this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
35 points (90.7% liked)

Asklemmy

43892 readers
781 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Cloak@lemmy.ml
mekhos@lemmy.ml
tmpod@lemmy.pt
14specks@lemmy.ml
35
Probably should assume everything will be leaked, anyone using Tor/VPN for Fediverse apps? (infosec.pub)
submitted 1 year ago by Yeah2206@infosec.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
32 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello,

Since your Lemmy posts, comments, related activities, and your basic profile information will be stored in the databases across the fediverse, possibly never to be deleted (or kept by somebody who can), do you:

  1. Always use Tor/VPN with a fediverse app?
  2. Recommend others do the same?

If you feel that it is unnecessary, why do you feel that way? If you think it is necessary, why so?

Thanks. I am trying to get a feel of what I should do. For example, if my instance loses its data (due to a hack, sale, vulnerability, etc.), I am pretty sure all the information is lost (including my IP addresses). If other instances lose their data, or keep the data for their own purposes, then my posts/comments/related activities are lost (maybe excluding some of my profile information, my settings, and my IP addresses).

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] jayknight@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Are there any onion service lemmy instances yet?

[โ€“] Yeah2206@infosec.pub 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also, isn't onion service pretty much used to hide the server's IP, but doesn't do much about hiding anything for the end users?

[โ€“] LedgeDrop@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The end user's ip is hidden in the onion network. The server will get the ip address of the "last node" your client routed it's request through (and that node only has the ip address of the previous node, etc).

However, the clients ip can be leaked if a server creates some Javascript which makes an Ajax call (basically, an additional http request). A malicious Ajax call will not go through the onion network and thus expose the clients real ip. Hence, it's recommended to disable Javascript and other features while using tor.

[โ€“] jayknight@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you have all your traffic going through tor, ajax requests will come from an exit node too.

[โ€“] LedgeDrop@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

I did a bit more homework and you're right.

"Back in the day" running Javascript increased your attack area. But now-a-days I guess it's consider "safe".

I did find this old (7 years ago) posting which talked about concerns. Today, I guess the rule of thumb is to avoid (or limit) browser plugins.

Thank you clarify that.

load more comments (3 replies)