Aside: this is a *major* reason why I quit Bluesky and deleted my account some months back.

[vkc@linuxmom.net]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/115909375706083994

Aside: this is a *major* reason why I quit Bluesky and deleted my account some months back.

I would block a baddie, and because that crap is PUBLIC on Bluesky (?!?), that basically creates a "hate list" that's easily exploitable. And of course folks were exploiting it!

If you're going to use Bluesky, strongly recommend not blocking folks unless they're specifically harassing you. And don't block big accounts, that crap can come back to haunt you.

I went the other way, and deleted my account.

[draeand@social.the-gdn.net]

@vkc Wait, the people you block, on your account, are public to anyone? That... Is the weirdest technological decision I have ever heard of. I wonder why they would do that? Transparency? Idk...

[amberage@eldritch.cafe]

@vkc I should hope they fixed this by now, but a year or so ago, I read a post detailing a lot of technical shortcomings of Bluesky, and one of them was that deleted posts could be easily recovered because instead of a database, they just had a repo, and if you could find the pre-deletion commit, you could read deleted posts.

The whole website is a fucking clown car

[jade@plasmatrap.com]

@vkc@linuxmom.net I am planning to delete it but the problem is some of my friends are there and idk if they will migrate to the fedi

[laukidh@infosec.exchange]

@Jade @vkc you may be able to connect with them over the bridge, if they allow it https://fed.brid.gy

[jade@plasmatrap.com]

@Laukidh@infosec.exchange @vkc@linuxmom.net I tried but no-one loves the bot that bridged you to other platforms

[zotheca@mementomori.social]

@draeand @vkc

Your PDS can be viewed by anyone.

[denschub@mastodon.schub.social]

@vkc a similar thing is true for Mastodon. the UI doesn't show it, but your server will send the other server a note saying that you blocked that user.

since you run your own server, you can get a list of who blocked you with a query like

SELECT accounts.username, accounts.domain
FROM blocks
JOIN accounts ON blocks.account_id = accounts.id
WHERE
  target_account_id = (
    SELECT id
    FROM accounts
    WHERE
      username = 'vkc'
      AND private_key IS NOT NULL
      LIMIT 1
  );

this is documented, and while the official UI doesn't show it, a malicious actor could easily build tooling on their own server.

don't ask me why, I don't know either. while there probably are ui-niceties around it (mainly that the other node can make sure they don't show the user you've blocked your content), this... isn't great.

[imlx@tech.lgbt]

@vkc But this is a good feature, because it encourages engagement, which increases time on platform, which boosts revenue /s

[lillavee@mastodon.social]

@vkc Bluesky is running mass harassment campaigns on any excuse they can twist to push trans and intersex people off the platform. They’re just the new X for the day when Musk finally overdoses.

[laukidh@infosec.exchange]

@Jade @vkc I get it; in some ways the bridge is the worst of both worlds

[rvyhvn@infosec.exchange]

@denschub @vkc the cost of decentralization, i guess?

[fwaggle@moodoo.org]

@draeand @vkc I'm no expert on atproto, but I think like most other silly parts of it, the answer boils down to: due to when in computing history the protocol was designed, at every available opportunity a block chain was needlessly crammed in.

[sashin@veganism.social]

@vkc This is straight up terrifying!

[heislertecreator2049@mastodon.social]

@vkc There is so much toxic crap, worldwide. I'm sorry you had to deal with any of it.

Against them. For You.
Tim

[ceremus@hachyderm.io]

@denschub @vkc Yep, DMs or "Private mentions" on Mastodon can be exploited using a similar vector. The client can say this message should be readable only to this/these users, but you can write a client which doesn't respect the protocol and view them anyway. It's a strong argument for why DMs should probably not exist on decentralized platforms that do not or cannot use E2EE.

[denschub@mastodon.schub.social]

@Ember @vkc Sorry, but this has a bit of a "if you block someone and get harassed for it, it's your fault because you're on a node that's not doing a good job" vibes to me. I'd be a lot happier if we didn't provide potential footguns to people.

Also, I'm not even sure your argument works. If I'd be an instance admin wanting to do a decent job, I wouldn't even know how to protect my users. mastodon.social only has one instance blocked for blockbots according to their list, so that's not a good starting point. A lot of "decent instances" don't publicly explain why they block other instances, or don't show that info at all. If I, for example, would trust your decisions fully, I couldn't even follow your lead because you don't make server blocks publicly available. Same with Hachyderm. That also means a user couldn't evaluate block decisions before joining a server to make sure they're on a node that is "decent". In the end, it's all just vibes based, and that puts a lot of people at risk without them even knowing.

There's a ton of instances that are run by really awesome people, but they don't have the bandwidth to stay on top of the latest malicious instances all the time. And those are commonly also the kind of instances that host a lot of non-tech users, which makes this even riskier.

I get it, it's a hard problem to solve, but this is one of those many things where Mastodon puts users at risk without even telling them or allowing them to make a decision on their own. I don't like that. And if we rightfully throw shit at Bluesky, we should also at least acknowledge the limitations in our own courts.

[justin@toot.io]

@vkc alternatively, if you're going to BlueSky please block me. I don't want to know anyone that supports that platform.

[justin@mastodon.tacoma.community]

@vkc
If you're gonna use Bluesky, don't. :)

[jourei@mas.to]

@vkc Could someone enlighten me on why this is bad or otherwise harmful?