Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mastodon: Add end-to-end encryption API

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 188 posts

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

#101

Post by jack1243star »

progval wrote: post #91
jack1243star wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Are you blocking instances, and on what conditions? I block instances when they either flood or I find I don't want to have anything to do with them (I do tolerate opinions I disagree with, of course; but not patent bigotry). And only based on evidence I gather myself, I don't trust screenshots or copy-pastes (but I understand some mod teams do, and that's ok if that's what their users want). > I wonder how often y…

Thanks for the insight, sounds like a very nice instance to be in!

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

#102

Post by jack1243star »

dgellow wrote: post #76
simias wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this mindset at all. It's not so much "I want to be able to say whatever I want", it's "I want everybody to listen to whatever I say". Go post edgy xenophobic stuff in your dedicated online community if you like it so much but stop acting surprised when other communities want nothing to do with you.

I believe that the issue discussed is more about mods having that control instead of the user itself. Not about the fact that everybody should listen to everything. I understand that the question is: should the mod define who “the community” the community can connect with, or not?

Exactly. Maybe some heuristics or even deep learning could help retaining control. But then we would succumb once again to the Eldritch Algorithm gods...

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

#103

Post by gargron »

dgellow wrote: post #76
simias wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this mindset at all. It's not so much "I want to be able to say whatever I want", it's "I want everybody to listen to whatever I say". Go post edgy xenophobic stuff in your dedicated online community if you like it so much but stop acting surprised when other communities want nothing to do with you.

I believe that the issue discussed is more about mods having that control instead of the user itself. Not about the fact that everybody should listen to everything. I understand that the question is: should the mod define who “the community” the community can connect with, or not?

Very few people actually want to filter through the unadulterated garbage of the internet on their own. What you want to do on social media is like, read the news, talk to friends, or promote your work. You probably don't want to spend every minute of your online presence blocking new spammers, new trolls, death threats, conspiracy theories, and the like, just to make your feed somewhat usable. So you delegate this task to moderators. On a centralized platform like Twitter or Facebook, you don't get to choose moderators. Facebook decides it doesn't belong on its platform? It's gone. You have no recourse. With Mastodon, you get to a) pick a server with policies that you like in the first place b) you can switch to another server if you're unhappy with the original one.

Server blocks are just an extension of that function. If a spammer creates a new server under their own control and creates a million accounts to send spam from, do you expect moderators from other servers to just click "block" a million times? No, that's why the bulk option exists. There's no way it couldn't.

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

#104

Post by macieklaskus »

progval wrote: post #97
Hitton wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about spam and legitimate abuse? You can block the spammer yourself. I'm not sure if the feature is about only private communication between two users or in channel, but if it's in channel, there can be bot logging messages. That way the bot's owner still knows who posted what and can ban/moderate as needed. > Do you think these things should be allowed to run rampant just because you believe that an admin's d…

If the spammer spams thousands of people, it's a better use of everyone's time if an admin bans it once and for all.

There are other solutions to this problem that don't require 3rd party intervention. For example, users could follow each other's block lists.

If Bob spams thousands of accounts he'd quickly get on multiple block lists.

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

#105

Post by loceng »

macieklaskus wrote: post #104
progval wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the spammer spams thousands of people, it's a better use of everyone's time if an admin bans it once and for all.

There are other solutions to this problem that don't require 3rd party intervention. For example, users could follow each other's block lists. If Bob spams thousands of accounts he'd quickly get on multiple block lists.

Is Bob a verified, known identity, or does he simply create unlimited accounts and continue the spamming or abuse?

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

#106

Post by Hitton »

progval wrote: post #97
Hitton wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about spam and legitimate abuse? You can block the spammer yourself. I'm not sure if the feature is about only private communication between two users or in channel, but if it's in channel, there can be bot logging messages. That way the bot's owner still knows who posted what and can ban/moderate as needed. > Do you think these things should be allowed to run rampant just because you believe that an admin's d…

If the spammer spams thousands of people, it's a better use of everyone's time if an admin bans it once and for all.

Spamming thousands of people can be detected without knowing the content. And if you accept messages from other people than those you are following, you have to accept you will inevitably get some spam. It's like getting PGP encrypted email - you can't expect server spam filter to catch it based on its content and if you report it as a spam, server spam filter doesn't see the content.

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

#107

Post by cjslep »

sneak wrote: post #96
cjslep wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

It isn't contradictory or incompatible to say that people shouldn't be forced to do anything, and also simultaneously believe that censorship, especially the silent or invisible kind, is bad. Would a web host performing MITM on an HTTP connection to alter or redact your blog posts be bad? After all, it's their hardware...

Instance banning is neither silent nor invisible. Every Mastodon instance has an About page (no login required) listing all instance bans and reasons, anytime. I would be in agreement with you about silent/invisible censorship, but that's not what's going on here.

This is a categorically different problem than MITM.

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

#108

Post by cjslep »

jack1243star wrote: post #99
cjslep wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wit…

Please don't put words in my mouth, personally I don't have anything worthy of being heard. I really wanted Mastodon to be where I can find everyone. To be free of censorship, ads and algorithm-induced bubbles. I am lucky to have the "right" mentality (in regard to the tech industry), so I am not often suppressed, but everyone is different. I don't want to impose on someone a "correct, healthy community". Blocking an…

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

However, it's very presumptuous to say:

"I really wanted Mastodon to be where I can find everyone."

That's Facebook and Twitter. And even then you can't find everyone.

People go to the Fediverse to build the community they want, not be subjected to "everyone". It's this clash of collective rights vs individualism that seems to drive so many of these ridiculous arguments. It's no different (or, in fact, it may be better now) than getting banned from one of the many phpBB forums of 20 years ago. Those communities thrived and the banned didn't even have an instance leftover to call a home: everything was gone when they got banned.

Just because you want to find everyone, doesn't mean everyone wants you to find them.

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

#109

Post by Ensorceled »

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.

I get your point, but words like "wrongthink" are poisonous to a conversation. It's a privileged position to not routinely receive death and rape threats (c.f. women and trans on twitter) so please don't minimize the other side of the debate.

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

#110

Post by drngdds »

macieklaskus wrote: post #104
progval wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the spammer spams thousands of people, it's a better use of everyone's time if an admin bans it once and for all.

There are other solutions to this problem that don't require 3rd party intervention. For example, users could follow each other's block lists. If Bob spams thousands of accounts he'd quickly get on multiple block lists.

Mastodon is federated, so you already get to choose who your content moderators will be when you pick a server. Blocklists are just an informal and spammy-by-default version of that.
Post reply on HN