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Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

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Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#81

Post by jack1243star »

progval wrote: post #73
jack1243star wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know about this, you should consider that mastodon.social acts as an example instance. This effectively made blocking Pawoo and a few other instances the norm. There was a block-list circulating around, and if you do not block every instance on the list, your instance is misogynist, pedophile and far-right.

> There was a block-list circulating around, and if you do not block every instance on the list, your instance is misogynist, pedophile and far-right. I must have missed the memo, because I run a medium-sized instance, don't follow any blocklist, and no one ever complained about it.

Are you blocking instances, and on what conditions? I wonder how often you get complaints about wanting an instance blocked, and how you manage them.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#82

Post by jack1243star »

mdszy wrote: post #80
jack1243star wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to toot.cafe's block list, which I saw a lot of instances blindly followed. (I had my own instance)

"Blindly followed"? Or "Trusted the administration decsisions of those with similar views, and decided to follow their lead"?

My bad, I shouldn't have assumed ignorance.

I was just so frustrated when the instance cut me off from people I follow, sorry for the language.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#83

Post by cjslep »

berkes wrote: post #65
cjslep wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd much rather see ActivityPub implementations support good profile deep linking to existing (read: safe) messengers This is something myself and a few others are interested in pursuing.

Everything for this is in place. No changes or features outside of AP are needed. Mastodon even has a simple key-value table that any profile can enable and fill with details such as "website: example.com", "twitter: @jack" and so on. This feature already has "verifications". Meaning that you can add proof that example.com, keybase etc are really yours. This could easily[1] be expanded to verify ownership of SMS, or…

Oops, I think I misunderstood what I was replying to. I see what you mean.

I'm more interested in exploring getting the entire AP ecosystem be encrypted by default, using Chris' work.

I don't think I care that much about profile deep-linking to other apps. I would rather obsolete that need.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#84

Post by zaarn »

jack1243star wrote: post #64
AsyncAwait wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You conveniently omit that mastodon.social operates from Germany and thus simply cannot legally federate with many of the Japanese instances.

If you know about this, you should consider that mastodon.social acts as an example instance. This effectively made blocking Pawoo and a few other instances the norm. There was a block-list circulating around, and if you do not block every instance on the list, your instance is misogynist, pedophile and far-right.

That's simply untrue, speaking as the admin of a smaller instance. There are blocklists but they are entirely up to yourself to implement. I myself only implement rules to completely block far-right instances or "free speech" instances, those tend to cover almost 99% of content that would be frankly illegal for me to federate. The rest is a few japanese and sex-positive instances, which are only media-blocked, so they still federate but I don't allow their media on my server, which I think is an acceptable compromise completely blocking it. And from talking to other people running instances, this is pretty much the norm for the fediverse, regardless of what the far-right instances want you to believe.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#85

Post by wccrawford »

thrwaway69 wrote: post #25
soraminazuki wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think not. Japanese politicians are preparing for a crackdown on cyberbullying after a wrestler killed herself. mstdn.jp states that it won't likely have the operational capability to deal with the anticipated legal changes, whatever that might be. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2020/05/26/entertainmen...

Shows how much society cares about anyone that's not popular. There are many people who are suicidal - no named hanging out on mstdn or other internet holes. There are many who get bullied everyday in real life and it's worse because you don't have a block button. Why is everyone so focused on cyberbullying these days? They couldn't solve bullying in school. Only made it worse by putting responsibility on management.…

If you don't put responsibility for bullying on management, who do you put it on?

IME, bullying was protected by the school because the rule was always "Anyone involved in a fight is punished, even if they didn't start it."

That meant that if someone hit you, you got punished for it. So you couldn't report it or you'd be punished, which basically meant that the majority of conflicts went unreported.

Nobody was holding the school responsible for it, and so they did nothing because it was easiest for them.

However, unlike in-person bullying, cyberbullying is always recorded. (Well, unless you're on voice chat or snapchat or something, I guess.) There's a paper trail for people to follow and determine what really happened.

Perhaps ultimately it shouldn't be the website that's responsible for that, but I know if I were running the website I'd feel ethically that I had to do something.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#86

Post by cjslep »

sneak wrote: post #58
austinheap wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one controls Mastodon -- setup an instance and you're off to the races!

The idea of preemptive banning of federating with other instances is extremely common in Mastodon-land. This means that unilateral actions by admins, invisible to their userbase, restrict what their users can read, or who can read their users. It would be fine if the users opted into this, but it happens silently and arbitrarily by admins, oftentimes based on speculation or gossip, not even real abuse. It’s all of th…

You can't force user's eyeballs to read the bytes you ship to their computers unless you want to go full Clockwork Orange.

Some people want to exercise the rights over their computers (pick any ideology, FOSS included) and don't want certain bytes shipped to their computers. Who cares the reason.

Some people don't have the time, energy, money, and technical experience to exercise their rights of byte-shipping in a competent manner, so they carefully delegate that power to someone they trust. And some want to join in a community that is purposefully run this way. To categorically paint this use case as "insidious" ("silently", "arbitrarily") is in denial of these peoples' real needs.

Forcing peers to accept your bytes with the assumption that they must examine it with their own eyeballs in order to overcome a zealous interpretation of "censorship" is blatantly disregarding the humanity in a peer and their real needs.

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#87

Post by jack1243star »

vertex-four wrote: post #70
jack1243star wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a fair point, but what happens when the moderation team deviates from your beliefs? What happens if your instance is declared not-safe? You're effectively exiled from the fediverse, people you follow will never see your toots again.

Then I move instance (probably well before my instance is declared not safe, tbh). It's a feature in Mastodon, assuming my moderation team hasn't decided to disable it - basically, I send a protocol message to my followers saying "I'm over here" and they automatically follow me over there. In a future p2p protocol that's designed by people who actually realise that people exist who don't want everyone on the internet…

I had no idea account migration landed. Your description actually sounds quite reasonable. I guess I was too shocked and burnt by the instance blocking incident. Maybe I should give Mastodon another try.

Just need to find an instance that doesn't block...

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#88

Post by mdszy »

Hitton wrote: post #79

>An additional layer on top of it is so-called message franking, which allows encrypted messages to be reported to content moderators without compromising keys or message contents ahead of time while also preventing fake reports. That sounds like the encryption isn't deniable. Personally I would prefer deniable encryption to ability to report wrongthink.

What about spam and legitimate abuse? Do you think these things should be allowed to run rampant just because you believe that an admin's decision to not communicate with you is that terrible?

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#89

Post by cjslep »

jack1243star wrote: post #53
cjslep wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the "About" page on instances? It lists exactly what you want: what instances are defederated by the instance. Here's the page for the instance I reside in: https://mastodon.technology/about/more

Yes, I forgot about this feature (is this opt-in or default on by the instance owner?) This addresses my last point. But admins can still choose to block instances in the future that I might have interest interacting with. It is like a gamble choosing an instance. Making an instance is tedious, and once someone in charge finds out who you hangout with, your domain name gets blocked. Such is socializing.

> But admins can still choose to block instances in the future that I might have interest interacting with. It is like a gamble choosing an instance.

Then have multiple accounts and abide by each instances' rules.

> Making an instance is tedious, and once someone in charge finds out who you hangout with, your domain name gets blocked. Such is socializing.

You can still hang out with the folks you were hanging out with. They blocking you has no bearing over who you hang out with, unless you let them get under your skin.

Based on your responses here and elsewhere it sounds like you have a bone to pick with Mastodon because you can't find a solution where you get to be heard by everyone all the time, from the far-left to the far-right. That's not a right and that's not "free speech", that's trampling on others' freedom of association and their right to build communities as they see fit: Not every person is welcome in every community. Who are you and I to dictate what a "correct, healthy community" is?

Re: Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

#90

Post by jack1243star »

zaarn wrote: post #84
jack1243star wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know about this, you should consider that mastodon.social acts as an example instance. This effectively made blocking Pawoo and a few other instances the norm. There was a block-list circulating around, and if you do not block every instance on the list, your instance is misogynist, pedophile and far-right.

That's simply untrue, speaking as the admin of a smaller instance. There are blocklists but they are entirely up to yourself to implement. I myself only implement rules to completely block far-right instances or "free speech" instances, those tend to cover almost 99% of content that would be frankly illegal for me to federate. The rest is a few japanese and sex-positive instances, which are only media-blocked, so the…

Sounds reasonable.

It just feel very weird to me that the word "fediverse" is thrown around like a universe, except it is a balance of not getting thrown out by not being the norm. Perhaps it is just me that has this fantasy of everyone being in one place, at least on the Internet, but jerks are jerks.

String phone in one hand, scissors in another.

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