Call For Developer Projects

github.com/bluesky-social/atpr…

Stuff for others to work on.

#ATmosphereConf

Call for Developer Projects · bluesky-social atproto · Discussion #3049

The last few weeks have seen a swell of developer interest in atproto. Welcome! The protocol is maturing, and now is a great time for early adopters to jump in and start building. This post lists s...

^GitHub

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ) on stage.

Presenting about Smoke Signal ( smokesignal.events/ ).

#ATmosphereConf

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ):

"On Facebook you are the product and the prey."

#ATmosphereConf

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ):

Mentioned article:
anildash.com//2024/05/29/syste…

#ATmosphereConf

Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does - Anil Dash

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

^{Anil Dash}

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ):

ActivityPub and Mastodon are effectively the same thing to most people.

( @reiver note: this seems similar to the phrase "the Mastodon in the room".)

#ATmosphereConf #ActivityPub #Fediverse #Mastodon #TheMastodonInTheRoom

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ):

Mentioned:
lexicon.community/

For an organization to create Lexicons.
In JSON-LD talk — this is similar to JSON-LD namespaces.

#ATmosphereConf

lexicon.community

lexicon.community has 7 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.

^GitHub

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ):

plc.directory/ needs to be distributed and P2P.

#ATmosphereConf #DID #DIDPLC #PLCDirectory

Nick Gerakines ( @ngerakines.me ) and someone in the audience —

Talking about how #Golang interfaces might serve as a good model for how software uses lexicons / namespaces.

Ex: anything that has fields 'A' 'B', etc, just works in the user-interface.

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) on stage.

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) set up a small fund for Developer Grants.

bsky.app/profile/wang.social/p…

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ):

The Rust programming-language is the hipster thing to do and be interested in.

#ATmosphereConf #Rust #RustLang

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ):

Social is not like a choice between Linux distributions. Social is something more foundational to human nature.

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ):

Every app doesn't need to be a unicorn. [Some can just be useful.]

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ):

Having a shared social protocol is similar to when the railroads became the same and could work with anyone's trains.

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) mentioned a previous talk of his:

"Towards a Humane Network" (2017)

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) mentioned a previous talk of his:

"The Web We Lost, and The Web We Must Build"
github.com/pzwang/lostweb

#ATmosphereConf

GitHub - pzwang/lostweb: The Web We Lost, and What Comes Next

The Web We Lost, and What Comes Next. Contribute to pzwang/lostweb development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) mentioned a previous talk of his:

"Every person's attention is zero-sum."

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang ( bsky.app/profile/wang.social ) mentioned a previous talk of his:

He (Peter) is interested in investing in AI.

(Ignore the current AI hype. The useful stuff.)

He wants humane and human-focused AI.

#ATmosphereConf

Jay Graber ( @jay.bsky.team ) on stage.

#ATmosphereConf

Jay Graber ( @jay.bsky.team ) mentioned:

"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace", by John Perry Barlow (of EFF fame)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declar…

#ATmosphereConf

John Perry Barlow's essay on internet freedom

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

Jay Graber ( @jay.bsky.team ):

"Have you heard of the butterfly-effect."

( @reiver note: you can be the butterfly who can have a large effect.)

#ATmosphereConf

I have gone to one of the unrecorded discussion rooms, since the talks are recorded (and I can watch it later).

#ATmosphereConf

Topics up to discuss:

• user intents
• AI feed
• classification & moderation
• using social-media content for research
• labeling & AI tags

#ATmosphereConf

Talking about ATProto user-intent first.

#ATmosphereConf

3 choices for ATProto user-intents:

• opt-out
• undefined
• opt-in

#ATmosphereConf

Peter Wang wants gov't regulators to enforce ATProto user-intent.

( @reiver note: I think that would be a very bad idea — a cure that would be worse than the disease.)

#ATmosphereConf

The same person (Peter Wang) is talking about licensing — i.e., requiring gov't permission.

( @reiver note: again, I think that would be a very bad idea — a cure that would be worse than the disease.)

#ATmosphereConf

Rabble ( @rabble ) talking about how — if you had someone else's PDS user-data on your phone, German regulation would require you to file paperwork every single time you cross a German state line. And, if you don't, the whole social-media is illegal under German GDPR law.

#ATmosphereConf

I brought up an issue regarding regulation —

How do you create a law that distinguishes the difference between thr learning that humans do versus learning that AIs do.

(I don't think this is a point that should be ignored — as you could end up with a cure that is worse than the disease.)

#ATmosphereConf

Boris Mann ( @boris ) talking about if the community made their ATProto docs CC-NC, then Bluesky company could not contribute.

Oops — unintended consequence.

#ATmosphereConf

Conner Ruhl mentioning that regulations is favoring AI companies with lots of money and hurting open-source AI projects that don't have money to deal with regulations.

#ATmosphereConf

Conner Ruhl mentioning that ATProto user-intents is giving people a false sense of security.

Bad actor won't care about them.

If you want to be private, you need to actually make your data private!

#ATmosphereConf

One person pointing out that an "anti-AI intent" would prevent people from using anti-spam filters, since it is AI.

( @reiver note: I have said similar a number of times elsewhere.)

#ATmosphereConf

One person from Flipboard pointing out that, AI is used to look for hate-speech, and look for pornographic images, etc.

An "anti-AI" intent would block that, too.

#ATmosphereConf

Conner Ruhl — Bluesky's still sucks a bit in terms of onboarding, because it lacks some of the AI necessary to do that.

#ATmosphereConf

One person saying — builders have mostly left Mastodon (and gone to Bluesky), because when developers try to build on Mastodon, they get yelled at, and maybe even receive death threats.

#ATmosphereConf

A person talking about — it is difficult to build a collaborative filtering (AI) because 3rd parties don't have enough data, that Bluesky company has.

Ex: what the person looked at, etc.

#ATmosphereConf

Staying in the unrecorded discussion rooms, since the talks are recorded (and I can watch it later).

Now on Private data. (New host. New topic.)

notes.commonscomputer.com/atmo…

#ATmosphereConf

Private Data Group Discussion - HedgeDoc

^{notes.commonscomputer.com}

Private data versus Secret data

Private — you are ok with people knowing the information existing, but don't want them to know the value.

Secret — don't even want people to know the data exists.

#ATmosphereConf

From @boris :

Direct Message (DM) — private, only visible to the participants.

From @pfrazee.com :

Want end to end encryption (E2EE).

#ATmosphereConf

MLS (Messaging Layer Security) being talked about.

Proposed for DMs for Bluesky.

@pfrazee.com mentioned this during his talk.

@rabble mentioning that they have done tests of MLS on Nostr.

#ATmosphereConf

Someone pointing out that — MLS (Messaging Layer Security) would introduce centralization to Bluesky.

#ATmosphereConf

Some people arguing that Signal should make it so others can integrate them more easily.

So that Bluesky could use them for direct messaging (DMing).

#ATmosphereConf

From @boris :

This conference to kick of many working-groups and many special-interest-groups, that go off and do their thing.

#ATmosphereConf

Person from Germ Network (direct messaging) here.

germnetwork.com/

@boris strongly encouraging them to be part of DM working group, for ATProto.

A number of questions about them.

#ATmosphereConf

Germ Network

Share what you want to, when you need to, on Germ DM. The only messenger with multiple profiles, no phone numbers, and end-to-end encryption.

^{Germ Network}

. @boris mentioning @darius fork of Mastodon — hometown.

github.com/hometown-fork/homet…

#ATmosphereConf

GitHub - hometown-fork/hometown: A supported fork of Mastodon that provides local posting and a wider range of content types.

A supported fork of Mastodon that provides local posting and a wider range of content types. - hometown-fork/hometown

^GitHub

Someone pointing out that —

When you have E2EE (end to end encryption) you have to do all the work on the client-side — since the client-side is the only one that can decrypt it.

( @reiver note: that isn't completely true — there are some encryption techniques that can allow certain operations on cyphertext.)

#ATmosphereConf

At the "Big Time Brewery & Alehouse" after-event.

#ATmosphereConf

Talking to people who made dazzle.fm/

( bsky.app/profile/johnsabath.co… , bsky.app/profile/connerruhl.bs… , bsky.app/profile/attentionshop… )

They are all ex- StabilityAI.

It shows trending topics & articles based on data from the Bluesky firehose relay.

#ATmosphereConf

Dazzle.fm – What's happening on Bluesky

Dazzle highlights trending discussions on Bluesky

^Dazzle