this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
-8 points (38.2% liked)

To The Fediverse

234 readers
1 users here now

Welcome

Let's talk about the fediverse.

The fediverse is a collection of community-owned, ad-free, decentralised, and privacy-centric social networks.

Each fediverse instance is managed by a human admin. You can find fediverse instances dedicated to art, music, technology, culture, or politics.

Join the growing community and experience the web as it was meant to be.

A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of “federation” and “universe”.

What is the fediverse?

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

LemmyWorld is a terrible place for communities to exist. Rationale:

  • Lemmy World is centralized by disproportionately high user count
  • Lemmy World is centralized by #Cloudflare
  • Lemmy World is exclusive because Cloudflare is exclusive

It’s antithetical to the #decentralized #fediverse for one node to be positioned so centrally and revolting that it all happens on the network of a privacy-offender (CF). If #Lemmy World were to go down, a huge number of communities would go with it.

So what’s the solution?

Individual action protocol:

  1. Never post an original thread to #LemmyWorld. Find a free world non-Cloudflare decentralized instance to start new threads. Create a new community if needed. (there are no search tools advanced enough to have a general Cloudflare filter, but #lemmyverse.net is useful because it supports manually filtering out select nodes like LW)
  2. Wait for some engagement, ideally responses.
  3. Cross-post to the relevant Lemmy World community (if user poaching is needed).

This gets some exposure to the content while also tipping off readers of the LW community of alternative venues. LW readers are lazy pragmatists so they will naturally reply in the LW thread rather than the original thread. Hence step 2. If an LW user wants to interact with another responder they must do so on the more free venue. Step 3 can be omitted in situations where the free-world community is populated well enough. If /everything/ gets cross-posted to LW then there is no incentive for people to leave LW.

Better ideas? Would this work as a collective movement?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you understand what that means?

Yes. It means you can't access the resource using the technology you prefer (seriously, who use wget to browse the web?), but it doesn't stop you from reaching the resource as a person. Hence human rights being the thing, not wget/tor rights.

Google used in class; Do you see a human rights problem there?

I don't, for the same reason as I have to register at the library before taking a book.

if you don’t grasp

No, I'm not uninformed. I just don't agree with you.

which means people who need public service are being forced to execute non-free software

Ah, okay, I understand your view point here. I don't care much for that.

There’s no such distinction in the article between those types of images

You brought it up, it was your example. The document says the fact CF use images, that they are a blight on the environment. Its like an onion article title. 🙄

infosec.pub demonstrates how to avoid anything like CF

Good for them.

[–] diyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes. It means you can’t access the resource using the technology you prefer (seriously, who use wget to browse the web?), but it doesn’t stop you from reaching the resource as a person. Hence human rights being the thing, not wget/tor rights.

(emphasis mine) This is not about preferences¹. If your ISP uses CGNAT because you’re too poor to afford a subscription that gives you a unique unshared IP address, you are blocked from Cloudflare sites regardless of which browser you use. It’s also not down to preference if you can’t afford to maintain a platform that supports the latest GUI browser. Libraries are also blocked and users of libraries have no control over the libraries IP or installed browser. The elitism you endorse is of course at the expense of excluding human beings.

1: what you perceive as a “preference” is perversely broad. I don’t use Chromium not because I have a persnickety problem with the UI or UX, but because it includes Google spyware. I object to privacy abuse. A vast majority of the population uses Chromium and so a vast majority of websites cater for Chromium & ultimately marginalizing non-Chromium users who object to the #privacy intrusion. It’s worth noting that privacy abuse is also a human rights issue in itself:

UDHR article 12: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence,…”

So when a public service imposes a means of access that arbitrarily abuses someone’s privacy, that is also a violation of human rights.

I don’t, for the same reason as I have to register at the library before taking a book.

This logic doesn’t follow. To recap with emphasis the paragraph that applies to public libraries:

Article 21 ¶2: “Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

Library registration in Europe is inclusive does not exclude people who do not agree with the terms of service of a US corporation like Google. It ensures eligibility by verifying residency. If library reg were to exclude locals who Google excludes by requiring a Google login/interaction, it would indeed by a human rights violation for the same reason.

There’s no such distinction in the article between those types of images

You brought it up, it was your example.

That’s what I said. It’s my example, not the author’s. And it was an example that exposed your strawman attempt. The example did the job it was meant for.

The document says the fact CF use images, that they are a blight on the environment. Its like an onion article title.

CAPTCHA images are raster images. Did you follow the citation? The logic follows. Graphics are far heavier than text.

BTW, I personally disable images in my GUI browser. It makes me look more like a bot & get treated as such but I consume far less bandwidth - thus less energy.

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If your ISP uses CGNAT because you’re too poor to afford a subscription that gives you a unique unshared IP address, you are blocked from Cloudflare sites regardless of which browser you use.

I have several customers on CGNAT and they are not blocked from Cloudflare. Which puts the rest of your point on the back foot.

This logic doesn’t follow.

Of course it does. You missed the distinction between excluding a person and a means. If the user couldn't access a site from their current location, they could use another one that isn't blocked. Therefore the person isn't blocked, no human rights violation. Which is totally absurd, I can't beleive we are talking about human rights violation in this context.

That’s what I said. It’s my example, not the author’s.

Right, and in the document they just say images are a blight on the environment, which is laughable. Your attempt to clarify it, just made it look even weaker. No strawman rhetoric here, just calling it out to be a muted point.

BTW, I personally disable images in my GUI browser.

And on that point I think you are in the extreme. An extremist that "can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, it doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop… EVER"

Putting a stop to this now, the effort far outstrips the fun factor.

[–] diyrebel@lemmy.dbzer0.com -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have several customers on CGNAT and they are not blocked from Cloudflare. Which puts the rest of your point on the back foot.

  1. Your users don’t necessarily behave in a way that would earn a bad IP reputation
  2. A bad IP reputation does not necessarily contaminate the whole IP pool.
  3. Your users don’t necessarily know what CGNAT is, what an IP address is, or that they are exposed to CGNAT collective punishment
  4. Your users don’t necessarily report blockades to you. Many non-tor users report hitting the CF blockade and they have no idea why. CF’s error messages are typically deceptively worded to deliberately mislead and point blame on the user themselves. If some sites are blocked but not others, the ISP is not going to be the focus of complaints - if any. They are more likely to complain in social media than they are to the ISP.
  5. Most users have been conditioned to accept CAPTCHAs, not report them as abusive or malicious to anyone. But when they do, the website owner gets the complaint not the ISP.

Of course it does. You missed the distinction between excluding a person and a means.

The nuance is lost on your part. When you exclude a person’s only means of access, you exclude the person. When you make public service conditional on agreeing to the terms of a private corporation, you also exclude the people who disagree with the terms. Cloudflare is also non-transparent and never tells those they marginalize why they are being marginalized. The marginalized don’t even necessarily know there is an unblocked means of access or what that means of access entails.

If the user couldn’t access a site from their current location, they could use another one that isn’t blocked.

You don’t know what “block” means. A block is an obstruction. It’s not necessarily absolute. If the road is blocked by a fence, of course you can circumvent the block by climbing the fence. This does not mean the roadblock ceases to exist. Anyone who is either unfit to climb the fence or unwilling remains blocked. The discriminatory denial of access to a public service is a human rights violation. If a black person is denied access to a library, we don’t say: “well they can paint their skin white and then they can get access, thus there is no human rights violation here”.

No strawman rhetoric here, just calling it out to be a muted point.

It’s a strawman because you misrepresented the original claim by leaving out critical details. Had you quoted the claim it would not have been a strawman. Or if you had been wise enough to know which details are too critical in the thesis for omission, you would not have created a strawman. But it’s clear that your goal was simply to smear the article so the strawman was obviously intentional.

And on that point I think you are in the extreme.

When I load images it will sucks dry my limited monthly bandwidth credit. An unlimited connection would cost me more than triple the fees. And yet you call it “extremist” to be frugal & pro-environment/socially responsible rather than wastefully indulgent. This tendency to look to smear people who are either socially responsible or not corporate pushovers is apparently why you have this pro-repressive tech giant attitude that doesn’t mind marginalizing people.