[Din] Re: an AT protocol BOF at IETF 124

[Lixia Zhang <[e-mail]>]

Ted, 

Many thanks for the pointers you shared. As I flipped through quickly, I found the discussions fascinating as they touch on the core issues of how to approach decentralization in my view.  Will try to read in full quick. 
Hope others also find the exchanges interesting. 

As a suggestion to the group: shall we consider organizing a discussion on the main points from the exchanges at the Montreal DINRG meeting?

Lixia

> On Oct 24, 2025, at 2:27 AM, Ted Hardie <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi Lixia,
> 
> Thanks for pointing out the BoF.  I think it would be particularly useful if folks could read the architecture draft in advance, because it describes the use case which is driving Bluesky's interest in standardization. You can find it here: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-newbold-at-architecture/.  
> 
> The architecture it describes is not very decentralized, but one intended to supply a "credible exit" for those wishing to change from one provider  to another.  That was explored in a series of blog exchanges between Christine Lemmer-Webber and Bryan Newbold last year.  Those begin here:
> 
> https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
>  
> and continued here:
> 
> https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t
> 
> and here:
> 
> https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/
> 
> I personally found the exchange to be very useful in understanding how the shared heap architecture of bluesky contrasts with the message passing architecture of ActivityPub.
> 
> Note that there are significant efforts outside of BlueSky to use ATProto; EuroSky  is one such: https://www.eurosky.social/ .
> 
> regards,
> 
> Ted Hardie
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 7:22 AM Lixia Zhang <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>> DINRG folks,
>> 
>> In case you have not noticed, an AT protocol BOF has been scheduled at IETF 124; I attached the BOF description below. Since Bluesky as a decentralized social app is built on the AT Protocol, this BOF should be highly relevant to DIN's interest.
>> 
>> A mailing list has also been set up for this BOF, people may be interested in joining the conversation: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/atp/ 
>> 
>> FYI, Lixia
>> ====================
>> Name: Authenticated Transfer BOF
>> Description: Self-Certifying data structures make it possible to efficiently synchronize public content across organizational boundaries, while preserving authenticity. These techniques have found broad adoption in some areas (such as software code versioning with git), but for the most part not in traditional web publishing or social web applications. On the social web today, authority and authenticity remain rooted in specific network locations and service providers, not network identities controlled by individuals or organizations.
>> 
>> Authenticated Transfer (AT) is a collection of protocol components which together provide a generic framework for interoperable social web applications, using self-certifying network data. The framework includes several components which could be in-scope for the IETF, as well as other components which are likely not. It builds on existing IETF technologies including CBOR, OAuth, HTTP, WebSockets, and DNS. The overall framework includes a schema system, but does not specify application-specific document formats.
>> 
>> This BoF is to discuss developing a narrowly-defined subset of protocol components within the IETF: the public repository data structure, wire serialization format, and public synchronization mechanism.
>> 
>> This follows a successful side-meeting at IETF 123 in Madrid, and many conversations with individuals over the years. The goal of this non-working-group-forming BoF is to open the topic to the entire IETF community for feedback, share experiences from early experimentation and implementation, and address as many chartering and scope questions as possible. This BoF would be followed on by a formal WG-forming BoF, possibly in an interim meeting.
>> 
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