Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers SE Radio 651: Paul Frazee on Bluesky and the AT Protocol
4 snips
Jan 17, 2025 
Paul Frazee, CTO of Bluesky and a pioneer in decentralized applications, discusses the innovative Authenticated Transfer Protocol (ATProto). He highlights the importance of user empowerment and data portability in a decentralized social network. The conversation includes insights on federated systems, cryptographic identifiers, and challenges in content moderation. Frazee also explores customizable user experiences through personalized domain names and algorithmic feeds, emphasizing a future where users have greater control over their online identities.
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Cryptographic Identifiers
- Cryptographic identifiers supersede servers, enabling data portability between services.
- This solves the problem of broken backlinks when users migrate accounts.
DID Resolution
- Use DNS TXT records or .well-known files to map human-readable domains to cryptographic DIDs.
- DIDs resolve to DID documents containing server info and signing keys, enabling service discovery.
Decentralized Architecture
- Servers in ATProto host user data repositories and act as dumb storage.
- Account portability is achieved by updating DID documents with new server information, preserving the DID.
