shazow
@shazow.eth
How can open social protocols fail us? I put together an analysis comparing several specific failure modes between Farcaster, Bluesky, and Mastodon. Please let me know if any of the protocol descriptions could be presented more fairly! https://shazow.net/posts/open-social-2025/
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Varun Srinivasan
@v
good article! my understanding here is that if the PLC decides to delete your DID keys you lose the ability to update your identity. there is some promise to decentralize it in the future, but it hasn't been executed yet. is this incorrect?
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shazow
@shazow.eth
PLC is a "self-verifying ledger" (full of signed state transitions like "key A signature giving permission for key B"), I don't think it can remove a key without breaking the integrity of the ledger (if you request the log). That said, I do think they can censor updates (if I go to update my key, they can refuse to append it to the ledger). And I think they can omit logged updates in whatever "flattened" resolving helpers they offer. A bit more here: https://warpcast.com/shazow.eth/0xee35a765
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Varun Srinivasan
@v
do users control all the keys that update the PLC? or does bluesky have keys which can make updates? if the latter is true, they can produce a new PLC trivially quickly to omit anyone they don't like. and it would still be consistent with the rules of the PLC.
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shazow
@shazow.eth
Yea when you sign up, I believe there's something equivalent to a recovery key that they custody and sign over access to you. You can take full custody but I don't think that's part of any default flow. (Not 100% certain here) That said, I think this attack is not too different from releasing an update to the client (Warpcast or Bluesky) that signs over ownership to a custodian. Or gets rid of the underlying open protocol altogether. Solved by not using the dominant client that aren't relying on defaults, I talk a bit more about that in the Takeaway section. Great questions, adding some nuance (haven't pushed yet):
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shazow
@shazow.eth
Adding to the Farcaster section, is this fair?
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