!Friendica Admins Around 2180 - 43849 for a week or more. Is that very bad? These are my "workers" settings:
Am not sure if I can improve anything and what in this regards, or if I should or not.
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Kdenlive failed on me :( - cannot open my last project for the TROM II second part....neither the appimage or repo. What is true is that I have added a fuck ton of videos, thousands in total....luckily an older appimage works so I can continue the work. I reported it and usually the kdenlive devs are quick to answer, let's see...
I am testing Kddenlive to the max, with a 6h documentary, 4 parts, tens of thousands of clips, over 1TB project....lots of effects, custom stuff, and so on...
So far, generally, all good. #tromlive
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I don't think that's the case tho...I have used several video editors in the past that were big names and proprietary, on windows, they too crashed and had lots of issues...all software is buggy, but when is FOSS people tend to be more critical of it I realized. I know people who tried TROMjaro and then they saw a little bug and were like "oh is because is open source and not good quality...." and the same people experience even worse bugs with macos yet they think they themselves did something wrong. It is like when google services are slow or not work properly and you blame your internet connection, yet when one of our websites is slow you blame it and not your internet, simply because you expect these big names (software wise) to always work.
I think it is a bias. When I made the first TROM with Sony Vegas I had it crash multiple times, more often than perhaps Kdenlive, and at one point I could not open my old projects with it anymore....so...
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Like what? I am creating a huge documentary as I said above and Kdenlive does great.....yes it crashes rarely and such, but so did other proprietary software I used in the past to create videos...
I use my TROMjaro Linux 24/7. I never shut down my laptop. I wrote books that are thousands of pages long with Libre Office and edited them (designed) with Libre Office Draw. Again thousands of pages...I edited tens of thousands of images with Krita/GIMP, I do backups, maintain 30-40 websites and I need tools for that....I mange projects....what else!?
So what are you unable to do with Open Source?
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It's a fallacy and misinfo of the FOSS cult they like to spread.
You are saying this "cult" is mean and all that, but you seem very mean to me. That was a genuine question you can simply answer nicely.
Compilers compile that code, right? And if the code is open source, then should add an advantage. At least is not worse than proprietary, right?
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> you seem very mean to me.
I get called this a lot just for telling it how it is. I get literally attacked and threatened because I don't just blindly agree with FOSS cultists.
> Compilers compile that code, right? And if the code is open source, then should add an advantage. At least is not worse than proprietary, right?
Not exactly. Security doesn't just mean backdoored. That's not what security is; security is the collective state of whether unauthorised actors can get in. Compilers can add unintentional backdoors and other security issues. There are many examples of this online. Just because you write code a specific way doesn't mean it will execute that way.
I get called this a lot just for telling it how it is.
Being right doesn't have to also mean being a jerk with people. What is your beef again with FOSS? FOSS provides full transparency, anyone can fork these pieces of software, creates a better community, more variety. If you are saying that when the open source code gets compiled "bad things" can happen, then ok. I cannot say anything because I do not know if you are right or not. But it won't invalidate the security that comes from the code being open for all to see.
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I never said FOSS doesn't provide freedom or transparency; not a single time; in fact, I always say the opposite. The fact (not opinion) remains that open source does not mean secure or private, and closed source does not mean insecure or not private.
Do you audit every line of code of every package and app on every system you use, without help, and with zero trust? No, you don't, because that's not humanly possible; even the OS would take your entire lifetime to audit, and that's before it updates next week and you have to start over.
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For the most part, yes. Again, compilers can change how the code ends up after changing it during compilation and linking, and source code almost never runs as written when compiled to a binary. Closed source can also be packet sniffed and reverse engineered.
I recommend you read this great article by Seirdy to understand what I'm saying:
seirdy.one/posts/2022/02/02/fl…
While source code is critical for user autonomy, it isn't required to evaluate software security or understand run-time behavior.Seirdy's Home
I'm not saying that auditing the code isn't important, it just doesn't mean what you're seeing is how it runs as a binary, and it also doesn't mean it can't be tampered with in other ways.
Simply, don't rely exclusively on software being open source to be secure or not; there are many variables to consider.
> I get called this a lot just for telling it how it is. I get literally attacked and threatened because I don't just blindly agree with FOSS cultists.
I think you've had some bad experience with some tech folks, but you shouldn't assume everyone who uses FOSS software is like that, its a diverse group of people with different perspectives and stuff like that. And me and @tio are not in any cult, LMAO 🤣
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> you shouldn't assume everyone who uses FOSS software is like that
I don't. Not everyone is part of the FOSS cult. The cultists are the ones who are closed minded and are hellbent on making sure their ideology is the only one which exists. I'm an open source advocate, but you'll never hear me say it's the only way and always the best tool for the job; it's not.
Because you mention compilers changing the code I want to ask you about this thing called Reproducible builds. What do you think of that? Wouldn't it solve this problem that you're addressing here?
Relevant links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproduc…
@tio
Reproducible builds are a set of software development practices that create an independently-verifiable path from source to binary code.reproducible-builds.org
OK I understand. But I think the main goal here is to ensure trust that the source code they released is the actuall source code of the official binary. And so I think they're succeeding in that regards.
I know briarproject.org uses reproducible builds, that's how I found out about it actually. I feel like Briar is one of those few FOSS projects that gives utmost importance to security and stuff like that, at least that's the impression I get. everythcial.trom.tf
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I advise you to read this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underhan…
As you can see, it is very possible to hide malicious code in open source code which looks perfectly fine, without anyone noticing. There are even contests for it.
So I guess if someone's really motivated then he can break all kinds of security measures in place, even if the code is public.
In the case of FOSS, I don't think this is that common though, if someone wants to make profit then proprietary software is the easier route. I guess maybe accidental security holes would be much more common in FOSS than malicious ones..... 🤔
@tio
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As someone who is, you could say, both addicted and obsessed, with security, and does almost nothing else, this is entirely true. There will even be people out there who can defeat my security.
There is high security, but there is never full security; it does not exist.
There is always a hole, usually multiple. There are always flaws. There is always a way in.
Question is, can you keep them out?
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I think that it is important indeed to make sure the software is secure, however if we as a society want to make real progress in this regards, we have to look at what motivates others to "breach" this security. For example I originally come from a very well known town where most people do all sort of scams and hacks. And they do them because they are quite poor, and also influenced by the dumb movies to want new cars and shit like that.
My point is that a saner society is safer. If we were to take care of humans and treat them well, then you will remove their incentive to "hack". Another example is that many "hackers" find exploits and sell them to the highest bidder.
So ultimately it is the society that breeds these behaviors. We shall not forget that.
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This is what threat modelling is for.
- What are you trying to protect?
- Who are you trying to protect it from?
- Why are they trying to access it?
- What are the consequences if I fail?
- What are my budget and other resources?
Just applying mindless blanket security will never work, because you can never secure everything; the only way to keep people out and focus on the actual holes are to know who is trying to get in, and how you can keep those specific people out. If you're not worried about your neighbour hacking you, and they have no reason to, you don't need to put effort into keeping them out, you need to put effort into the people who *are* trying to get in.
My point with that article was to say it is possible (even if difficult and rare) to add malicious code without anyone realising it. You can obscure open source code.
So, if you're relying solely on code being open, you're doing it wrong.
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I don't think it matters whether it's happened or not; the fact is, it can. Relying on "it's never happened before" is exactly the same as saying "I've never been in a car crash before so I don't need to wear a seatbelt". If it happens, you'll wish you did wear the seatbelt.
And yes, there are examples of it. Too many for me to post here. Use your search engine of choice and you'll find many.
Not a good analogy. I am wearing a seatbelt - I use open source software from official repos and from trusted sources. I was thinking you may give me some examples at least. I do not know any. And I am sure there are, don't get me wrong.
EDIT: to add to that, very likely most people (normal regular users) who are using open source software use it the same way. Only tech savvy people compile them and such, and they may be better equipped to smell the danger while doing that.
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Define "trusted". What if I personally trust some proprietary software more than open source alternatives? In many cases, I do.
Trust is subjective, so my analogy holds up very well. The most important thing about security is reducing trust and replacing it with provability. You "trusting" a repo or a dev means literally nothing when anyone can break that trust, and be successful because you were wide open trusting them.
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So trust is necessary in proprietary code too, maybe more.
That's a great way to summarize this I think :D
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If you're blindly trusting an open source repo without auditing it yourself, there is zero difference between that and using proprietary, because you didn't bother to audit the code, anyway.
And, personally, I prefer to trust someone who knows what they're doing, such as Google or Microsoft, with my work files, than someone who just wrote their first block of code and turned it into software from their basement.
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itzzenxx :heart_trans: :heart_lesb: and bits :waifu: :Win: like this.
Auditing the code yourself is always best, but when it comes to proprietary software no one can audit it, not you or anyone except the one who wrote it.
> I prefer to trust someone who knows what they're doing, such as Google or Microsoft, with my work files, than someone who just wrote their first block of code
This is of course your choice, and I get it. However I don't think all FOSS devs are noobs though, some might even work for google/microsoft, lol 
@tio
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If you're blindly trusting an open source repo without auditing it yourself, there is zero difference between that and using proprietary, because you didn't bother to audit the code, anyway.
I disagree. The fact that the code is open source it means others may have looked at it. So my trust is in the one who published the code + the ones who may have looked/tested it. With proprietary my trust is ONLY in the one who made the code. So Open Source is at least a bit better in that regards. It may be a lot more, idk.
And, personally, I prefer to trust someone who knows what they're doing, such as Google or Microsoft
Most of the times is not about trusting their expertise, but their intention too. I trusted Google Drive with 2TB of files until it decided to delete my entire account, gmail included, and I got no answer as to why. And they charged me for 3 months before restoring my account. I trusted Facebook to not sell my data, and they did. I trusted lots of other big companies with proprietary software, and I got screwed. So...
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You're trusting more than 1 party when you blindly trust an open source project and people to audit it (which may not even have happened so you're talking ghost people who don't even exist). That's completely illogical and dangerous to me; why would you just *hope* someone has audited the code? Do you even know who the people are *if* they have audited it? You're blindly trusting them, too. What if they're all in cahoots?
As for what you said about Google or Microsoft deleting/suspending your account, that's not related to source availability; even open source Codeberg or Proton Drive could do that. You're mixing these things up.
Software A is FOSS, software B is proprietary. It is a simple music player. Which one can I trust more?
If I had the time/skills I could check the Software A in more detail, but never Software B. Software A, if popular, is very likely to have been checked by others for malicious code. Again, never for software B, unless you trust the company behind it blindly.
Second, from my experience, people doing FOSS have a lot less incentive to do anything "bad" to your system, simply because they put that software for free mostly. They do not want anything from you.
Proprietary? Has a lot of incentive to milk me for my data, currency, attention (ads), make me buy premium features and such. Scripts will be added for tracking, stats, and more. Why would the developer of Software B make it proprietary if he/she would simply want to create a music player?
So yah, I trust FOSS a lot more because of these reasons. I should ask myself the opposite: why would I trust a proprietary music player (or any software) more than a FOSS one? I don't see a reason why.
As for what you said about Google or Microsoft deleting/suspending your account, that's not related to source availability; even open source Codeberg or Proton Drive could do that. You're mixing these things up.
It is about trust. They say one thing, and do another. You gave them as examples of entities that you trust. I told you why they are not worthy of trust. And those are small examples, I wrote books showcasing how they fuck people over, and lie so much. I cannot trust Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on, as pieces of software that say they do this, when in fact they do more, and not the "good things more".
You have not convinced me that proprietary software is more secure than Open Source, at worst they can be the same when we rely solely on trust. A trusty entity + an open source code, is better than a trusty entity + a closed source code.
I don't need to convince you that proprietary software is more secure than open source, because it's untrue. Likewise for the opposite.
Source availability should not be the only factor in determining security or privacy. I made this very clear in previous posts.
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Source availability should not be the only factor in determining security or privacy.
An no one disagreed or said otherwise. I never said being open source should be the only factor, but it sure is a plus. And a huge one from my knowledge.
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Open source allows transparency (but not easy viewing of whether the code is malicious or not, since I showed that it is possible to hide malicious code in open source code), auditing, and freedom to modify the code. It also has the nice advantage of being able to study and learn from it.
Despite proprietary code not having these possibilities, it *is* possible to reverse engineer the binaries back into source code, even if it is difficult to do so, and it is very possible and even preferable to perform red team/security analysis on closed source binaries because both open source code and proprietary code run as closed source binaries once on the system and that's the state the software is actually used in.
Other than source availability, questions to ask are:
- Does the software have security mechanisms? Which ones does it have? How are they implemented?
- Does the software have control-flow integrity? If so, forward-edge or backward-edge? Does it take advantage of CPU and other hardware security such as Intel CET or AMD Shadow Stack?
- What ciphers, hashes, and other algorithms, does the software use?
- Has the software been through professional audits?
- How well has the developer done in the past? Do they hide security issues from users, or do they admit them and fix them? You'd be surprised at how many proprietary pieces of software do actually care about this and provably do fix these issues.
This is not an exhaustive list.
It's also dependent on what your threat model is and where and how you are using the software. Nothing wrong with using proprietary Edge in a business, because you probably have a support contract with Microsoft, and you can keep people out using SDSM. For personal usage, you probably want Chromium proper, or Tor Browser, for more private usage. It's completely your choice and there is never a right or wrong one.
I don't care which side someone on or what their ideology is, no one should be shaming people over software.
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> Source availability should not be the only factor in determining security or privacy.
Yes, I actually agree with this. Just because a piece of software is open source doesn't automatically make it secure. This is not a new idea to me, see this - fosstodon.org/@futureisfoss/10…
> Being open source doesn't make an app magically secure. Open source is about transparency and trust, the security of the app depends on how many people are looking for vulnerabilities in the source code.
@tio
@XxAlexXx Being open source doesn't make an app magically secure. Open source is about transparency and trust, the security of the app depends on how many people are looking for vulnerabilities in the source code.Fosstodon
> As for what you said about Google or Microsoft deleting/suspending your account, that's not related to source availability; even open source Codeberg or Proton Drive could do that. You're mixing these things up.
I think here @tio meant that commercial companies often decide quick to paywall features and stuff like that, so you'll lose your account or some features you were using. This is not directly related to FOSS, but most of them are not commercialized, so less chance of this.
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Relying on "it's never happened before" is exactly the same as saying "I've never been in a car crash before so I don't need to wear a seatbelt".
It's actually the same as saying "There never was any car crash", which is a much stronger statement. "It doesn't happen" is different from "it happens only to others"
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> I know the tech community can be real toxic sometimes, but no one should be telling you what you do on your computer.
This is true for everything. The issue is, it's mostly the open source advocates who behave this way, putting you down and making you feel like you're doing everything wrong, just because of a choice you made. It's complete bullshit. You want to use open source Signal? Go ahead. You want to use closed source WhatsApp? Go ahead. I don't care, and I never will; it's your decision to make. You want me to tell you what to eat and drink, too?
The toxicity of the FOSS community (what I term the "FOSS cult") is what makes me skeptical of a lot of FOSS projects; they don't correctly implement security or privacy, and the code being open in that case is literally useless; it means nothing.
they don't correctly implement security or privacy, and the code being open in that case is literally useless; it means nothing.
You sound defensive to me. :) - so be aware of this too. Here's the thing, probably many people who discover FOSS are too excited about it and really want to tell the others about it. This excitement can turn into them being "too much" and becoming annoying.
For example I suffer from over-excitement too when it comes to this, simply because I realize how important FOSS is form so many perspectives. Combine that with the fact that most people have no clue about it, and makes me more vocal. Like people use Zoom and their data is collected, their video chat is limited, and so on, but there is Jitsi Meet that is purely for that purpose: video conference. Works amazingly great and no limitations. So naturally I want to tell people about it :D.
But of course, use whatever you want. However there are objective arguments of why FOSS is a better approach than proprietary software. Proprietary means: limits the access for poor people who have to pay for it; incentivizes profit over community; adds many unnecessary features fir the sake of selling it; non-transparent; and so forth.
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Did you know that tailsOS was my first linux distro? Can you believe that? LMAO 🤣
I couldn't install it on hardware ofcourse, but it gave me enough experience with the linux ISO thing - how to make a bootable USB, boot into it, etc. So it was actually a very good first step for me, I don't know if I would have had a positive experience if I started with a full-on distro like ubuntu/manjaro because I had lots of issues getting it installed on my system, UEFI issues
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Hey people on the fediverse, I have a serious question/proposal. I talked about this in the past, but I want to create a thread about it and I will tag a few people because it is an important discussion:
The problem: like on any such platforms, you'll come across the crazies (the nazis, the bots, the spammers, and so on).
The other problem: what you find as crazy and despicable, I may not. So having admins decide for everyone is not a good approach. Plus, admins cannot do a good job at blocking everything and everyone for you.
The solution: how about we collectively and open sourcely create well defined lists like: bots, spammers, nazis, porn, etc.. And let the debate happen in 1 single place (say a git repo) where you are obliged to transparently submit proposals and have them accepted to the list. We end up with (hopefully) well defined lists (categories) of "bad actors", in a transparent manner. Now services like Friendica, Mastodon, and the like should implement an easy way for any user/admin to toggle on or off these lists. You wanna see no nazis? Enable the nazi filter. Easy. And everything on that list, users or instances, will be blocked for you, the user.
That's the beauty of AdBlockers. Users have the control and they are well designed and functional, and easy to use.
What do you people think?
@Rokosun @Michael Vogel @Informa Pirata @Hypolite Petovan @Eugen @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @Amolith @ar.al🌻 @Cleo McKee @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @dansup @Jeena @Snopyta @TBlock @utzer ~Friendica~ @xantulon
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@Tio @Michael Vogel @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @ar.al🌻 @Hank G @dansup @Jeena @Humane Tech Now @Snopyta @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @Amolith @TBlock @Informa Pirata @xantulon @Cleo McKee @Rokosun I am not so happy about to much of a automatism in this area, it is easy to get on such a list and hard to get off, at least as far as I see there is usually not way how to contest against being on a blocklist.
I can understand the approach, I also understand that it tries to avoid what I think is the bad idea, but I think it will be used differently.
What I would like it so be able to set accounts on my servers as unlisted, so that all their posts don't show up in remove public timelines. Also I would like to be able to receive reported accounts, so I as an admin can decide what to do about an account. I would like this process to adhere to the laws applicable, so the reported account gets notified and I want this account owner to be able to respond and maybe delete some of their content in order to avoid suspension.
I would like this kind of process that Twitter employed, but make it better and fairer, not sure if I want to decide on all the reports.
For bots, high frequency posters, twitter cross posters and pr0n we could also have account flags, users should be able to set them by themself, but admins should be able to override them.
Too much written, but I don't like the central prepared and easy to integrate list idea.
Tio likes this.
it is easy to get on such a list and hard to get off
Yes this is an issue I agree. But at least if you know there is 1 place where you can see if you are on such lists and argue against if you are one of them, seems better than not knowing at all. Right now for example I have no clue if my instance is blocked by other or not. It is not at all transparent.
What I would like it so be able to set accounts on my servers as unlisted, so that all their posts don't show up in remove public timelines.
Good idea!
Also I would like to be able to receive reported accounts, so I as an admin can decide what to do about an account. I would like this process to adhere to the laws applicable, so the reported account gets notified and I want this account owner to be able to respond and maybe delete some of their content in order to avoid suspension.
I agree with this too.
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The list would violate the GDPR for any accounts listed which identify an individual; e.g. if their nick is their full name. If the lists are diligent to only include (pseudo)anonymous accounts, I suspect it would be #GDPR compliant, but then someone could stay off the list just by choosing a nick that looks like a real name.
@utzer @heluecht @amolith @Gargron @hypolite @snopyta @hankg @humanetech @aral @jeena @dansup @pluralistic @tblock @xantulon @informapirata @toplesstopics @roko
From a user perspective (I'm not an admin, I don't run a host) I'm concerned about this topic. It's not clear to me the need for centralized censorship lists. What is the problem that isn't adequately handled by current technology (muting, blocking, imposed content warnings)?
Most of the concepts behind bans are personal points of view. For instance, my chosen home server caters to naturists and nudists. Some might like to see us banned as "pornography." Trom.tf courageously hosts @ToplessTopics, a top-freedom advocate who has been banned from just about every other venue as "pornography" or "adult content."
How is this list to be regulated? By the number of votes? What if 99% of the submissions agree to ban a certain religion, or vegans, or economists who wear yellow shirts on Tuesday? What measures protect the voice of the minority or of protesters? What stops the list on an individual's repository from becoming their own property catering to their whims?
I understand admins need to exercise control over issues like bullying, spamming, and conforming to local legal regulations. I'm even okay with certain hosts being marked to hide all media by default, or not showing in the federated timeline. But beyond that I'm leery about ban lists.
@tio @tblock @hypolite @pluralistic @aral @Gargron @dansup @humanetech @amolith @heluecht @informapirata @hankg @snopyta @roko @toplesstopics @xantulon @utzer @jeena
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What is the problem that isn't adequately handled by current technology (muting, blocking, imposed content warnings)?
Right so I do not want these list either to be honest. I am against banning people/instances at the instance level. But after many discussions on the fediverse I realized that many admins block other instances and users, and this is non-transparent. This idea with block lists is to address these non-transparent and "personal" decisions and to give users the power to quickly block spammers and bots.
How is this list to be regulated? By the number of votes? What if 99% of the submissions agree to ban a certain religion, or vegans, or economists who wear yellow shirts on Tuesday?
Because you make lists based on what you want to ban, like adblockers do. And it is up to the users what lists they want. There are adblocker lists about blocking ads and trackers, some block fb, twitter and the like, others porn and so forth. WHo decides? I do not know...who decides for adblockers?
I'm not sure ad blockers are the best comparison. Ad blockers serve to prevent invasion of a computer system by malicious JavaScript and tracking beacons. Bad JavaScript can result in the security compromise of systems possibly resulting in takeover. It makes sense for knowledgeable people to offer prepared lists of known sources of malicious software for ad blocker users.
In the Fediverse the most dangerous thing is an idea, or worse, a conversation about an idea. Dangerous as ideas may be, they don't compromise the programmatic Integrity of an operating system giving control to a state actor or a group hell bent on compromising bank accounts. They don't follow someone from web site to web site constantly nagging them to buy something.
The proposed lists seem to me more like email blacklists. To a degree blacklists help with spam, but they're a mallet where often a scalpel is needed.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think ready-made blacklists that users can apply simply with a click and nary a second thought strikes me as similar to big tech's algorithms.
If someone wishes to block all my posts because I promote naturism, I'm fine with that. What is harmful is offering a list that promises to block porn, and mixed in among the list entries are naturists, top freedom and breast feeding advocates, breast cancer survivors and many others who would be silenced because thousands of unsuspecting users think they're blocking dick pics.
By all means, block harm (bullying, threats, spamming, etc.), but past that teach people to decide for themselves what they want to read. Don't make that decision in their behalf.
@tio @tblock @hypolite @pluralistic @aral @Gargron @dansup @humanetech @amolith @heluecht @informapirata @hankg @snopyta @roko @toplesstopics @xantulon @utzer @jeena
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Look I am the one who tries to fight against admins blocking entire servers or users. I had many discussions about this and I think it is wrong for an admin to do that. Users can do whatever they wish to with their online presence.
That being said adblockers block ads, many of whom are not dangerous to any computer, just to the mind (an annoyance). The fediverse will be more and more full of spammers and scammers and bots. We need some lists for those, at least. And the rest of the lists (porn, guns, whatever) are a good alternative to what it is happening now. If the lists are public one can at least see their name/instance there and do something about that. But now you are blind to it all.
I appreciate what you have to offer, and I'm not saying it's wrong. Remember, I'm offering my views from a user perspective, not as an admin.
What I am doing is writing to the larger audience. You and I (and others in this thread) are having a discussion, which is what I think the Fediverse excels at. You make your case, I make mine, others chime in with additional thoughts. Beyond all of us participating directly, there is the larger audience of readers who don't participate but do read and think about what everyone has to say.
This topic needs as much input as it can get. From you, from everyone you included in the OP, and from anyone else who would like to participate.
I've given my viewpoint. I make no pretense that it's correct; it's just how I see things from my perspective as a user at this point in time.
Your viewpoint is just as valid, and just as important.
It's not about winning an argument---it's about getting as many differing viewpoints as possible to be considered before a final decision is made.
If I have given the impression that I'm denigrating your viewpoint, I apologize. That was not my intention.
@tio @tblock @hypolite @pluralistic @aral @Gargron @dansup @humanetech @amolith @heluecht @informapirata @hankg @snopyta @roko @toplesstopics @xantulon @utzer @jeena
I appreciate your desire for transparency, but there's a dark side to that, as well. Imagine such a set of lists where who is being blocked and who submitted the proposal to block them is publicly viewable.
Now image the person or people behind the blocked/banned website. They know exactly who is against them. Their target is perfectly described. Now comes the DDoSing, the doxing, the swatting, the complaint calls to employers, the endless harassment in other channels; or, if it's a corporation, a polite call from the legal department.
If I ran a server, the last thing I would do is make a public pronouncement about who I'm blocking and who told me to do so.
@tio @Gargron @amolith @aral @dansup @hankg @heluecht @humanetech @hypolite @informapirata @jeena @pluralistic @roko @snopyta @tblock @toplesstopics @utzer @xantulon
Transparency is needed particularly when a node admin does the blocking. E.g. mastodon.social currently blocks mg@101010.pl & does so in a deceptive way that disguises the fact that the ban is done by mastodon.social not 101010.pl. It’s an abusive Reddit-style shadowban that keeps both sides of the ban in the dark.
@tblock @hypolite @pluralistic @aral @Gargron @dansup @humanetech @amolith @heluecht @informapirata @hankg @snopyta @roko @tio @toplesstopics @xantulon @utzer @jeena
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Of course when a bully is banned, then transparency harms bully victims.
The fedi needs to treat bullies different than politically motivated censorship.
MG is a beneficial svc but mastodon.social makes a value judgement to censor a fedi service from the biggest swath of fedi users. Abuse by admins needs transparency
@tblock @hypolite @pluralistic @aral @Gargron @dansup @humanetech @amolith @heluecht @informapirata @hankg @snopyta @roko @tio @toplesstopics @xantulon @utzer @jeena
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reminds me of a poll I have recently made. I think having personal instances is a good way to go. Although, not everyone would consider this feasible. Additionally, how would this be different to communities where the moderation is left to the user?
The poll I mention: saturno.com.ve/notice/AJIznfEX…
The direction the #Fediverse should take, according to you, should be dominated by...saturno.com.ve
Yes but how do users know when they need their own svr (or another svr)?
The problem is not so much that an admin can abuse their power; it’s that when they choose to abuse their pwr it’s invisible to the users. Admins need control but a fair & balanced system spotlights bad admin actions so users know to bounce & avoid poorly admin’d nodes.
/cc (list shortened to just those who’ve participated)
@hypolite @heluecht @aral @humanetech @tio @sky_scat @xantulon
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#Lemmy is an interesting case b/c the s/w includes a modlog, so users can review the modlog and check whether a moderator or admin is reasonable. But with Lemmy it’s just an illusion b/c admins of the flagship instance (lemmy.ml) have actually been caught deleting modlogs when public attention is on an embarrassingly poor admin action.
We need to get those modlogs on a public blockchain ;)
@hypolite @heluecht @aral @humanetech @tio @sky_scat @xantulon
So consider this: Brussels police posted recovered stolen property on Facebook. Victims not on FB were unable to see if their stolen property was recovered, thus the police were only serving victims who use FB. When that story came to r/Brussels, Octave censored it.
You might say “fair enough, he’s the mod”. But admins & moderators are empowered by their users & Reddit ensures that most users are unaware of power abuses.
@hypolite @heluecht @aral @humanetech @tio @sky_scat @xantulon
Of course when a bully is banned, then transparency harms bully victims.
But if a user bans the bully, then there is no reason for the bully to know. Transparency means for instances. When instances ban, it should be transparent to all. What users do with their own accounts is their own private business. But when instances do these sort of things, and affect other users, then it should be automatically public.
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I do not have an exact answer. How are the ones behind adblockers or the new content blockers for youtube, dealing with these? Will they remove self promoting content from some websites? How about the lists of trackers, are they gonna remove the trackers that are there for the purpose of making a website work? idk...but these projects started somewhere and got better and better over time, and super useful at what they do.
Labeling certain accounts as spamming or bots, or whole instances, may not be far from what the above examples are doing.
@Tio @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @ar.al🌻 @Jeena @dansup @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @TBlock @xantulon @Informa Pirata @Cleo McKee
I know I'm late but I didn't check my Friendica account last day, so I'm only seeing this post now.
I have actually brought up this idea of blocklists before, but at the time we were talking about implementing something like that in a peer to peer system, because there are no admins or moderators there, users have to do everything themselves and having such a list can be helpful. And I hear some people saying they don't like the idea of a centralized list, but it doesn't have to be a single list you know, if someone disagrees with the list then they can always fork it and such, this is not a big issue IMO because we've already dealt with these problems in the domain of ad-blocking lists. And its important to categorize the list, so for example if someone is okay with nudity then they can choose to not block that category.
I'd like to know about the moderation tools that fediverse admins have access to. Can an instance admin simply remove an account or an entire instance from their local/global timeline without outright blocking them? So this means that their posts won't appear on the instance's timeline, but if a user follows them directly then they'll see the posts on their home timeline. I believe it would help a lot if admins have the power to do this, because there are some edge cases where they may not feel like banning it entirely, but just to get rid of it from the public's view.
When we're talking about censorship concerns in the fediverse, its important to address how easy it is for users to move instances, and currently with platforms like Mastodon, Friendica, etc, its not so easy. From what I've read so far, Hubzilla does it a lot better I think, because they have this concept called "nomadic identities". And Hubzilla also supports cloning so you can clone your account across multiple instances to make it resilient, how cool is that? 😀
I'm not exactly sure if moving instances in Hubzilla would also port over all of the previous user data, but that would be super cool if they can do that, so I can move from one instance to another without loosing all of my old posts and replies.
Another thing I'd like to see in a decentralized social media is an additional p2p implementation which can be used to talk to users or other instances directly without first going through my own instance, this would essentially solve most of the censorship concerns because now you don't have to rely entirely on your instance to communicate. But there comes some issues like what if I like/share a post, for that I'll have to depend on my instance right?
So maybe fediverse isn't the best place to add p2p, it wasn't originally made for that. Some of you may know about the p2p social network scuttlebutt.nz/, this actually does a lot of those things I listed above, with an option to use servers if needed. Only issue I have with this is that it won't scale as well as the fediverse. Because in Scuttlebutt you have to store all the information on your device itself, if you just joined a server then you'll have to first sync and download all the content that's on the server to your phone, and this can take lots of storage space. This video addresses some of these concerns -
So IMO the sane way to do it would be to find a sweet spot between what Hubzilla does and what Scuttlebut does. You don't have to make the network entirely p2p and make everyone store everyone else's data, its OK to rely on federated servers as long as its easy to move from one to another and supports cloning like in Hubzilla. If Scuttlebut only needs storing my own posts, replies, and other data then I don't see any issue with that, because this data is probably needed to move between different clients or servers. But I think storing the data of everyone in the network is overkill, let the users store a local copy of their own data and also keep a backup of the same data in the server(s) of their choice.
I'd like to know about the moderation tools that fediverse admins have access to. Can an instance admin simply remove an account or an entire instance from their local/global timeline without outright blocking them? So this means that their posts won't appear on the instance's timeline, but if a user follows them directly then they'll see the posts on their home timeline.
I would like to also know this. @Hypolite Petovan @Michael Vogel is this a reasonable possibility? Perhaps the ability to have a list of instances/users that are made unlisted on the public timeline and can only be visible to the ones interacting with them directly.
because there are some edge cases where they may not feel like banning it entirely, but just to get rid of it from the public's view.
Yes and this is why Peertube is amazing. You can force a clean instance by promoting what you want - choose what instances/users to follow. And even restrict the search to the local videos. I am thinking of something similar for federated social networks, where you choose the instances you want to federate with, and they will be shown in the global timeline and such. idk how well this applies for a social network...
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I guess the solution is that users individually can block other users but it is kept to them.
This, yes! Perhaps such lists should be for individual users, applied for their own selves, not for instance admins. Not sure what is best...
By the way I want to mention that I really hate when admins block users/instances. They should only do that in extreme situations (like spam and bots). But I do understand that we need tools for this as well. Also you have to understand that if we do not have a better solution to this admins will continue to ban users/instances in a non-transparent way. Friendica at least publishes all such blocks publicly by default. But it needs to also send a notification to all users when a decision like this has happened.
So the discussion is very important. I see these adblock-like lists mostly geared for users and not admins.
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So on Friendica whenever admins add domains to the blocklist, it becomes public at /friendica url. Admins are also forced to explain the reason of the block.
Now I have asked them to automatically add a notification to all users of that instance when a domain is added or removed from the list - github.com/friendica/friendica… . This is a move in the right direction.
Friendica is leading the way to a great social platform in so many regards, and the develops, @Michael Vogel @Hypolite Petovan and @Tobias are so friendly and open to suggestions. I hope this never changes because it is the most important aspect of Friendica. I really feel comfortable talking to these guys and suggesting improvements for Friendica, without (hopefully) overwhelming or annoying them.
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@Tio @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @ar.al🌻 @Jeena @dansup @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @TBlock @xantulon @Informa Pirata @Cleo McKee
So the last time we talked about this topic I explained how most of these censorship issues could be avoided by using peer to peer systems. But now I wanna take a look at the fediverse itself and see how we can make things better. I have an idea that I want to share with you all, because I think it could solve a lot of issues with our current method of moderation. I felt like it was better to make a separate post for it so explained it here - social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc4…
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@Humane Tech Now @Emacsen @CSDUMMI✝️🕊️🏛️ @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Tio @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @ar.al🌻 @Jeena @dansup @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @TBlock @xantulon @Informa Pirata @Cleo McKee
I have made another post to explain about the social impacts of moderation & censorship - social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc4…
So far we've been talking only about the technical side of things, to see how we can improve moderation by giving more power and choice to the users. But looking at some of the replies I got on my last post I felt like maybe a lot of people don't understand why we're doing it in the first place, why should we give more power to the users over admins? So I wrote this post, to answer that question, but also to make people understand how much of a complex topic moderation actually is, it isn't just simply "blocking bad content".
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@Tio I don't understand, I use the fact that public posts and accounts are accessible via the web quite a lot. I just tested again with a public profile in an incognito tab without logging in. Works fine. But I use their site, not some third party site. Is there a reason you can't use their site? Which public Instagram account are you trying to reach?
Coincidentally I've just today been experimenting with (commercial product) Iframely, and at "https://iframely.com/embed" you can get valid embed codes for Instagram posts that you normally would need an api key for; just in case this is in some way an alternative to what you want to achieve (your other categories looked like they are based on embeds, that's why I'm mentioning this).
Damn I went through all of the TROM Memes....from yesterday to today, I checked some 4-5 thousand...not healthy! But I am done. I have reduced them down to 2.8 thousand in total, the rest were duplicates or the ones we did not need anymore. I have added them to social.tromsite.com - and now our system will kick in and randomly take 1 of the 2.849 photos that we have, and post it as new. That will then be reshared on our @TROM Friendica page in ActivityPub format.
Also thank you @Airton for helping with some of them!
Now that's done! I wanted to do that for the past 3-4 years and never had the time to do it. No more memes to post for the next many months. But if we are to post the ones we have, every day, one a day, it will take 7-8 YEARS to post them all. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. I made so many memes that it will take some 8 years to post one a day hahahaha.
TROM has so much content people have no idea. And we will make more, regardless if anyone is interested or not :P #tromlive
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Damn, you just edited 4 thousand photos in 2 days! My head hurts just thinking about it 🥴
Also I hope your hand gets better :)
So today I dealt with our TROM Memes. We have this website social.tromsite.com/ where we post the thousands of memes that we made over the years. They are quotes from our books and are still relevant. However the majority of them had a TVPMagazine watermark since they were made for the magazine at that time. Adding a TROM watermark and hiding the TVPMagazine one, is not easy for thousands of images. So we managed to do it for like 1.2 thousand of them, and had some 4 thousand left....for many years now....and no one willing to help out.
So I took the matter into my own hands. I have decided to cut the TVPMagazine watermark rather than replace it. That's so much faster. And where I can't, fuck it delete the meme. We have too many anyway...
And so I managed to fix 600 and add them to the mix. We still have 3.3 thousand left and I plan to do them all these days. And add them to the website.
I also added them back to our Friendica page as automated re-shares. So, for one, we have this system where our website takes a random meme and publishes it as new. Every day. Now I integrated activitypub into that website so you can grab a stream and auto-repost on Friendica. Thus out Friendica page is reposting again 1 meme a day. But this time in activitypub quality - much much better.
It is too fucking hot to be able to do any creative work I sweat (swear!). I can't focus it is so hot...but will try to get back to TROM II these days for sure. #tromlive
For the next 40 days we have scheduled one new trade-free app for our TROMjaro Library at https://www.tromjaro.com/apps/ - follow us here on Friendica where we autoshare them all. Discover new wonderful apps! :) #tromlive
The heat is nuts here in Spain....even in the north, today felt like 36 (officially). Now...A/C and insulation should be a human right alongside food, healthcare, shelter, and so forth. Most supermarkets and stores have better climate than most homes where people live. That's how humans prioritize things in the trade-based society.
Also, that climate change thing....yeah...whatever who cares...as long as humans are all enslaved by the trade system and have to wake up in the morning, go work at least 8h a day, then no one can even give a shit about climate change or anything else except how to fuckin' survive.
You wanna fix the climate change thing? Well at least take care of people. That's the first important thing. De-Enslave them from the trade-system. Give them access to their needs as trade-free, then we can have more minds trying to figure out how to fix the other issues. More activists, more voices, more time, wiser decisions. Else, we-fucked. #tromlive
We need your input! Bonjour, we are Framasoft. Our small French nonprofit maintains and develop PeerTube (among 50+ other projects), with only one (1!ideas.joinpeertube.org
Presenting TROMjaro in detail (video) forum.tromjaro.com/t/presentin…
I have added the last video to the mix. Now the TROMjaro video presentation is done. Quite big but there is a lot to talk about. Enjoy! 😀 #tromlive
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The usual Manjaro updates plus: Backup app We have replaced the default files backup application. Instead of using DejaDup, that had some Google Drive integration, we are now using the Pika Backup application.TROMjaro Forum
The new Thunar's Split View (TROMjaro's default file manager) is super duper useful:
I am testing the dev version but lots of great features will be shipped in the 4.18 version of the XFCE release. Cannot wait! :)
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!Friendica Admins So here's something new to me. Someone contacted me to tell me that he has banned our IP (I guess) from his instance since the following happened: he had 2 accounts on his instance that he has removed since. But seems that some people followed him from our instance, and now our instance basically tries to connect with his dead accounts resulting in multiple errors on his instance.
How to navigate this? Is this something I can do anything about? Should I even bother? Isn't this something that is probably happening across the fediverse all the time?
@Michael Vogel @Hypolite Petovan I'd like to see your input since this may affect all Friendica instances at one point or another.
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Fuck it I had 1 goal today after I worked so hard: to watch the first part from beginning to end to see how it all combines. I could for 40 minutes then I got interrupted several times...fucking hell. So yeah.....idk seems ok...but idk anymore. Quite annoyed. Fuck it. You can't fuckin create something like a documentary that requires your full attention while sharing the house with many people who work and come and go and make noises and call and all that. That's why all of my life I lived in the darkness. After everyone went to sleep. So I can focus on these things...
I know is not their fault but so frustrating that I could not get to properly watch this first part...fuck.
Anyway, I will try to calm myself down these days and start part 2....
:( #tromlive
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Damn I think I finished the first part of TROM II. Well of course I will need to fix a few little things, but that's when all of the other parts are done. I have added 20 more minutes to it. I still have to watch it all tomorrow to see if all makes sense. But since I watched it, and parts of it, sooo many times I feel like I can't judge it anymore. Thing is I will never ever be able to experience this documentary like the rest....I wish I could somehow just to see if I like it or not and if it has an impact on me haha. But this cannot be done.
Anyways, tomorrow I'll watch it all again and then probably I will move to part 2.
This is the monster:
At least 1 of the 4 parts of the monster :D .
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That's one weird aspect of creating these things, I never thought of this before, even though you made the documentary you won't be able to enjoy it like the rest of us who don't know what's in wait for us......
Damn..... I wish you could see it like new, maybe you can rewatch it years later when you don't remember most of it
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Tio
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Mark
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Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •If you’ve pulled develop a couple days ago, this might be relevant to you: github.com/friendica/friendica…
A couple fixes have been submitted yesterday.
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in reply to Tio • • •Tio likes this.
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Tobias
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • • •@Hypolite Petovan I have mixed feelings - partly I'm happy about the current instability of the develop branch; just to have some reminder why the stable branch exists and that develop is basically ALPHA state...
OTOH I'd love to have the usual smooth operation with the develop branch xD
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Tio
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Tio
in reply to Tio • •I see that they accumulate more and more:
When is the time to be concerned? :D
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Tio
Unknown parent • •They do not look that bad, I mean the CPU is max at 70% but we have 24 services on this server.
Friendica is not the biggest offender of CPU usage.
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Tio
Unknown parent • •I don't see any Friendica process under mysql:
I also allocate a lot of memory and hardware power to Friendica:
I suppose it uses MySQL / MariaDB.
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Luca Nucifora
in reply to Tio • • •if you can, I also suggest you to move from cron to a daemon for the worker queue.. so remember to stop the worker before the 'optimization' procedure
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