Implementing the somewhat whimsical human.json protocol on my website

Terence blogged about adding a human.json file to his website.

I wanted to do the same.

The specification for human.json describes itself as

a lightweight protocol for humans to assert authorship of their site content and vouch for the humanity of others. It uses URL ownership as identity, and trust propagates through a crawlable web of vouches between sites.

A bit like signing each other’s PGP keys, really.

There are a few steps:

• add a json file to your webserver, with some basic information
• update that file when you “vouch” for someone else’s site, as being created by a human and free of AI
• added some header material to your website, to reference the source of your human.json file
• set a couple of web server headers (below)
• use a browser extension to surface that file on other people’s websites if they have implemented human.json

bash to update the list

I made a simple bash script to simplify the process of creating the json to vouch for someone:

#!/bin/bash

set -euxo pipefail

FILE=/home/neil/neilzone_bssg/static/human/human.json
URL="$1"
SANITISEDURL="$(echo "$URL" | sed 's/\//\\\//g')"
VOUCHEDDATE="$(date -I)"
COMMAND=".vouches += [{
     \"url\": \"$SANITISEDURL\",
     \"vouched_at\": \"$VOUCHEDDATE\",
}]"

jq "$COMMAND" "$FILE" > temp.json && mv temp.json "$FILE"

cp -r /home/neil/neilzone_bssg/static/human /var/www/neilzone.co.uk/public_html/

I am sure that there are better ways of doing this, but it works for me.

Headers

I am using a separate directory for this json file, as it wants specific headers. I am using apache, so in the .htaccess file in human, I have:

header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
header set Content-Type "application/json"

Browser extension

Using the Firefox browser extension, which is probably available for other browsers too, I can see if a site offers human.json file, or is vouched for by another person whose own human.json file I have already trusts.

Thoughts

Will it catch on? I doubt it. It is a bit of whimsy, and that is no bad thing.

I have only included URLs where the site owner has consented for me to do so. If you are such a person and wish me to remove the “vouch” from my site, then please do just let me know. Consent is sexy.

Because I am low-key “vouching” for people, I’ve only vouched for people that I know, even for a relatively limited definition of “know”. Not strangers, but not limited to the most intimate of relationships either. Mostly fedi friends, which is nice.

Is it bad? I don’t think so. I have seen a couple of comments about it being a useful thing for AI scrapers to follow, but frankly they seem to be doing just fine anyway. If signalling to fellow humans also attracts unwanted traffic well, in this case, so be it.