What are the cybersecurity weaknesses of the Fediverse?
What are the cybersecurity weaknesses of the Fediverse?
Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we've never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and what are the best practices?
Here's my reason for posting this. As I search for new communities across instances to follow, I sometimes end up clicking a link and I'm no longer logged in. In the corner, that could be a Sign In link or it could be phishing. It's likely due to me not understanding how to properly navigate this system, but there's nothing stopping someone from setting up a sight like this as far as I know.
Thoughts?
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If you're navigating to another community on their instance, you won't be logged in. When you're seeing that, check the URL. If you're on lemmy.ml, you're still on your instance; if not, you've navigated to that instance.
There's multiple ways to structure links, some of which will take you to that community via your instance, some not.
Could it be phishing? Sure. But far more likely, you're just on another instance where you don't have an account (or at least an active login).
Do you mind giving a short explainer of proper link formatting? I was struggling with this just a little bit ago
If you link directly to the full URL (including the instance), you'll take anyone who clicks it to that instance, and they won't be logged in. This is usually not what you want. Example: https://pawb.social/c/tech - This link will take you to my instance.
If you remove the instance URL, and just leave /c/communityname@instance - for example, /c/tech@pawb.social - the link will still take you to the community, but you'll still be on your instance. This is usually desirable.
Basically, instance -> community = link to that instance. Community -> instance = link to the community in whatever instance the user clicks it in.
You can also use ! instead of /c/ - I think this might work better for Kbin users (since they use /m/ instead of /c/ - can't verify this). In that case, it'd be: !tech@pawb.social
I won't get tired of posting this everywhere it applies :D
I made this userscript, which rewrites all links everywhere (not only on Lemmy) to always point to your home instance. So the link in your comment actually looks like this to me:
i.e. even though you tried to link to your instance, my script rewrote your link back to my instance so it's working fine :D
But of course I can still hover over the icon to see how your link originally looked:
I Have to say that @Azzu@lemm.ee 's script is fantastic. I've been using for a few days now (I have another bug report for you@Azzu@lemm.ee )
Would be nice if third party apps implemented that functionality.
Or if there were bots that automatically identify those external links and reply to them with a link to the community/post in other popular instances.
This is great, and would make for a super useful Firefox extension.
Why would or should this be a Firefox extension when it already runs perfectly well on Firefox?
I'm curious, is there an advantage of running a script over an add-on? Like is it faster or takes less resources? Or did you just happen to code it like that? Not complaining though, it's been working great for me so far.
The advantage is I don't have to learn how to build an addon. It just runs code which I already can write. There's also the advantage that any browser can run JavaScript. Idk if any browser can run Firefox (or whatever) extensions.
I guess I've never run scripts in Firefox.
As soon as you've installed your preferred user script extension like Violentmonkey it's as simple as installing addons, you just click the "install" link on the script's page.
There are lots of different useful ones.
That is very useful! Installed!
Thanks for the explainer! Doing some testing cause your example didn’t hyperlink on Memmy
c/tech@pawb.social /c/tech@pawb.social !c/tech@pawb.social !tech@pawb.social test text /c/tech@pawb.social /c/Lemmy@lemmy.ml
Weird. Not sure when your example didn’t link, because it did in my comment ¯\(ツ)/¯
Edit: I'm back on browser. Everything that hyperlinked works properly. It's a Memmy issue
Okay I learned a few things, though they may be specific to Memmy.
- The /c/community@instance works, and opens the links in the app, rather than browser
- If you have text in front of your link, it doesn’t work. Might be a Memmy issue.
- I need to test, but
I think #2 is responsible for the Null errors I’ve been getting when text is hyperlinked.
Text testing #3 - confirmed, this returns the Null error.
Now without prior text
test - this also didn’t work
test! - using a link beginning with ! Also didn’t work. Hmm.
Edit from browser: Hyperlinked text isn't working properly in Memmy
I love the "show source" button which gives access to how the tests are made.
So just out of curiosity, since you’re the first person I’ve seen actually point out optimal linking with the ! Symbol, I have to ask how you pronounce it. For me, ! will always be “bang”, so I’m just curious what the pronunciation is.
I use "Bang", too, if I'm trying to verbally say it, though... that very rarely comes up. If I'm reading it, I don't internally "pronounce" the symbol at all. If it was verbal, though, the above link would be bang tech at pawb dot social.
Thanks! That’s interesting. On Reddit I would internally ignore r/{sub} and I’d pronounce it in my head and out loud as sub. I think I’m just conditioned to be cognizant of !
I suspect that the c/ notation will become more popular if we see a massive influx of Reddit users, and I’ve heard one of the instances (I think lemmy.world) doesn’t like the bang notation so that may also cause issues. Although if kbin uses m/ instead of c/ maybe will stay more popular. I’ve seen both but !community@instance seems most frequent.
Is there a similar way to handle linking to specific posts? I think all post urls are unique to that specific instance and I haven't seen any way to do a translation between instances.
I don't believe there is, because as you note, post IDs are instance specific. I'd be very interested in knowing how to do it, too, though, if there is in fact a solution.
As far as I know, there are a few different link formats, and how well they work depends on which frontend you're using:
- amateur_radio
- !amateur_radio@lemmy.radio (The Web interface gave me autocomplete options for this)
- https://lemmy.radio/c/amateur_radio
EDIT: At least using the web app, the first link is relative, and the others are not. So I think the correct format would be
/c/<community>@<instance>for communities outside your instance.Those opened in the in app browser on Memmy. Testing here
The formatting !community@instance should let a user click through but still be logged in on their own instance, so that you can still read posts, vote and comment. If that doesn't work, you can try entering that same thing into your instance search bar, or in your browser enter https://your instance/c/community@theirinstance
It should all get a lot smoother as this platform is developed!
I haven't tried linking to a specific post on another instance, so I'm not sure of that formatting hmm
Like I said... Most likely legit, but these issues will arise. This whole Fediverse thing feels like the first big thing to happen for whatever comes next. Which is great, but it would be foolish to think scammers, with modern tools wont try to exploit it. We all have some internet hygiene to figure out.