> It’s important to remember that spaces give you access control not confidentiality. The data in a space is readable by any user or application with access to that space, it’s not encrypted.
It's kind of shocking that nowhere in the discussions we see references to the IDSA (https://internationaldataspaces.org/). Most of ATproto seems to be based on data space concepts with a strange level of "we don't like RDF" layer applied on top.
I hope the growing mess of lexicons would eventually trigger them to self correct and look more into reusing (and encouraging) existing ontologies (schema.org or any number of others).
No. Data is stored on your PDS and no one else can shut it down, there is no central server. The only difference from public atproto is when you ask someone else PDS for records in a space you need a token signed by the space authority to show that you have permission to read them.
Think less "private" and more "protected." Like Patreon subscriber perks, paywalled content, or just someone who only wants certain people to see what they post.
Who would you ask besides the author's PDS though? Would every relay have a cached copy of all private data, but only give it out after checking auth? That's not a very safe design - what if my relay doesn't check?
ATProto is basically old web where you host your own content and advertise an RSS feed except there are aggregators that make everyone’s feed into one big firehouse that you can filter down to content you want to follow, and then view the content with whatever client you want (AppViews which are also servers but they can be pointed to a feed made up of others servers, like a Web Ring!)
I could hate on them for reinventing the wheel but the cryptographic stuff they do with signed merkle trees is pretty clutch, it’s a tricky problem to untangle public key identities from domains so you can migrate your content without losing your identity. There’s still not a good flow for that but at least there’s the groundwork done.
Sure they are linked by this general category of app layer service protocols, but they are different. ATProto afaik is a bit like activitypub, in which you define a protocol on top of the state representation in a way you can transfer it reliably across instantes that implement them.
It's like http in which you can achieve the same using http, but http isn't prescriptive about any such behaviours, which these protocols address
Does it operate on top of HTTP? I'm asking honestly, don't know the ATProto, if it is the yes, kinda, although REST isn't prescriptive about permissions, which the protocol also seems to be all about.
As someone reading this from the periphery (and not really even as I have been in the ecosystem, building etc), my first thought was this was some kind of live audio conversation thing ala Twitter Spaces. But nope. I know I know, you want to do your own thing, define your own naming, but alot of people still view things as far as Bluesky's relation to Twitter, in the consumer lens. You'll get there as far as independent separation but it's not there yet (similarly, Bluesky & atproto's connection/independence).
And this isn't even a consumer thing in this respect, but a dev/protocol thing.... couldn't have gone with something like Zones... Permissioned Zones?
Not saying the word doesn't make sense, questioning it's use from a branding/identity standpoint. It's already taken/associated with an aspect of another network that like it or not is still in proximity to whatever AT proto/Bluesky are developing. Just call it something else! ("hardest thing in computer science is naming things" etc etc)
> "space" is just a common English term for this kinda thing
Isn't that exactly the problem?
It's like using "node" for something in your program's design, or "tree" or "type" whatever. Usually it's better to find a more specific name that communicates the intent even better, or at least less common name, as it'll inevitably will clash with something else, and by then you wish you'd name it differently than every other single thing out there. Unless it truly is only that thing which can be called "tree", don't suddenly call it "perennial" just because.
It's funny you said "node" because the first thing it reminds me of is NodeJS. I'll admit I don't know why they called it node. But I have never seen anyone bothered by it either.
My guess is that the collision is on purpose; to differentiate ATProto from Bluesky the platform, X the platform and "Twitter" the spectral concept we still use interchangeably with X. The intention here may be to differentiate ATProto from these things in a way that is indifferent to X and Twitter's existence and past influence.
> It’s important to remember that spaces give you access control not confidentiality. The data in a space is readable by any user or application with access to that space, it’s not encrypted.
Let's go, tangled.sh is about to have private repos
You go, I’ll stay
It's kind of shocking that nowhere in the discussions we see references to the IDSA (https://internationaldataspaces.org/). Most of ATproto seems to be based on data space concepts with a strange level of "we don't like RDF" layer applied on top.
I hope the growing mess of lexicons would eventually trigger them to self correct and look more into reusing (and encouraging) existing ontologies (schema.org or any number of others).
So is this now just, like, a server?
No. Data is stored on your PDS and no one else can shut it down, there is no central server. The only difference from public atproto is when you ask someone else PDS for records in a space you need a token signed by the space authority to show that you have permission to read them.
So your PDS is a central server?
Who would I ask for my private space records but myself?
Think less "private" and more "protected." Like Patreon subscriber perks, paywalled content, or just someone who only wants certain people to see what they post.
“Protected” is the same thing at the technical level. Both would 401 or 403 to the unauthorized user.
I think they are asking how it actually works not for product marketing
Who would you ask besides the author's PDS though? Would every relay have a cached copy of all private data, but only give it out after checking auth? That's not a very safe design - what if my relay doesn't check?
ATProto is basically old web where you host your own content and advertise an RSS feed except there are aggregators that make everyone’s feed into one big firehouse that you can filter down to content you want to follow, and then view the content with whatever client you want (AppViews which are also servers but they can be pointed to a feed made up of others servers, like a Web Ring!)
I could hate on them for reinventing the wheel but the cryptographic stuff they do with signed merkle trees is pretty clutch, it’s a tricky problem to untangle public key identities from domains so you can migrate your content without losing your identity. There’s still not a good flow for that but at least there’s the groundwork done.
That's directly addressing vendor lock in
A server protocol. Like HTTP.
Sure they are linked by this general category of app layer service protocols, but they are different. ATProto afaik is a bit like activitypub, in which you define a protocol on top of the state representation in a way you can transfer it reliably across instantes that implement them.
It's like http in which you can achieve the same using http, but http isn't prescriptive about any such behaviours, which these protocols address
> state representation in a way you can transfer
> It's like [a behavioural prescription on top of HTTP]
So a bit like REpresentational State Transfer (REST) then
Does it operate on top of HTTP? I'm asking honestly, don't know the ATProto, if it is the yes, kinda, although REST isn't prescriptive about permissions, which the protocol also seems to be all about.
REST is a set of conventions for HTTP
Sorry, I meant atproto. Does it operate on top of http? At this point I could have already searched by myself but I prefer to keep it a conversation
Spaces?
As someone reading this from the periphery (and not really even as I have been in the ecosystem, building etc), my first thought was this was some kind of live audio conversation thing ala Twitter Spaces. But nope. I know I know, you want to do your own thing, define your own naming, but alot of people still view things as far as Bluesky's relation to Twitter, in the consumer lens. You'll get there as far as independent separation but it's not there yet (similarly, Bluesky & atproto's connection/independence).
And this isn't even a consumer thing in this respect, but a dev/protocol thing.... couldn't have gone with something like Zones... Permissioned Zones?
"space" is just a common English term for this kinda thing, as you can see in any dictionary ever:
Collins: "A particular kind of space is the area that is available for a particular activity or for putting a particular kind of thing in."
Cambridge: "an empty area that is available to be used"
why do you think Twitter called them spaces in the first place?
Not saying the word doesn't make sense, questioning it's use from a branding/identity standpoint. It's already taken/associated with an aspect of another network that like it or not is still in proximity to whatever AT proto/Bluesky are developing. Just call it something else! ("hardest thing in computer science is naming things" etc etc)
> "space" is just a common English term for this kinda thing
Isn't that exactly the problem?
It's like using "node" for something in your program's design, or "tree" or "type" whatever. Usually it's better to find a more specific name that communicates the intent even better, or at least less common name, as it'll inevitably will clash with something else, and by then you wish you'd name it differently than every other single thing out there. Unless it truly is only that thing which can be called "tree", don't suddenly call it "perennial" just because.
It's funny you said "node" because the first thing it reminds me of is NodeJS. I'll admit I don't know why they called it node. But I have never seen anyone bothered by it either.
If I keep it vague I can do things like:
It’s only slightly more verbose if I named the variable:
In many cases, the data I’m dealing with is outside my name control and commonly has something like { type } (e.g. <input />)
My guess is that the collision is on purpose; to differentiate ATProto from Bluesky the platform, X the platform and "Twitter" the spectral concept we still use interchangeably with X. The intention here may be to differentiate ATProto from these things in a way that is indifferent to X and Twitter's existence and past influence.