DIRECT MESSAGING

DMs on Mastodon work differently than on other platforms.

Graham Cluley, a well-respected British security blogger with a sharp sense of humor (and host of the Smashing Security podcast) has this to say:

“Imagine you are having a direct message conversation with someone on Mastodon about a sensitive subject.

Maybe George and Paul are bantering via direct message on Mastodon, and one of them says “I’ll tell you who’s a twit. That bloody @Ringo”

Well, because @Ringo has been mentioned in the chat, he now sees a copy of the message too. Ouch, that’s awkward.

This would be particularly dangerous if you were communicating with another Mastodon user to report abusive behaviour. Suddenly your abuser knows you are complaining about them.

Email doesn’t work like that. Twitter direct messages don’t work like that.

(Sorry Ringo for using your name in this example, Peace and Love man!)”

https://grahamcluley.com/mastodon-what-you-need-to-know-for-your-security-and-privacy/

Marcus Hutchins pointed out -- in his excellent overview “A Twitter User's Guide to Mastodon”:

“Something to also be wary of is similar to how Twitter staff can read your DMs, so can Mastodon instance staff. If you send a DM to someone on another instance, both the staff on the sending and receiving instance could read your message if they wanted to. Just like on any social media platform, I do not advise using DMs to share sensitive information. Use DMs for normal discussions, or exchanging contacts. Any sensitive information should be sent via an End-to-end encrypted messaging app like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram, or Wire.”

https://escapingtech.com/tech/guides/a-twitter-users-guide-to-mastodon.html

@gcluley
#SmashingSecurity
#GrahamCluley
@malwaretech
#MarcusHutchins
#DirectMessages
#DMs

We just posted our first "sidecast" episode in the Scriptnotes feed. It's a quick look at the WGA negotiations.

These won't always be under 15 minutes, but they're meant to be short & timely. The goal is to be able to record and release them in under an hour.