Post #1398875
2026-03-23 22:32 UTC
@coderanger @malwareminigun All we can *ever* hope to do is make the attacker's job harder. Right now we can tell people "Hey, you should vet new contributors to your projects" and they'd (correctly!) ask "How should I vet them?". I think a web of trust could be one part of "how you vet people".
In my mind we're talking about two "problems" right now:
1) As a group, we're still assuming good intentions of Internet strangers and that's no longer warranted
2) We don't have good tools for *easily* visualizing relationships, so it's annoying to try and vet newcomers to a project
A web of trust doesn't solve (1), but I think it could be a part of (2).
Replies (1)
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@hyc@mastodon.social 2026-03-24 06:55
@chansecodina @coderanger @malwareminigun web of trust only establishes identity, nothing else. "I assert that I am Joe Blow and these other identities corroborate that assertion." It says nothing about how good a person is. It doesn't transmit reputation, and it doesn't tell you anything useful about authorization. Those are entirely separate problems, to be addressed by other systems.