4 ms·

How in the world would a direct message leak to Facebook if you don't send it to Facebook? Seems like a pretty serious security issue that should be addressed r

How in the world would a direct message leak to Facebook if you don't send it to Facebook? Seems like a pretty serious security issue that should be addressed regardless of how you feel about Facebook.

Zambyte 3y ago
Direct messages are between you, the recipient, and the admins of your server, and the recipients server. The latter two are not obvious, and are a security flaw in ActivityPub.
- kibwen 3y ago
  > The latter two are not obvious, and are a security flaw in ActivityPub. Any message system that is not end-to-end encrypted is going to have this property. By all means, inform people of the importance of end-to-end encryption, but there's no reason to conclude that this is the fault of Mastodon or ActivityPub, nor is there any reason to conclude that somehow they are uniquely responsible for informing users of this thing that has been obvious for ages to anyone who knows anything about encryption. Facebook can read your Facebook DMs, Reddit can read your Reddit DMs, Twitter can read your Twitter DMs, GMail can read your emails.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    > Any message system that is not end-to-end encrypted is going to have this property. Yes, but in a different sense. I use Mattermost for some chatting. Mattermost is not E2EE, nor is it federated. I only have to trust my admins with my private messages, because the recipient has the same admins. In a federated environment, I may trust my admins, but it is not particularly obvious that I must also trust the recipients admins. > GMail can read your emails Only if I send an unencrypted email to someone who uses GMail. Which yes, is the same security flaw that is being described in the post. None of the other things you listed are federated. They should also not be trusted, but that's more obvious.

4 ms·

How in the world would a direct message leak to Facebook if you don't send it to Facebook? Seems like a pretty serious security issue that should be addressed r

by tedunangst 3y ago

Zambyte 3y ago
Direct messages are between you, the recipient, and the admins of your server, and the recipients server. The latter two are not obvious, and are a security flaw in ActivityPub.
- kibwen 3y ago
  > The latter two are not obvious, and are a security flaw in ActivityPub. Any message system that is not end-to-end encrypted is going to have this property. By all means, inform people of the importance of end-to-end encryption, but there's no reason to conclude that this is the fault of Mastodon or ActivityPub, nor is there any reason to conclude that somehow they are uniquely responsible for informing users of this thing that has been obvious for ages to anyone who knows anything about encryption. Facebook can read your Facebook DMs, Reddit can read your Reddit DMs, Twitter can read your Twitter DMs, GMail can read your emails.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    > Any message system that is not end-to-end encrypted is going to have this property. Yes, but in a different sense. I use Mattermost for some chatting. Mattermost is not E2EE, nor is it federated. I only have to trust my admins with my private messages, because the recipient has the same admins. In a federated environment, I may trust my admins, but it is not particularly obvious that I must also trust the recipients admins. > GMail can read your emails Only if I send an unencrypted email to someone who uses GMail. Which yes, is the same security flaw that is being described in the post. None of the other things you listed are federated. They should also not be trusted, but that's more obvious.