🚨 Kolektiva.social SECURITY ALERT 🚨

This is an alert for Kolektiva.social users. Please read this post in its entirety!

In mid-May 2023, the home of one of Kolektiva.social's admins was raided, and all their electronics were seized by the FBI. The raid was part of an investigation into a local protest. Kolektiva was neither a subject nor target of this investigation. Today, that admin was charged in relation to their alleged participation in this protest.

Unfortunately, at the time of the raid, our admin was troubleshooting an issue and working with a backup copy of the Kolektiva.social database. This backup, dated from the first week of May 2023, was in an *unencrypted* state when the raid occurred and it was seized, along with everything else.

The database is the heart of a Mastodon server. A database copy such as the one seized may include any of the following user data, in this case up to date as of early May 2023:

- User account information like the e-mail address associated with your account, your followers and follows, etc.
- All your posts: public, unlisted, followers-only, *and direct ("DMs")*.
- Possibly IP addresses associated with your account - IP addresses on Kolektiva.social are logged for 3 days and then deleted, so IP addresses from any logins in the 3 days prior to the database backup date would be included.
- A hashed ("encrypted") version of your password.

🚨 👉 As a precaution we highly recommend that all users on Kolektiva.social *change their password immediately* to a new, unique, and strong password.

We sincerely apologize to all our users and regret this breach. In hindsight, it was obviously a mistake to leave a copy of the database in an unencrypted state. Unfortunately, what would otherwise have been a small mistake happened to coincide with a raid, due to bad luck and spectacularly bad timing.

We understand that our users and other people on the Fediverse will have a lot of questions. We will try to answer them as best we can, but please be patient and bear in mind that we may be overwhelmed with messages, and may be delayed in responding or unable to provide answers to certain questions for legal or technical reasons. As a security culture reminder, it can be extremely harmful to the individuals charged and to our community to openly speculate on the Internet about alleged criminal activity or about what law enforcement may be able to do with seized data. Our present awareness is that the seized Kolektiva data is unrelated to the federal investigation and prosecution and we are exploring legal avenues to have the seized data returned and copies destroyed.

Thank you for your understanding and solidarity  

👇 Please see our replies to this post for additional information (1/?) 👇

Earlier this week, rumors were circulated about an Instagram profile in Sacramento being a "Proud Boy Infiltrator." While chasing this rumor, several bodies reproduced this rumor on public social media platforms, targeting a local Trans & Queer advocate and leading to their harassment. We got to the source of this rumor, who when challenged, said their evidence for this person being a "Proud Boy infiltrator" was due to their use of Neopronouns, which the source alleged is something only Proud Boys use to mock Trans & Queer. To be explicit and clear, Neopronouns are valid and used prevalently.

Those who reproduced this rumor did so without knowing the source accusers reasoning, and in doing so, pointed thousands of followers toward this person.

The targeting of Trans & Queer people using baseless rumors is as tied to Queerness as its history. It is our duty in our community to be critical of claims against Trans & Queer people, and cognitive in the ways bad actors will play into misinformation. Although this instance resulted in character damage, this practice of rumor-milling against other Trans & Queer people literally gets us killed.

While there are many threats against our communities, and even sometimes from inside of them, we must continue to encourage our fellow community members to handle these affairs responsibly, and with intention.

We have chosen to make this moment an educational one, and have worked diligently to produce our first zine, clarifying the importance of verifying good information - and putting bad information to rest. We view this as an important and relevant zine for any group participating in community defense activities for Trans & Queer people and we hope it will serve your future organizing well.

"Stop Disinfo In Its Tracks" (2023)
Pride Was A Riot, Sac

Full, imposed & ready to print from our Cryptpad. Help us move this to Twitter on our behalf!

https://cryptpad.fr/drive/#/2/drive/view/QiZJF122207Nlg81R4iVwaGSzyhGsOIz1YRP0WJBRgk/

This week on 3CR's Yeah Nah Pasaran! @slackbastard & I had a yarn with @jasonwilson about America, transphobia, guns & war.

Check it out here: https://www.3cr.org.au/yeahnahpasaran/episode/dr-jason-wilson-american-dream

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6zc0aMQS4qZInISibwqfy2?si=561698924fe7429b

"Hungary has just passed a law empowering citizens to report same-sex families with kids to local authorities for violating the 'constitutionally recognized role of marriage and the family...'"

Hungary passes law allowing citizens to report same-sex parents to law enforcement - LGBTQ Nation
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/04/hungary-passes-law-allowing-citizens-to-report-same-sex-parents-to-law-enforcement/

Outrageous! There is no precedent for what has happened to Black voters in Memphis TN, Jackson MS, or Charlotte NC!

🤔Well, unless you know anything at all about reconstruction. Then there's like, lots of precedent. Reconstruction 2.0.

But other than that, no precedent at all!

We haven't been on Mastodon in a minute-- so we're checking back in with y'all tonight with one of the four ARA points of unity:

"WE DON'T RELY ON THE COPS OR THE COURTS TO DO OUR WORK FOR US"

There are many ways in which individual, groups, and communities can engage in the important work of community self-defense against fascism.

Some ideas can be found here:

https://spencersunshine.com/2020/08/27/fortyways/

This blog goes over details and receipts concerning Sadie Farrell, a former anarchist who is a pretty extreme danger to online anarchists and antifascists. She actively seeks out radicals to target with everything from threats to passing doxxes to the likes of Andy Ngo. This is something important to get circulated if at all possible in order to keep folks safe and informed.

https://sadiesnitched.noblogs.org/