Renaud ChaputOct 17, 2024

I would encourage every Fediverse software project to implement a “dead-man switch" on registrations: if nobody with moderator permissions has been active in the last week, then disable new account creation.

The Fediverse has a significant number of abandoned instances that are used by bad actors to create accounts and send spam.

We implemented this in Mastodon (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318) and it has been highly effective.

Automatically switch from open to approved registrations in absence of moderators by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #29318 · mastodon/mastodon

This is not meant to replace #29280, but supplement it to avoid unmonitored servers keeping open registrations indefinitely. Automatically switch away from open registrations if no user with the pe...

GitHub
Show threadScandinavian ⁂ ArchitectOct 17, 2024
@renchap abandoned instances are, well, abandoned, so there’s a big chance they won’t be updated, isn’t it?
Show threadAndromeda YeltonOct 18, 2024
@Seth @renchap but not-yet-abandoned instances are not-yet-abandoned
Show threadScandinavian ⁂ ArchitectOct 18, 2024

@thatandromeda @renchap sure.

Anyway I don’t understand how people can “forget” they have an instance. If I were paying for a server and domain name I wasn’t using I’d totally delete it. Or at least give the keys to the room to someone else.

Show threadSchwarzeLockeOct 19, 2024
@Seth back in the day I had a TeamSpeak server running on my web server. I used it less and less and at some point completely forgot about it. A year or two later, when I was preparing a hardware change, I noticed it was still running and it was in use as a primary server of a clan I never heard of.
Show threadScandinavian ⁂ Architect

@SchwarzeLocke oh yeah someone also mentioned this situation when you have a service installed on a server you still use for something else. Didn’t think of that when I posted my previous post !

Everyone’s on Discord now, but I miss Mumble ^^ (even lighter than teamspeak if I recall correctly)

Oct 20, 2024 at 7:37amWeb