Nomadic identity: Difference between revisions

'''Nomadic identity''' is a feature currently available only to {{Internal Link |target=What is Hubzilla? |link-name=Hubzilla}} and its latest successor commonly referred to as {{Internal Link |target=What is (streams)? |link-name=(streams)}}. It provides a unique way of moving between instances fairly easily and even cloning your {{Internal Link |target=What is the Fediverse? |link-name=Fediverse}} identity. It is not available for or compatible with {{Internal Link |target=What is ActivityPub? |link-name=ActivityPub}}, though.

Nomadic identity was invented in 2011 by Mike Macgirvin. The year before, he had released a Facebook competitor named Mistpark, meanwhile renamed to {{Internal Link |target=What is Friendica? |link-name=Friendika}}. But decentralisation and community-run public nodes, as instances are called on Friendica, had started showing a side-effect, namely users losing their online identities and all their data whenever a node shut down. This would sometimes happen without announcement.

{{Internal Link |target=Moving instances |link-name=Moving instances}} was implemented as far as that was possible so that people could relocate to elsewhere when the shutdown of their home node had been announced, but this would be of no help in the case of a sudden shutdown. Even full account backups weren't a remedy if they weren't made in the first place.

Macgirvin decided that the only way to secure people's online identity was for it to exist on multiple independent servers. Thus, the idea of nomadic identity was born. However, this was impossible to implement on Friendika with its {{Internal Link |target=DFRN |link-name=DFRN}} protocol. So Macgirvin started designing a whole new protocol named {{Internal Link |target=Zot and Nomad |link-name=Zot}}. In 2012, he handed the development of what was now known as Friendica over to the community and forked it into what would become {{Internal Link |target=What is the Red Matrix? |link-name=the Red Matrix}} and, in 2015, evolve into Hubzilla.

Nomadic identity, as implemented on Hubzilla and (streams), relies on the availability of {{Internal Link |target=What are channels on Hubzilla and (streams)? |link-name=channels}} which serve as containers for the user's identity and content. It deals with the handling of these channels between servers.

One advantage of nomadic identity is that it is probably the best existing way of moving your identity from one server to another. Unlike {{Internal Link |target=What are Fediverse projects? |link-name=projects}} based on ActivityPub, it doesn't create a dumb copy or partial copy of your account on another server and leave the original behind as a usually dead account. It actually ''moves'' the content without leaving anything behind, and it moves ''all'' the content.

Afterwards, at least on Hubzilla, all non-nomadic contacts, for example on {{Internal Link |target=What is Mastodon? |link-name=Mastodon}}, have to be manually notified of the move. They are one-sided at this point, i.e. they are followed, but not followers. So all followers have to manually follow alice@bar.social after the move.

The only Fediverse protocols which support nomadic identity are {{Internal Link |target=Zot and Nomad |link-name=Zot and Nomad}}. Thus, nomadic identity is only implemented on Hubzilla and (streams).

It also used to be implemented on Hubzilla's direct predecessor, Red a.k.a. the Red Matrix, which had it first. Of the projects between Hubzilla and (streams), only the first {{Internal Link |target=What is Osada? |link-name=Osada}} didn't have it. The other two Osada incarnations, {{Internal Link |target=What is Zap? |link-name=Zap}}, Redmatrix 2020, Mistpark 2020 and Roadhouse, all had it implemented.