3386
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by muddybulldog@mylemmy.win to c/youshouldknow@lemmy.world

Edit: obligatory explanation (thanks mods for squaring me away)...

What you see via the UI isn't "all that exists". Unlike Reddit, where everything is a black box, there are a lot more eyeballs who can see "under the hood". Any instance admin, proper or rogue, gets a ton of information that users won't normally see. The attached example demonstrates that while users will only see upvote/downvote tallies, admins can see who actually performed those actions.

Edit: To clarify, not just YOUR instance admin gets this info. This is ANY instance admin across the Fediverse.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Paradox@lemdro.id 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pretty easy to make an instance that would auto vote certain things with suspicious amounts of votes

As it stands now, they have to fake the origin of some of those votes. Not much of a barrier, the fediverse generally accepts any user an instance says exists, but still, it's a barrier

And of course any instance thats blatantly manipulating votes is going to be defederated, but I'm more concerned with an instance that behaves normally until it encounters a keyword or user is been set to, and then gives their posts a -5 or whatever

[-] Distributed@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This was my thoughts as well. I understand the need for an audit trail.

Would be very easy to build up an interaction graph with this data that could be used for fingerprinting. If this is an issue for you, though, just browse without signing in/interacting

Was just thinking about this more though, and unfortunately there can also be rogue instances that allow bot users to be created and interact with other instances posts, so this issue could still persist.

[-] plumbercraic 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Could replace the usernames with UUIDs, and keep the username-UUID map back on the source instance? Then you get an audit trail, but not associated with user identity. There's also no guarantee that people don't use bob_jones as their username, and this is Personally Identifiable Information, which brings up some GDPR stuff too.

[-] muddybulldog@mylemmy.win 13 points 1 year ago

The problem with that is that every interaction that any user has with a post or a comment would require calls back to the home instance in order to lookup those usernames. That's a LOT of extra load

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 12 points 1 year ago

There is no reason you couldn't only do it for votes and not for posts and comments.

[-] plumbercraic 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah I just meant for the votes. If you make a comment with your username it's pretty clear you consented for the input and the username to be visible side by side.

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
3386 points (96.1% liked)

You Should Know

33379 readers
55 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS