It would seem like identity and domain verification are a hot topic again:

Cybersquatting is not a new issue, of course, but Bluesky’s decision to tie verification to domains as social proof shows the limitations of the strategy. After all, if Conor Sen doesn’t want to register his namesake domain, it just takes one questionable party to do it instead, put up a fake email signup form, and register an account. Domains simply don’t offer enough in the way of social proof for the average person.

Bluesky impersonation risks

This reminds me of Keybase.io. It’s a service that had potential as a centralized identity verification service. I enjoyed its simplicity and its support for developer tools. Unfortunately, they were acquired by Zoom and it seems the service was since mothballed. Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Gravatar as an alternative. I know I’m biased, but I think it has become a really good identity verification service nowadays.

Or maybe, we should just forget those external services to manage our content, and have everything on our own personal site like this one 🙂