One of the things I’m cautious about when it comes to lemmy (and mastodon) is how easy it can be to lose control of your account.
For example, a server could shut down unexpectedly making hundreds of people lose their accounts. Or, a malicious administrator could take over a popular account to post scams or propaganda. I am not aware of these things having happened, but I don’t think they’re too far fetched.
Self-hosting a lemmy server solves some of these problems, but that takes a bit of time, effort and money.
I was thinking about email encryption, specifically the digital signature part. Could something like that be used in lemmy? So that if someone decides to “trust” me, they will be able to trust that it’s me no matter which account I post from. They would be able to spot an impostor who had gained access to my account.
What do you think?
For the “server shutting down” part, what you want is nomadic identity. There have already been a few discussions around this stuff, here’s a good summary (scroll down to the bottom): https://blog.erlend.sh/fragmentations-in-the-fediverse
Most fediverse platforms don’t seem to see this as a priority at all right now, for what it’s worth.
Yes, thank you! Even if it’s not a priority right now, it’s at least good to know the idea exists.