I think your username should actually be your public ID, so you choose “Anders” and with some convention its hash becomes the XorName of where your profile is stored, where you keep anything related to log-in info.
When you open an app, you provide your public ID “Anders”, the apps should follow the same convention to be able to calculate the XorName and find your profile. You can provide the app with any pubic ID you own, and it again calculates the XorName to find the profile info and sign you in.
Maybe that could work too. But it will be like Twitter usernames in the long run where they added a second name because the original usernames became so obscure when most common names were already taken.
So would you say you would prefer apps which allow duplicated usernames (more than one “Anders” in twitter) but you don’t know which of those is the “Anders” you know/want to talk to/trust from another app which was known as “Anders” (one of the also many “Anders” in this other app), rather than preferring to be able to identify someone by its public id? That’s what I like about public IDs, you know it’s the same profile no matter what app it’s used with.
I’m not trying to criticise, just trying to understand if that’d be your preference.
@bochaco I think here is where we take advantage of safe! Have each app cross reference the xor name of the anders we know in our contacts and display that with say a check mark so there could be multiple anders OR he could go by an entirely different name.
Edit: Although I think the latter would go against the privacy of anders perhaps not wanting to be found unless he had created a separate public ID for each app, this could be remedied by a SQRL type system as well but might make my first point moot. Anyways just rattling off the dome trying to help spark ideas.
The simplest solution is perhaps to only use public IDs that are numeric. And handle the username logic on the app level.
My idea with adding a default username is for convenience. As a use case let’s say that I want to register on SafeTube, a video app on the SAFE network. Then I click “register” on SafeTube and a question comes up “Do you want to use Anders as your username?” I click ‘Yes’ and the registration is complete.
And if SafeTube enforces unique usernames and the name Anders is already taken then an input is shown where I can use another name such as Anders2 or any other name that is available.
Or, if SafeTube allows multiples of usernames then my username can be set to Anders HGT (with a random unique three letter code as discussed in another thread) or an identicon in combination with the username or similar solution.
I got you, I think there are two perspectives, one is for your own convenience related to loging-in and which nickname to show on the app, and the other perspective (which I think I’m more concerned) is how the rest can be sure you are who they thought you were.
So, this sounds a good idea, so you mean have the app to show you the xorname of any profile you usually interact with (a profile you follow on SAFEtwitter), then you take that onto any other app (SAFEbook) and enter it to verify a contact you have in SAFEBook.
The only problem is that if let’s say provide your username on your TV show, e.g. “@NigelGreatTVShow”, so people can follow you on SAFEtwitter, how do I find the real one? you’ll need to also provide me with the xorname so I can verify it, right?
whether the public ID is human readable (chosen word) or not (hash-like auto allocated)
whether the public ID is easily recognisable as someone you know. Obviously easier for humans to recognise if they are human readable, but relying on this is unreliable because I might mistake N1ck for Nick. So it might actually be better to have the app do this check for you (eg highlight users with public IDs you already have in your address book for example).
Actually, one aspect of a pet name system that I like is that I can change how a person appears to me. So I can have Anders displayed as Andy in every app where I encounter him, even if he’s using different public IDs within them, so long as I’ve made sure it is him and have recorded this in my address book.
The problem with that for me is when sharing public IDs with people I don’t know. I want them to receive something readable/memorable, but which is only ever me (like an email address for example, or domain name).
So I think there’s a use for both. Maybe we can come up with best of both. What about:
we choose IDs like we do email and domain names (essentially like the current SAFE DNS) so they can be human readable, and each one is unique
when using an app, we can choose to have it identify us by displaying our public ID, or if the app permits tell it to display something else, an alias (like twitter does, as Anders said)
we create apps that support a PET name like system (or maybe this is different, I’m not sure exactly what that means). Anyway, a personal directory / name book of public IDs for people we know, and for each ID we can either let it display as is (eg Anders), or use an override name we provide (such as Andy) which is saved in our name book.
So in my apps, Anders will always appear as Andy, and highlighted shows me that this is the Andy from my name book. Anyone else using Andy won’t be highlighted, and if I want, I can add them and specify an override, like “Andy from work” etc
Remember that commercial companies may want to use the SAFE network. If people start to do name squatting and take names like Google and IBM then those real companies would be forced to choose other names that are different than their original brand names. Maybe that’s more of a concern in a DNS, but also consider name squatting of usernames like DonaldTrump, RealDonaldTrump and so on.
Perhaps swap the @name and displayed name? So I would pick my @name as my verifiable xor name? Then pick whatever you want on that app for the displayed name?
This all of course can be abused, as I know folks who won’t get on the network right away and I could enter their name at account creation and then occupy that name through apps on the network. In this case people may have to be verified in real life like how famous people on twitter are on a per platform basis or at least one platform then can be verified across other apps based off that recently verified xor name.
For the most part I think having pet names that can be easily verified through the xor name of others you interact with/have in your contacts/follow would really take out a little bit of that uncertainty that a contact is being imitated. That is few steps above what the legacy internet can provide.
so there could be multiple anders OR he could go by an entirely different name.