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Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

It's silent... too silent.

On February 17th 2024 at 09:23 GMT+1. That is when it all stopped.

Most spam affected instances have not fixed the spam or banned the spammer's accounts. We were completely at the mercy of 'em. They just decided to stop...

The spammers are up to something.

Shabbir Ahmmed

@ErikUden
It felt like I was reading a thriller novel!

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

...aaand the spam is back. New images, new text, new ways to circumvent the filter! Don't celebrate too early, folx. It was just the silence before the storm. The botnet shutting down in order to reboot with the newest update!

This spam war will be won in one way and one way only: the collaborative effort of blocking spam altogether from the Fediverse. The spammers themselves won't gracefully shut down and give up.

But while they developed better spam, we developed better weapons against it, stay tuned.

...aaand the spam is back. New images, new text, new ways to circumvent the filter! Don't celebrate too early, folx. It was just the silence before the storm. The botnet shutting down in order to reboot with the newest update!

This spam war will be won in one way and one way only: the collaborative effort of blocking spam altogether from the Fediverse. The spammers themselves won't gracefully shut down and give up.

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘
To all Fedi Admins Currently Being hit with a Spam Wave:

This kind of spam is now over! Unmute all the instances no longer on my list!

I've just released v4.0.0 of The UNmute List! I'd be very happy about a small donation because I have very little time and I cannot really justify working on this list with my current schedule :mycomputer:โ€‹

There is a new type of spam, the same instances are affected as before. Those responsible in Japan are said to have been arrested.

Without further ado...

Limit these instances:

[Full List of Affected Instances Here]

Just get the list to download and import here.

Simply import this list and you'll mute the 47 worst spam instances currently known to me! I've worked on it for multiple weeks, sometimes ~9 hours at a time verifying all lists sent to me manually.

Limit first, defederate only in worst situations!

Consider re-federating with and un-silencing any of the mentioned instances once the spam is mitigated. The admins of some of these may have just been asleep when this all started.




Ban Spam Accounts via their E-Mail Domain

Block the following E-Mail Domain and whatever temp Mail provider it resolves to: chitthi.in

Just to be safe, block these ones too (same provider)

- mailto.plus
- fexpost.com
- fexbox.org
- mailbox.in.ua
- any.pink

All our spam accounts came from these E-mails.

Since you probably have some of these accounts sleeping:

https://[your-instance.tld]/admin/accounts?email=%25%40chitthi.in there just select all and press โ€œBanโ€.

Find Remaining Spammers

I've seen instances that fixed the spam issue but began being hit later again. The spammers might use new E-Mails, so here is a way to find and block them anyway:

mamot.fr/@vincib/1119467019292




IP Bans and TOR

These spammers seem to be using the TOR Network as all of their IPs are TOR Exit Node IPs, hence an idea (with some collateral damage if executed) would be to ban all TOR exit node IPs for sign ups. I am personally against this idea as you'd also prevent users who simply wish to stay anonymous online (political refugees, leakers of important documents, etc.) from using your platform. For now, simply banning every user using a particular Spammer IP will not help and will merely ban users that try to stay anonymous! Not necessarily the spammers.




How To Block All Temp E-Mails in the Future

If you want to prevent this from ever happening again, you should block E-Mails from Temporary Mail providers all together:

-

Here is the list of all Temp email providers (there are both blocklist and allowlist)


-

Here how to install it in Mastodon


-

The script that automatically pulls the list via Cronjob and imports it into Mastodon


-

Script template

Because of this, hessen.social, for example, was not affected by the spam attack! They had already banned the email domain the spammers used ages ago.

In future updates on Mastodon, maybe Admins can simply click a button that says โ€œBan Temp E-Mail Providersโ€ Automagically from the E-Mail Menu? There could be E-Mail categories that can be banned, such as temporary mails.




Why did this happen?

The real reason hundreds of us spent hours of our days during the spam on mitigating it is the following:

Cyberbullying Gone Global: Fediverse Spam and Operation Beleaguer

This is the full exposรฉ @cappy has been working on regarding the February 15th Spam Attacks!

Thank you @BrodieOnLinux for mentioning this post in a video!

Good luck, everyone!
Thanks for participating in the Fediverse Experiment!

#FediBlock #FediAdmin

To all Fedi Admins Currently Being hit with a Spam Wave:

This kind of spam is now over! Unmute all the instances no longer on my list!

I've just released v4.0.0 of The UNmute List! I'd be very happy about a small donation because I have very little time and I cannot really justify working on this list with my current schedule :mycomputer:โ€‹

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lossless_autumn

@ErikUden @cappy @BrodieOnLinux really, blocking temporary post boxes and Tor nodes is a bad idea, it will prevent many from remaining anonymous. I've also used a temporary mail to register so I don't have to use my main account. Are such measures compulsory?

Charadon

@ErikUden @cappy @BrodieOnLinux Mastodon admins really ought to team up with StopForumSpam imo

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

The spam is OVER! Unmute all the instances listed as โ€œfixedโ€ here!

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Ostfriesland war schon immer Geschlechtsneutral :ostfriesland:

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Thomas

@ErikUden

Unn dรถรถr kรถnn jums seggen wat een will, dor hett nรผms wat gegen!

Und da kann jedeR sagen was er/sie will, da hat niemand/frau was dagegen!

Een, ji, jums, seij, nums, โ€ฆ

Love it! ``โค๏ธ``

Ostfriesin

@ErikUden

Freie Friesen bedeutet eben auch frei im Geiste!
Ich liebe meine Heimat (nicht rechtslastig gemeint!!) dafรผr!!!
โค๏ธโค๏ธโค๏ธ

:luz_cat_ears: meow meow

@ErikUden โ€œโ€˜sup fuckerโ€ ist geschlechtsneutral und ich finde das schรถn

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

There's no โ€œcontentโ€ on the Fediverse. There's stories, articles, greetings, friends, and humans. Contentification of human creativity is what algorithm-based platforms drove us to do. Content to distract, void of meaning or a soul, but filled with sponsorships and monetary incentive.

The Fediverse is unique as it has meaning first, medium second. We say things not for the sake of saying something to please some algorithm or audience, but because we think it's something someone needs to hear, or we simply wish to say. Once you've become accustomed to this way of digital interaction, liberalize your creativity from the shackles of corporate interests and marketability, there's no way back. The only thing I wish is to give people, our generation that knows no alternative, that same feeling.

There's no โ€œcontentโ€ on the Fediverse. There's stories, articles, greetings, friends, and humans. Contentification of human creativity is what algorithm-based platforms drove us to do. Content to distract, void of meaning or a soul, but filled with sponsorships and monetary incentive.

The Fediverse is unique as it has meaning first, medium second. We say things not for the sake of saying something to please some algorithm or audience, but because we think it's something someone needs to hear, or...

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Some Guy Named Chris

@ErikUden I love that it also encourages quality of posting. If I write something and it lights up, that's all. It's over. The next thing that I write won't get any more distribution than the last thing. The only way to do that is to make people want to hear the next thing you have to say.

10-volt :neocat_flag_ace:

@ErikUden maybe that's true on mastodon and similar activitypub implantations, but I have to disagree on the fediverse at large, as peertube exists, as peertube videos are content, even joinpeertube.org referring to it as that. also if i wanna get technical I can say that mastodon's api refers to post text as content but that may be pushing it content is just a word for stuff that is there, the concept of content isn't inherently corporate. And "content" doesn't mean sponsorships or soullessness, it can be both content and articles, greetings, friends etc at the same time.

@ErikUden maybe that's true on mastodon and similar activitypub implantations, but I have to disagree on the fediverse at large, as peertube exists, as peertube videos are content, even joinpeertube.org referring to it as that. also if i wanna get technical I can say that mastodon's api refers to post text as content but that may be pushing it content is just a word for stuff that is there, the concept of content isn't inherently corporate. And "content" doesn't mean sponsorships or soullessness,...

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Today, on January 11th, we have to remember who died #OTD in 2013: Aaron Swartz :AaronSwartz:

You may know him from his contribution to or creation of:

:blank: โ€ข Markdown
:blank: โ€ข The Creative Commons License :CreativeCommons:
:blank: โ€ข RSS :rss: :blobcat_rss:
:blank: โ€ข Reddit

We must never forget him and his contributions to our world forever - especially due to circumstances of injustice and the cause he became a martyr for.

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DaywalkingRedhead ๐Ÿ˜ท

@ErikUden Looking at the world right now, the state of disrespect and disregard science is held in, as a field, a reasonable person would be advocating for exactly what Aaron was doing to be not just legal but the norm.

The fact that science is seen as an impenetrable white tower, inaccessible and contradictory has directly contributed to over 33 million dead, many millions more disabled, and the current 2nd highest surge after Omicron - and some places have surpassed Omicron.

Aaron Swartzโ€™s death should have been a wake up call to scientists and institutions to openly publish and make accessible their work. COVID should be the death knell for any gatekeeping of knowledge.

Imagine how different the past four years would have gone if actual science was the first dozens of returns in a search, and not behind paywalls. Instead, actual science is restricted and disinformation and garbage is what searches render.

The culture of white tower academia in restricting knowledge and information helped get us here. It needs to be burned to the ground.

@ErikUden Looking at the world right now, the state of disrespect and disregard science is held in, as a field, a reasonable person would be advocating for exactly what Aaron was doing to be not just legal but the norm.

The fact that science is seen as an impenetrable white tower, inaccessible and contradictory has directly contributed to over 33 million dead, many millions more disabled, and the current 2nd highest surge after Omicron - and some places have surpassed Omicron.

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

If you can, you should support your local Mastodon instance this holiday season :blobcat_santamelt: and give your admin the support and need to continue their, often entirely voluntary, work!

Winter has been especially rough for our instance mastodon.de :MastodonDE: as we still (partially) run physical servers and the energy costs are tied to our solar panels, which produce less during the winter!

If you have the resources and ability, please donate: mastodon.de/@MastodonDE/110808 :liberapay: :paypal: :patreon: :kofi:

However, keep in mind we're in a very privileged position and may not need the money as much, so donate to your local, a small, or just favorite / a random instance if you can! Give back the love and care these projects often rely on, but don't feel bad if you can't; we do this for you, after all!! :blobcatsanta:

If you can, you should support your local Mastodon instance this holiday season :blobcat_santamelt: and give your admin the support and need to continue their, often entirely voluntary, work!

Winter has been especially rough for our instance mastodon.de :MastodonDE: as we still (partially) run physical servers and the energy costs are tied to our solar panels, which produce less during the winter!

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

> join new social network
> shape its course forever
> leave and refuse to elaborate further

mastodon.social/@Hbomberguy/14

Bruce Heerssen

@ErikUden
He hasn't posted anything since 2021. I followed him anyway. I suspect a lot of other people also have over the last year, which should come as some surprise if he ever comes back.

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Vodafone executives when Erik Uden hosts side-services of mastodon.de on a 1Gbit/s private contract instead of a business contract

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘
Edit 26.04.2024

Other victims have now spoken out about this and I urge you to read their story

Aprl as a Victim of Coordinated Harassment

Domi as a Victim of Coordinated Harassment and Withholding Medicine

Ari and the Warsaw Hackerspace

Wanda as a Coworker and Flatmate | Coordinated Harassment & Medical Misinformation

Yavien as a Flatmate

Miya Ironami as a Witness of Manipulative Abuse

An Incomplete Timeline of My Experience with Them

A Vague (and still incomplete) Timeline of My Experience After

Ever since I experienced this comparatively light harassment, I've been speaking to victims and heard the most unimaginable things. From withholding medicine in order to bully people or make them do false allegations to coordinating misinformation and collaborating with local (sports) clubs, hackerspaces, communities in order to ban people they dislike / came forward about their abuse, from all of these spaces.

That's quite ironic considering they were banished for this behavior from hackerspaces and now project this treatment onto others.

The people this was and still is about are:

- Lily | girldick.gay/@lily
- Amie | social.treehouse.systems/@amie

Continuing with the normal post this was originally about...

I was called on my personal phone number this evening (22:50) by a group of 10 people from the Fediverse ( girldick.gay/@lily ) threatening to report to Vodafone that we are disobeying their terms of service (side-services of mastodon.de are hosted behind a 1Gbit/s private connection instead of a business contract). While their obviously ill-intended conversation was going on, they were also live posting about it on their accounts happily admitting to what they are doing. You can see these comments as screenshots attached to this post.

You can read a memory log of our conversation here and here.

The motivation behind this was simply to annoy me. I know the people, we had a slight disagreement on the Fediverse recently. Regardless of the contract, we have planned to move mastodon.de completely to the cloud soon.

Honest to god, mastodon.de is a donation-funded project. Me and a couple of friends do this honorarily and we do our best to be as transparent about our expenditures as possible. I do all the finances, all public texts, all management, calls, etc. I do this next to studying Computer Science in university, next to my honorary political / environmental activist work, next to having friends or sleeping which often comes too short.

I'd love to have the life of people that can take the time out of their day to call someone at 11 pm simply to annoy them due to some internet argument that started and ended over a week ago. Truly, if I'd have that kind of time I'd be happier in life. Annoy billionaires and politicians, but not some guy who has spent all of his time, effort, and money into something that is for the common good.

mEttWuasT

@ErikUden du hast meine Solidaritรคt. Den Menschen ist es einfacher, sich โ€šeinfachereโ€˜ Opfer zu suchen, weil sie sich selbst zu klein fรผhlen, um gegen die ganz groรŸen etwas zu machen. Ihren Frust lassen sie dann so rausโ€ฆ solche Menschen haben mein Mitleid, weil sie offensichtlich wegen etwas oder mehreren Kleinigkeiten gekrรคnkt sind und fรผr ihre persรถnlichen Probleme keine wรผrdige Lรถsung finden (wollen).

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

A liberal is someone who opposes every war except the current war and supports all civil rights movements except the one that is going on right now.

Inken Paper

@ErikUden

"ten degrees to the left of centre in the best of times, ten degrees to the right when it affects them personally" --Phil Ochs

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Having a headache is so embarrassing, like bro YOU are the one that decides when things hurt just turn it off.

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piracalamina

@ErikUden I've hooked up starting with a line like this

๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช ใใ‚‰ Woomy (:smug_kura:)

@ErikUden@mastodon.de Ich bin enttรคuscht, du bist hier nicht inklusiv. Neben Mastodong gibt es noch Misskey, Pleroma und deren Forks.

Hyphlosion

@ErikUden

โ€œHey, remember me from the party?โ€

โ€œOh hey, youโ€™re the Mastodon guy.โ€

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

seagull sounds
Ye be listening to sword being drawn
102.3
yarrrr! :PirateBadge:
Pirates FM :blobcatpirate:
cannonball fires
Where we play nothing but shanties, shanties and more shanties
Waves hitting wood
This ain't your landrubber granny's station :blobfoxpirate:
Imagine Dragons - Radioactive starts playing

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

E-mail would have really had what it takes to be an alternative to letters, but no! You have to make the login so complicated and then there are thousands of providers and you have to decide on one AT THE BEGINNING...

.. and with that they have already squandered their chance. In my environment, e-mail was too complicated for most people (with the providers and then looking for e-mail addresses, etc.) Today, none of them use it anymore. Me neither. Hope for fax now.

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Dan Bocain

@ErikUden How dare people offer community and choice. I'm totally outraged too!

Stephan Matthiesen

@ErikUden
I'm old enough to remember exactly these arguments about email :mastojoy:
And many people, including academics, never figured out how to use it properly (subject, cc/bcc etc.)

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Scott Crawford

@ErikUden Looks like I may get to trot out my mad COBOL skillz again ๐Ÿ˜‚

Josef 'Jeff' Sipek

@ErikUden The 2038 page has a month name that ends with โ€œberโ€ when the overflow happens in January 2038. Yeah, I knowโ€ฆ Iโ€™m nutsโ€ฆ #timenuts

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Rocking that #Merchtodon in front of the mastodon.de servers

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hnapel

@ErikUden

Your server rack can use some more chaos, here's some inspiration from an undisclosed location (I would have to kill you).

stfn :raspberrypi: :python:

@ErikUden I really like that basement look and the children skids in the top left corner :D

Erik Uden ๐Ÿ‘

Once libraries are nonexistent any modern fascist movement wouldn't even have to burn books, but flick one switch and they'd be remotely deleted from your Amazon Kindle or similar digital โ€œlibraryโ€.

Capitalists are already building the infrastructure to do this through DRM, so stop believing tech is apolitical - the defunding of libraries and paywalling of information are all part of this. :trantifa:

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Solar Pierre

@ErikUden
If tech is not apolitical, people maynot be apolitical.

Dan O'Ginnec

@ErikUden

The book'isch nonsense i have is on my NAS. I want to have my stuff here, even if i try not to hoard physical books.

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