this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Defederating bad actors/spammers should in theory be good enough? Domains aren't free and I don't think it's worth it for them to buy a new domain to just be able to spam for a short time again.
Is it though? Don't email spammers just spoof the domain or send without a domain? I'm not entirely sure if that's different from how the fediverse works. I'm not too knowledgeable about this topic.
Very much so. Out of the spam that I do see in my inbox, the sender domains are usually spoofed, while the reply-to addresses are usually gmail.com, hotmail.com or outlook.com.
You need to set up dkim to prevent spoofing. Each message sent has a digital signature that matches one on a DNS record for your domain. You can also set an SPF record, which will tell the recipient what up addresses are authorized to send mail on behalf of your domain.
The recipent must have policies in place that reject mail which fails dkim/spf
Replying to your edit:
This is an instance moderation problem. If you're letting spammers in, you need to use a better application process or something similar to that. A big problem with email spam is that most email services allow anyone to sign up for free without any checks.
Ultimately defederating bad actors and defederating "good" actors who fail to moderate their own users is necessary.
Hmm I feel like some pooling of effort with spam detection built into the software (lemmy for instance) could help spread the effort of spam fighting to other, smaller instances and not just centralised to the big ones.
But it's difficult to say what will happen I guess. We need to just keep being vigilant when it comes to stopping spam while keeping in mind our shared goal of a decentralised social Internet.
Agreed, and this is what makes the Fediverse so good. It would be annoying to lose your instance, true, but you just move to another or roll your own. Additionally, let's say they start spamming Mastodon from mastodon.social; their messages would go to the Global channel, but if I only ever read Local or Subscriptions, I'll never see their spam.
The Fediverse and ActivityPub will continue to evolve, but unlike SMTP, they were created after the internet became adversarial. This author isn't the first to try to fearmonger over the future of AP, and they won't be the last.
It is fearmongering, albeit unintended, but I don't think it completely applies to the Fediverse as it stands. We should always remain vigilant and never complacent, and I'm sure the devs and moderators are keeping spam control in their minds. This isn't the 1980s, and we're not trying to retrofit a protocol that came before spam was ever a thing.
But most people don't pay for software, especially if there are "free" and legal alternatives.
I'm not sure what you mean with that or how it relates to what I said, could you elaborate?
As I understood you said that we should make email paid to stop spammers.
Nono, I'm saying it costs to spam because spammers have to keep buying new domains as their previous domains get blocked or defederated.
Why don't they use existing domains? I don't think 100% of them require a phone number. And didn't know it's possible to defederate an email provider.
No, my point is that if spammers were to spam on the fediverse, they'd need to buy new domains constantly as their previous domains are defederated, I'm not talking about email.
So you're offering a system that requires the instance/provider admins to manually federate with others instead of the federation being enabled by default?
You're misunderstanding me again. Please try reading what I said again.
I'm not suggesting allowlist federation, though that is another tactic that could be used. I'm just saying that a spammer on the fediverse would be quickly defederated and would have to buy a new domain to keep spamming, which would probably be too expensive to justify.
Yes, mister/miss, I read your comments again and I admit I did completely misunderstand you. I'm sorry for that and I'm extremely grateful you chose to explain your point in a friendly manner instead of starting a drama or acting in a toxic manner.
You're welcome m8, have a nice day
You too, mister/miss