5 ms·

So, in other words, the list of people I have blocked on Bluesky, for whatever reason, is readable to everyone on the Internet without the use of any external s

So, in other words, the list of people I have blocked on Bluesky, for whatever reason, is readable to everyone on the Internet without the use of any external service. Is this a design I'd like to use? Or a gaping privacy hole attempted to be explained away through "implementation reasons"?

echelon 3y ago
It should be optionally public. Maybe I want to grab a list of those I also want to block. Or negatively weight. Conversely, the follow list can add positive weight until I say otherwise. Distributed email spam and trust lists. There's the potential for creating a strong filter bubble, but if the user can control their own system's behavior it still seems like a win.
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  Yes. For all the cases you've mentioned, I might want to share my blocklist - but it should be an option rather than the default. I may want to share it only with select individuals rather than everyone who might want to use it to scrape it, archive it, monetize it, and stir online drama on my behalf AND on behalf of whomever I've blocked. Seriously, it's worse than on Twitter. Bluesky slowly starts looking like "let's redo ActivityPub but so we can make money off it".
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    That was basically always the goal. If it wasn't, the BS devs would have just made a Mastodon/Misskey/etc competitor on AP directly.
- preseinger 3y ago
  your block list has to be enforced at some point in the chain enforcement means it needs to be read-able by the relevant software "optionally" public means that software that can't see the block list can't enforce it and that means the only way to enforce the block list (reliably) is in your client (which presumably always had read permissions) this is in no way controversial
  - kelseyfrog 3y ago
    That would be true if holomorphic encryption didn't exist.
    - preseinger 3y ago
      homomorphic encryption theoretically allows a block list to be query-able without being inspect-able, true i'm unaware of any practical implementation that would address the given use case if you know otherwise, please point me to it!
      - anamexis 3y ago
        It’s not homomorphic encryption, but publishing a list of salted hashes seems like it would fit those criteria.
        ryan-c 3y ago
        That would provide very limited benefit due to the search space being so small, and would have serious scaling issues with large block lists.
        anamexis 3y ago
        If you used a per-user list-wide salt, there wouldn't be any scaling issues. And the requirements themselves dictate that there's a small search space.
        ryan-c 3y ago
        If you used a per-user-list salt, then it would be about as useful as obfuscating phone numbers by hashing them. The list must then be enumerable in N*x time, where x is the time to hash one user, and N is the cardinality of the search space. One second per legitimate hash check? You can enumerate the list in a few hours by doing a parallel search...
jeroenhd 3y ago
I would love the ability to copy someone else's block list. Some various popular personalities on ActivityPub have had to deal with abuse from servers and individuals that I would like to preemptively filter out of my time line. However, that shouldn't be the default. I'm not sure why this page keeps bringing up that "people on other platforms can find out if they're blocked or not". You're always going to have ways to detect that. It doesn't address the conclusion "so it may as well just be public". There's something to be said for server-local blocking ("muting"), which this post also advocates. However, if you're going with that approach, why put "real" blocks in your protocol?
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  > I'm not sure why this page keeps bringing up that "people on other platforms can find out if they're blocked or not". The second party can find out if they're blocked by the first party. A third party cannot find out all the people that the first party blocked. That's a massive usability difference.
  - preseinger 3y ago
    > A third party cannot find out all the people that the first party blocked. the third party can fetch a list of all valid user IDs, and sequentially query the first party about each of those user IDs it takes more time and may be subject to e.g. rate limits, but the information is equally available
    - phoe-krk 3y ago
      > and sequentially query the first party about each of those user IDs Only if the third party is allowed to query whether there's a block between the first party and the second party. If the block is only visible to the first party, i.e. there's a view filter, then there's no good way of figuring this out.
      - preseinger 3y ago
        if a block should only be readable by the party that created it, then there is no reason for that information to be shared in the first place
Yizahi 3y ago
It is a good feature. All bans by users and by entities (subreddits/forums/etc) should be visible for everyone, and also in reverse - "banned by" info should be available. This keeps moderators/admins in check somewhat. PS: I don't use Bluesky at all, just from previous experience on forums.
- phoe-krk 3y ago
  I, as the moderator of my own Fediverse timeline, do not need to be kept "in check" by having a list of my blocks published anywhere. This, and I trust my admins enough to do a good moderating job without needing to look at the exact list of bans that they do. Who is the entity that is supposed to keep mods/admins "in check"?
  - Yizahi 3y ago
    In my experience middle sized communities/forums operate on trust, but due to being bigger than small communities, it is hard to do. So people often don't know everyone else in the same forum/subforum, or at least don't know for long. And seeing open ban list with reasons and dates, reputation counters with open results who voted +/- for this person or post or comment keeps reputation of semi-anonimous users in check. You see a subforum which banned a lot of good users? It's a dumpster and you can go away and don't waste time there (or remain and troll a bit). You see a user with close to zero reputation counter but it actually a lot of + and a lot of - votes negating each other. That's interesting, possibly he was mass downvoted by some sub. Etc. In short - public reputation and ban info is fun, interesting and somewhat a social limiter if the reputation still exist on a particular forum. And there are no negative factors for this really. I'm speaking from experience on other older forums I've participated.

echelon 3y ago

It should be optionally public. Maybe I want to grab a list of those I also want to block. Or negatively weight. Conversely, the follow list can add positive weight until I say otherwise. Distributed email spam and trust lists. There's the potential for creating a strong filter bubble, but if the user can control their own system's behavior it still seems like a win.

phoe-krk 3y ago
Yes. For all the cases you've mentioned, I might want to share my blocklist - but it should be an option rather than the default. I may want to share it only with select individuals rather than everyone who might want to use it to scrape it, archive it, monetize it, and stir online drama on my behalf AND on behalf of whomever I've blocked. Seriously, it's worse than on Twitter. Bluesky slowly starts looking like "let's redo ActivityPub but so we can make money off it".
- klardotsh 3y ago
  That was basically always the goal. If it wasn't, the BS devs would have just made a Mastodon/Misskey/etc competitor on AP directly.
preseinger 3y ago
your block list has to be enforced at some point in the chain enforcement means it needs to be read-able by the relevant software "optionally" public means that software that can't see the block list can't enforce it and that means the only way to enforce the block list (reliably) is in your client (which presumably always had read permissions) this is in no way controversial
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  That would be true if holomorphic encryption didn't exist.
  - preseinger 3y ago
    homomorphic encryption theoretically allows a block list to be query-able without being inspect-able, true i'm unaware of any practical implementation that would address the given use case if you know otherwise, please point me to it!
    - anamexis 3y ago
      It’s not homomorphic encryption, but publishing a list of salted hashes seems like it would fit those criteria.
      - ryan-c 3y ago
        That would provide very limited benefit due to the search space being so small, and would have serious scaling issues with large block lists.
        anamexis 3y ago
        If you used a per-user list-wide salt, there wouldn't be any scaling issues. And the requirements themselves dictate that there's a small search space.
        ryan-c 3y ago
        If you used a per-user-list salt, then it would be about as useful as obfuscating phone numbers by hashing them. The list must then be enumerable in N*x time, where x is the time to hash one user, and N is the cardinality of the search space. One second per legitimate hash check? You can enumerate the list in a few hours by doing a parallel search...

jeroenhd 3y ago

I would love the ability to copy someone else's block list. Some various popular personalities on ActivityPub have had to deal with abuse from servers and individuals that I would like to preemptively filter out of my time line. However, that shouldn't be the default. I'm not sure why this page keeps bringing up that "people on other platforms can find out if they're blocked or not". You're always going to have ways to detect that. It doesn't address the conclusion "so it may as well just be public". There's something to be said for server-local blocking ("muting"), which this post also advocates. However, if you're going with that approach, why put "real" blocks in your protocol?

phoe-krk 3y ago
> I'm not sure why this page keeps bringing up that "people on other platforms can find out if they're blocked or not". The second party can find out if they're blocked by the first party. A third party cannot find out all the people that the first party blocked. That's a massive usability difference.
- preseinger 3y ago
  > A third party cannot find out all the people that the first party blocked. the third party can fetch a list of all valid user IDs, and sequentially query the first party about each of those user IDs it takes more time and may be subject to e.g. rate limits, but the information is equally available
  - phoe-krk 3y ago
    > and sequentially query the first party about each of those user IDs Only if the third party is allowed to query whether there's a block between the first party and the second party. If the block is only visible to the first party, i.e. there's a view filter, then there's no good way of figuring this out.
    - preseinger 3y ago
      if a block should only be readable by the party that created it, then there is no reason for that information to be shared in the first place

Yizahi 3y ago

It is a good feature. All bans by users and by entities (subreddits/forums/etc) should be visible for everyone, and also in reverse - "banned by" info should be available. This keeps moderators/admins in check somewhat. PS: I don't use Bluesky at all, just from previous experience on forums.

phoe-krk 3y ago
I, as the moderator of my own Fediverse timeline, do not need to be kept "in check" by having a list of my blocks published anywhere. This, and I trust my admins enough to do a good moderating job without needing to look at the exact list of bans that they do. Who is the entity that is supposed to keep mods/admins "in check"?
- Yizahi 3y ago
  In my experience middle sized communities/forums operate on trust, but due to being bigger than small communities, it is hard to do. So people often don't know everyone else in the same forum/subforum, or at least don't know for long. And seeing open ban list with reasons and dates, reputation counters with open results who voted +/- for this person or post or comment keeps reputation of semi-anonimous users in check. You see a subforum which banned a lot of good users? It's a dumpster and you can go away and don't waste time there (or remain and troll a bit). You see a user with close to zero reputation counter but it actually a lot of + and a lot of - votes negating each other. That's interesting, possibly he was mass downvoted by some sub. Etc. In short - public reputation and ban info is fun, interesting and somewhat a social limiter if the reputation still exist on a particular forum. And there are no negative factors for this really. I'm speaking from experience on other older forums I've participated.