Re: [openpgp] AS2+OpenPGP protocol extension review request

[Ben McGinnes <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 06:46:57AM +0000, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> Ben McGinnes <[e-mail]> writes:
> 
> >Essentially it's a design for extending the W3C's ActivityStream
> >version 2.0 (AS2) and ActivityPub (AP) protocols for federated
> >social networks (e.g.  Mastodon and Pleroma) with OpenPGP in order
> >to provide a host of features not inherently built into AS2 and AP.
> 
> Just a note on this, I don't know what the W3C's AS2 is but whatever
> it is it's nothing like the real AS2, which is a secure EDI standard
> that's been around for close to twenty years (there are actually
> several AS standards, but the most widely-used one is AS2).  So if
> anyone goes looking for AS2 security information, they're going to
> get a very different AS2...

Ah, oops; well there's a good reason to drop initialisms and acronyms
from draft #3.

The W3C's thing is a protocol for social networking and micro-blogging
which is implemented largely in JSON format.  It grew out of the GNU
StatusNet thing, except it's clearly defined (StatusNet was a bit
hodge-podge).  Since it's federated, it's beginning to pick up a fair
bit of traction amongst the growing number of social network users who
have become disatisfied with the likes of Twitter and FarceBook.

Well, I'm not overly fussed about needing to use a short term for
these things beyond just for my own quick references during drafting;
so I'm quite happy to drop it in order to avoid future confusion.


Regards,
Ben