That’s why instance is part of the username. It’s no different than email addresses.

Yes, for sure. While the identity of a user can be checked, nobody is going to do this every time. IMO the simplest solution would be to just always show the instance even if a display name is set.

Some other projects in the fediverse have a verification mechanism in place.

I personally like Mastodon’s: if you add on your profile a link to a webpage that itself links to your profile, Mastodon will show a green checkmark next to the link: https://joinmastodon.org/verification

So you can verify your profile by linking to a webpage you own or testifies your account’s authenticity (ie. your blog, your author page of the publication your write for, etc.)

Hopefully other projects (including Lemmy) will take inspiration from this process to limit impersonations.

It’s a bit of a problem, indeed. Here’s a practical example of that:

In this example, I’m writing from a lemmy.ml account, but the display name impersonates another account in another instance (beehaw.org). Anyone could do this with someone else’s account.

Based on that, I think that:

• the Lemmy software should not allow you to use “@” as part of your display name. Ever. Reserve it as a special character.
• clients should always show which instance you’re from, even with a display name. A simple icon would be enough as long as instance admins set up uniquely identifiable ones.
• two accounts in the same instance should never be allowed to use the same display name.

And for us, users: never rely on the display name. If the identity of someone is contextually relevant, always check the actual username, not the display name.

This was discussed deeply a few days back.

It’s something we should be worried about everywhere we go online.

So try having at least 3 different passwords for personal accounts/websites and also contact moderators or support if you suspect your account has been compromised.