Re: [GNU/consensus] GNU Consensus Manifesto -- Comments

[Michael Rogers]

> The first use case should be, can I add a friend from system A to system B.  
> We need to ask projects how they identify their users in digital string form, 
> and if it's possible to translate that string of characters to something 
> another system can understand unambiguously.  If yes, we're good.  If not, 
> move to the next.

I'm not sure that being able to add friends across systems is the same thing as 
being able to identify users in string form across systems.

For example, Briar has no global user identifiers. When two people add each 
other as contacts (which takes place face-to-face or via a mutually trusted 
third party, so there's no need for a global identifier), each person chooses a 
nickname for the other. Those nicknames only have local scope.

In principle, two Briar-like systems could interoperate and allow users to add 
friends across systems, without any way to identify users using globally unique 
strings.

Cheers,
Michael