8 ms·
FSE meets the FBI
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- roenxi 1y agoThere is really quite a lot to like about this post: 1) Gentleman is doing citizen science figuring out a small part of the FBI's intelligence gathering/spying apparatus. 2) Random Fediverse drama tidbits. 3) Interesting sysadmin tactics for small server operators. 4) This torswats fellow sounds like a piece of work and gets arrested which adds an interesting subplot. 5) Seems like quite an intelligent writer, I just like the style. 5 stars. Well worth reading.
- gosub100 1y agonotice the incorrect conclusion he makes. the fbi emails him asking for info about a user, with a screenshot that includes a threat of violence. FSE guy jumps to the conclusion that it's just innocent braggadocio (despite the fact that another CEO was murdered just 6 months ago). jump to end of article: guy has already committed countless acts of violence (by proxy). I'm glad that FSE guy engaged with the feds, but it shows dangerous bias when he sees a screenshot of a threat and immediately assumes that can't be a violent individual.
- lmm 1y agoAnyone could be violent, but that screenshot is total weaksauce. Is it even the same guy or just someone random blowing off steam?
- roenxi 1y agoYou doubt the seriousness of the Witch King of Angmar? The Pale King? The man leads a dark host of fell origin! He wears a ring of Power! His threats are clearly entirely credible, it is only a small step from posting on the Fediverse to a siege of the White City and the deaths of a multitude. Yeah. For the life of me I don't see how someone could see a credible threat in that post. The man could actually murder Fink the same day and the post still wouldn't be evidence of a credible threat; it is just too silly. At best it is evidence he is deranged in addition to the trolling it turned out to be in this case.
- gosub100 1y agothis remark about the threat is incredibly presumptuous: "it was also clearly absurd, an obvious joke, not a credible threat."
- lmm 1y agoThat is a completely accurate description of that screenshot IMO. Even if the guy who posted it was making phone calls to get thugs to beat people up and hoping they'd take it further, that post is still clearly absurd, an obvious joke, not a credible threat. This is "96% of serial killers have used bread" stuff.
- mrguyorama 1y agoBut it was never a joke! It was a guy basically running harassment enterprise, including swatting people and other false flag style crimes. He wasn't being silly or lampooning anything or creating satire, he was trying to make conversation worse. That's not a joke.
- lmm 1y ago> But it was never a joke! It was blatantly a joke. The article even gives us the context that it was part of the guy deliberately getting himself banned from that instance. > It was a guy basically running harassment enterprise, including swatting people and other false flag style crimes. Sure, maybe (if it even was that guy and not some random unrelated joker). But even people doing that can also still joke. > He wasn't being silly or lampooning anything or creating satire He absolutely was. "I will leave my fingerprints and DNA behind so they can catch me"? That's really funny.
- mrguyorama 1y agoThe problem is entirely that you cannot tell a baseless threat from a real one from just the forum post. Just like for credit card fraud, you can only improve your heuristics so far. At some point, you either treat every single possible as real for investigative purposes, or you accept that you find a threat, ignored it, and people die as a result. Plenty of real world crazy terrorist bullshit had a pointless online threat component! More importantly, depending on the threat, it's probably a crime itself. Bomb threats are criminal even if it's clear that it wasn't a realistic threat. So no, that screenshot is not "total weaksauce", for law enforcement. Hell, even here, that screenshot was demonstrably from a guy running a criminal enterprise!
- lmm 1y ago> Just like for credit card fraud, you can only improve your heuristics so far. At some point, you either treat every single possible as real for investigative purposes, or you accept that you find a threat, ignored it, and people die as a result. This isn't borderline though. This is blatantly nothing. You might as well arrest everyone who leaves their house in the morning. > More importantly, depending on the threat, it's probably a crime itself. Bomb threats are criminal even if it's clear that it wasn't a realistic threat. That doesn't make the legal system better, that makes it worse! What world do we live in where Pepsi can offer a valuable prize and welch on it and it's fine because they're joking, but it doesn't go the other way?
- hoistbypetard 1y agoThe FSE guy is telling a story from 2023. I'd have reached the same conclusion back then also.
- Peacefulz 1y agoI personally think that the fact that violent people exist shouldn't diminish our values regarding privacy and/or anonymity. I don't think you should accommodate messages such as the one WitchKing shared...but I think if you value privacy, your priority should be removing the user and the content, and not appealing to the Feds. Don't make it a safe space for either party, because neither of them are on your side.
- kriro 1y agoI agree, fantastic writeup with a nice amount of technical detail sprinkled in. This would work really well as a talk at something like the Chaos Communication Congress.
- slt2021 1y agosorry to be this person, but can anyone TLDR this for me?
- indigodaddy 1y agoYou don't want to traverse that domain, or?
- tough 1y agohe could always archive.is first
- ruined 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- morleytj 1y agoThe article technically does have a TLDR in the second paragraph, though not directly labelled.
- foobarbecue 1y agoThird paragraph.
- Xevion 1y agoNo, the second paragraph contains the TL;DR (summary) being referenced. The word TLDR appears in the third paragraph, but the summary it refers to is in the second paragraph, starting with the words "To summarize, ..." https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/fse-vs-fbi.html#:~:text=To%20summarize,internal%20interface. https://blog.freespeechextremist.com/blog/fse-vs-fbi.html#:~...
- FootballMuse 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- FilosofumRex 1y agoFSE {free speech extremists}, why would one have to be an extremist in country where free speech is enshrined in its Constitutional Law.
- steamrolled 1y ago"Extremist" is just a pejorative variant of "radical". I assume they're using it tongue-in-cheek. When it comes to speech, it's really not hard to imagine positions that would have been controversial at any point in the history of the US. That doesn't mean you can't hold them, but others don't need to agree, and that's how you end up with labels of this sort.
- simoncion 1y agoAside from the bit about "frontiers", Article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is pretty straightforward: > Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. As is the First Amendment to the US Constitution: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I can't speak for Pete. However, given that the expressed position of influential portions of the US government (as well as many of my peers and acquaintances) runs counter to the letter and the spirit of Article 19 and the spirit (if not the letter) of the First Amendment, I consider myself to be a free speech extremist.
- sandworm101 1y agoBecause there are inumerable forms of banned speech. Because freedom of speech is in reality a very narrow construct. See Hustler Magazine v. Falwell 1998.... or just watch the last few scenes of the movie. https://youtu.be/gh30mLyNQM0 https://youtu.be/gh30mLyNQM0
- erikerikson 1y agoA feature of extremists is that they tend to support one cause over all others. They see no room for compromise or balancing of concerns. A breathing extremist may prioritize breathing over eating food and drinking water which are also important for survival. While, from an immediacy standpoint, breathing is the higher priority, if you prioritize breathing continuously to the exclusion of drinking and eating, you will have problems on the 3-5 day and 8-21 day horizons.
- FilosofumRex 1y ago[flagged]
- jrflowers 1y ago[flagged]
- lelandbatey 1y agoI wish it were so, but the real answer is: because the law doesn't care about your technicalities, they care about what people think/feel, in particular what lawyers and judges think. And lawyers and judges feel that there is a difference between DDOSing a thing offline and politicking your way through the legal system to get a thing taken offline.
- 0xEF 1y agoThe difference is the lawyers and judges do not make any money from the DDOS achieving the same goal. Really, what the law cares about is money. Greed, plain and simple. Yes, what people think/feel factor into this _only_ because when the constituency (read: supporters) are put in an emotionally agitated state, they can be manipulated to believe just about anything, which helps pass things like batshit crazy budget cuts to critical public infrastructure or fuel witch-hunts for imaginary enemies in order to build an enforcement arm. I know plenty of lawyers that would absolutely disagree with your first sentence, "the law doesn't care about technicalities." Oh, but they do. Technicalities are their tools of exploitation.
- atmosx 1y ago> because when the constituency (read: supporters) are put in an emotionally agitated state, they can be manipulated to believe just about anything […] That’s democracy, at its most basic. Often, it means people with little access to education, but with a lot at stake, casting votes that go against their own interests. And in the U.S., it’s not as if party leadership on either side truly represents them anyway. The upside, though, is significant: when power shifts, we usually don’t resort to violence. That simple fact - the peaceful transfer of power - provides the stability necessary for society to function and potentially thrive.
- peepeepoopoo133 1y ago[flagged]
- blu3h4t 1y agoI read it as fsf meets the fbi :D
- TheonlyJem 1y agoThat was a lot
- Reventlov 1y ago>I'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-checking anything ever, giving the false impression that things that FSE has never permitted were allowed. Proceeds to link to a website whose source code is hosted by kiwifarms. If you are blocked, that's because most of us don't want to interact with the "free speech" crowd, that's pretty much it.
- aydyn 1y agoThat sounds like a non sequitur to the statement you are replying to. What does blocking or disliking someone have to do with fact checking?
- Reventlov 1y agoActually, what does being blocked by half the fediverse has to do with fact checking ? Nothing, but that's the angle the author of this story chose.
- aydyn 1y agoNo it is not.
- kstrauser 1y agoThe non sequitur was implying that the list was related to why those instances blocked this one, as though everyone blindly followed the fediblock recommendation. I didn’t. I’ve never, not once, taken fediblock’s advice without following up personally to verify their claims. I blocked this instance when their user called me the n-word and the instance moderators didn’t act on my report. I didn’t block them due to fediblock, but because of negative interactions that I was personally involved with. And yet my server shows up on that list, as though it were related to fediblock.
- underyx 1y agoGreat read. I have a tiny, inconsequential, possibly wrong correction. You had assumed that the “Negative” word on the internal search engine screenshot was sentiment analysis. I think it was instead a button to report the post in the internal system as a “negative” result as in, not actually matching the search they were trying to do. Sentiment analysis doesn’t seem like it would be very useful in this scenario.
- mrguyorama 1y agoI disagree. The icon of "Negative" is of a red human head. Who would choose that icon for "False positive"? IMO it makes more sense as "Negative sentiment"
- DoctorOW 1y ago> I'd like to also thank fediblock for never fact-checking anything ever Nitpicking time: The link in the blog post just goes to a list of instances that have chosen to defederate. The reason it's not going to any sort of official Fediblock list is because Fediblock was shut down years ago. The author of Fediblock expressed the specific intention of not being definitive in any way and for people to thoroughly cross reference listed instances' standards with their own. My intuition tells me that the author wanted to link to the entry of Fediblock, and failing to find it, substituted that link for its nearest equivalent without fact-checking anything ever.
- busterarm 1y agoFediblock was shutdown in September of '23 and this article is full of timestamps on these events showing they happened before the shutdown.
- kstrauser 1y agoI run a medium sized Mastodon server. I blocked them because one of their users called me the n-word, I reported them to their admin, and nothing happened. It had zero to do with fediblock or any other communal mechanism. Their users acted like assholes, their admins did nothing about it, so I decided I didn’t want to talk to them anymore. The notion of FSE whining about being blocked by some cabal is hilarious to me. No, they’re garden variety trolls that are capable of annoying others directly. There’s no grand conspiracy required to make a bunch of people disconnect from them.
- qualeed 1y ago>The notion of FSE whining about being blocked by some cabal is hilarious to me. Are they whining about being blocked? I didn't catch it in the article, but maybe I missed it? The only thing I saw was kind of the opposite of whining: "FSE being fedi's equivalent of a dive bar, I understand people on "gated community" instances not wanting to deal with it" They seem totally fine & understanding if people want to block them. They just don't want the block reason to be a lie (e.g. saying they allow loli stuff when they don't). Presumably, you saying they are a bunch of assholes as your reason for blocking them would be completely accepted by them.
- hello_computer 1y agoare there any good open-source porn-detector models out there? if i ran an image board in 2025, that would be job #1, since it’s really just a weapon, and we don’t speak or print with our genitals—well, most of us anyway…
- perching_aix 1y agoI really liked how the story starts with not wanting to introduce captcha because it hurts real users, then continues to spend the next 80% of it covering how open registrations and the public timeline were down for however long, extremely negatively impacting users. Still, fun read though. Also made me definitively realize I can't imagine myself hosting a community space for others online.
- mkfs 1y ago> Pedophiles were showing up on FSE. That seems to be a problem with the Fediverse in general. And admittedly, Discord.
- saintfire 1y agoOr really anywhere that you can upload a picture and don't tie your real name to.
- selfmodruntime 1y agoOr Signal. Or Telegram.
- RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 1y ago[flagged]
- anton-c 1y agoWhat the heck is this? It's hysterical to report cp immediately? You can be a free speech 'extremist'(clearly a bit tongue-in-cheek) and still want to protect your site from bad actors. Not much free speech to be had when their violations get your site removed. I agree slightly that the 'meat' in the article was lacking as far as what was actually happening with the FBI. Seems no party would give him an inch tho.
- RKFADU_UOFCCLEL 1y agoIt is hysterical to spaz out upon seeing a cp posted on the internet where anyone from a pool of 7 billion people are allowed to post. It is hysterical to lose sleep over that. No "free speech extremist" bends over to fight cp because it would involve vetting each post individually, only letting people you know personally post to your site, etc. You are giving into the FBI's impossible request.
- throwaway095775 1y agoCan't even use a search engine to Google one word. Pedophiles really aren't the brightest, huh.
- axus 1y agoFBI paying a front group (BoardReader?) to collect open source intelligence isn't too weird, doesn't sound like a crime. And I'm happy the FBI spent resources going after "swatting". I'd really like to know how the front group are controlling Facebook servers to collect data.
- account42 1y agoFBI paying a foreign corporation to break American laws should be a crime.
- norswap 1y agoWasn't there a better technical way to block the scraper? Like blocking IPs/domains at ingress instead of serving requests? Probably you do still pay for request traffic though... Isn't there a market for anti-DDOS third-party services for API endpoints (Cloudflare etc) — through probably for "Free Speech Extremist" that wouldn't be suitable solution, and there are charges too (though presumably when facing a situation like this you actually save money).
- progval 1y ago> So, I tell the server to drop traffic from the IPs that were scraping. Problem solved! Then immediately I start seeing a large number of attempts from different IPs. Residential IPs in the US: they're buying residential proxies.
- CaptainFever 1y agoInteresting to see that this is kicked off by the referal header. Seems like a privacy issue to have your browser tell servers part of your browsing history by default. IIRC, Tor doesn't have that issue.
- hoistbypetard 1y agoInterestingly enough, it's configurable both from the user side and from the referring site side. Most (all? all the relevant ones, I think) browsers honor the referer-policy[1] header if a referring site sets it. There are options in common site frameworks, like Django[2] to control that for UAs that respect it. Since most UAs respect it, if the indexing site had wanted to, they could easily have prevented the header from being sent for most users. [1](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Referer_header:_privacy_and_security_concerns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Security/Refere...) [2](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/middleware/#referrer-policy https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/middleware/#referr...)