Personal Data Import/Export

@louigiverona depends on how we make it. we can't just let someone POST to /users and have us set up a secure keypair and password for them. Since we're not running a centralized network, it would be possible for me to take Sean's data and upload it to a different pod, and therefore pretend to be him on DIASPORA. Although [email protected] and [email protected] would be slightly different, it would be difficult for the common person to distinguish and may lead to some clever social engineering/phishing scams. We don't want to facilitate that in any way, so we need to make sure this whole thing is done securely.

Export of data is only of use if you can import it to your new pod. Otherwise you may as well just close one account and open a new one.

@jonneha, @goob and @mataloutreach -- lol i think i got the idea of "decisions" here incorrect. i should have put the whole proposal up there.

But before I do, does anyone know if we can write files to the HD on Heroku? If not, we need to make this an optional feature so Heroku pods don't crash when this happens.

We already can export some data? Why would that not be needed - even Facebook allows you to do that :)

All we need is an import. I don't see the security problem since you're not supposed to give your data archive to anyone else. Own fault if you upload it to the internet and someone uploads your data on another pod.

The security concern is that we need a way for another pod to authenticate as the existing user, otherwise one could simply pretend to be someone else to the network. We just need the private key of the user on the new pod and generate and establish a new keypair on/from the new pod, so that the old pod can make no further posts in the name of the user.

I say let's just do a simple upload for now and reuse the actual data processing logic there when the automatic wizard thingy is done. This way there is no risk - any more than there is now. I could create [email protected] and pretend to be him at any time :)

For data processing for example contacts in aspects would be nice to be auto-created - imho this could be first step.

The other small concern of mine is facilitating full data export: that is to say, if a user is on a big pod like JoinDiaspora.com, and has two years worth of posts, photos, and a couple hundred contacts, exporting all of that could be considered database-intensive, especially if lots of people try to do a full export on the same day.

Would setting a variable that defines how much time a user must wait to perform the download after requesting all of their data be a good idea, so that the database doesn't get too strained if everyone tried to download all of their data all at the same time?

Facebook does it nicely by putting it in a queue and then emailing the user later when the archive is ready.

@jonneha about authentication on the new pod, one more time, Persona can be the solution there, because the user will be able to log in on every website, so we can simply ask the user to log in. We really need to use Persona for authentication. Will take a look at that in February.