After many years and experiments, another conclusion I'd like to share:

Scott H.

@jwildeboer I was on Bluesky last year. I ended up leaving; however, one thing I liked is they will pin identity onto a domain you control. I don't see why Mastodon couldn't do that as well. Oh my, that would be a painful migration. Anyhoo: https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-28-2023-domain-handle-tutorial

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@acodrst We have self-verified links on Mastodon since many years Just check my profile page. There's also the .well-known URI approach [1]. But sure, BlueSky had to invent their own, new system instead of supporting existing open standards. #WhereIsMySurprisedFace

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-known_URI

Scott H.

@jwildeboer You are running your own instance, no? Are you parsing what I said? Am I just not understanding you?

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@acodrst I don't know what you understand or not, but promoting Bluesky's approach to their proprietary approach identity/domain pinning in this thread seems a bit ... off?

Petr Tesarik

@jwildeboer This is a nice idea, indeed!

I started in the 1990s, so I pretty much had to set up everything the hard way, but even the hard way was much easier back then. I still run my own email server, because adding the complexity step by step was manageable, but I don't think I could start from scratch today.

I never realized how much of my independence can be attributed to controlling my own DNS and not to running my own services.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ptesarik If I would have gotten 1€ for every broken zone file I wrote in my life, I would be a Very Rich Person by now

Petr Tesarik

@jwildeboer Oh, how so? Do you run your own name server? Or, does your provider let you upload a new zone file without checking it first?

Petr Tesarik

@jwildeboer FTR I gave up running my own authoritative name server long ago.
First, since I have only one domain, it required glue record in the TLD zone anyway, so it didn't buy much in terms of independence.
Second, my domain is properly signed, but my provider saved me all the hassle with DNSSEC.

Petr Tesarik

@jwildeboer But yeah, the memories… When the zone file refused to load, named stopped serving requests for that domain, and I had only a bit of time to fix everything while the previous records were still cached by all major ISPs…
No, we didn't have a separate staging system in 1997.

Petr Tesarik

@jwildeboer Let me explain the “glue record” for othes:

The DNS records for each domain must be physically stored somewhere and served by an authoritative DNS server for that domain. But how do other computers find that server in the Internet? Easy, they look at the NS record for the domain. However, that contains a host name, not an IP address. If the host name is in the same domain, how do you resolve it to an IP address? Well, you add a glue A and/or AAAA record to the parent zone file.

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@ptesarik I worked at a hosting company for a few years where we ran our own DNS infrastructure for around 400k domains. I programmed a lot of backend code to update DNS entries, so yes, I learned how to do DNS correctly in a way I hope no one will ever have to experience again

a pair of glumes

@jwildeboer this point is crucial! As a non-tech person who bought a domain and is looking at doing some of these things, the technical language has definitely been intimidating. I can search forums for help but they're typically full of jargon as well and make assumptions about the reader's (ie my) level of knowledge and comfort messing around with technical bits.

Personne

@jwildeboer

That's nice, but domain names are getting increasingly expensive year over year. For most of us, especially in countries where the cost of living outweighs salaries, it's an added expense. I feel there's a sort of feudalism growing in the medium, where you pay ransom to middlemen to be able to keep your digital ID. How do we get out of that loop? I don't know any domain name nonprofit cooperatives.

Jarjan

@jwildeboer
Ok, so maybe others can read along. I host my photos with Smugmug on www.iomm.net (Images On My Mind ). I also redirect iomm.net to the www domain. Now, the issue... iomm.net sometimes does, and sometimes does not redirect. Mostly on my phone it doesn't work, but on my desktop pc it does work.
Any ideas? Need any more info to know what's going on?

yodbha

@jwildeboer @mikro2nd Would you be willing to share the company name?

FediThing 🏳️‍🌈

@jwildeboer

"Ignore all the fancy hype TLDs."

Is there some specific reason for this?

Michele Adduci

@jwildeboer what kind of Domain Registrar have you used, to do this kind of forwarding for e-mail and domains? Not everyone offers it

Erik

@jwildeboer permission to get unfunny sir

*Assumes permission*

Given the farmers' protests of the last years, Wildeboer is quite humorous

Annelies Kamran, Ph.D.

@friesen5000 @jwildeboer SERIOUSLY. It's like reading Lewis Carroll: "just configure the jabberwock by opening the snell and typing 'got [pindar=1]' (unless you have a 639A machine, in which case that will revert the thoer to blit)".

Court Cantrell will not comply

@akamran @friesen5000 @jwildeboer What you wrote made a lot more sense than most of the tech jargon I read on here!