Sorry for the dumb question, I’m thick in the head - since federated content is, well federated, does this mean potentially anyone who makes an instance can see practically everything?
Not everything is but yes, some things can be seen. Your saved posts are only visible to your local instance admins not every admin. Your subscriptions are visible to your local admin as well as the admin of the community you’re subscribed. Your DMs are visible to your local admins as well as the recipient’s admins. Your votes and comments will be visible to all federated admins. If you report a post, that report is visible to your local admins, the community’s mods and admins, and the reported person’s instance admins.
Thanks for the thorough reply. I’m just wondering, in general, about privacy and shit. Like it’s a big talking point here, how lemmy is so much safer and privacy focused, but then there are these huge oversights regarding some things. Sure it’s great my shit isn’t being monetized for bullshit reasons and ends and ads, but, if all this kind of decentralized thing doesn’t come without it’s own problems. It’s fairly new territory for most people and people easily lull into a comfort you know?
I mean that’s my point. I’d trust Reddit more than some completely random dude to handle my data you know? Why would I? At least with a centralized datamining piece of shit I know a part of what the data is used for, blindly sharing whatever with some rando who just comes up to you like “hey you want some privacy” is just fucking weird. Some random dude could be any weird fucked up person you know? Maybe I’m over/underthinking this, but sometimes all of this just seems weird.
On my instance we track what posts you look at, vote at and how long you view the post so it’s easier to host dedicated ads based on your browsing pattern. You have some weird fetish? Particular humor? Love or hate Palestine or Israel? Well we have just the ads for you! :D
Who knows what they do with the info, it probably ends up in the giant databases where the IP we sell is matched with the IP you use to browse your bank, mail etc. so you’re deanonymized. Don’t worry, it’s on page 6/21 of the TOS with small letters so you’ll legally agree that we can do it.
It’s a very good deal for us, it costs almost nothing to host your stuff but we get a lot in return for selling your info. Welcome!
That’s why self hosting constantly gets brought up. If someone has direct access to the database (I.e the instance owner) they can see all of it for that instance. But a general admin on that instance can not see it.
Likewise, the ActivityPub format that is used to connect instances, only really sends things like posts, comments, votes, etc. this is why you can’t log in to another instance and retrieve things like your saved posts.
So if you want the best privacy, and no one to see you’ve been closetly saving furry porn, host your own instance so you have control of access to the database.
Non-expert answer (those who know more, please correct): only public content is (needs to be) federated. That’s (one of the reasons) why you cannot log in with the same account on different servers. Only the server you are registered in stores your private account data (AFAIK).
Sorry for the dumb question, I’m thick in the head - since federated content is, well federated, does this mean potentially anyone who makes an instance can see practically everything?
Not an expert, but I am a self hoster.
Not everything is but yes, some things can be seen. Your saved posts are only visible to your local instance admins not every admin. Your subscriptions are visible to your local admin as well as the admin of the community you’re subscribed. Your DMs are visible to your local admins as well as the recipient’s admins. Your votes and comments will be visible to all federated admins. If you report a post, that report is visible to your local admins, the community’s mods and admins, and the reported person’s instance admins.
Thanks for the thorough reply. I’m just wondering, in general, about privacy and shit. Like it’s a big talking point here, how lemmy is so much safer and privacy focused, but then there are these huge oversights regarding some things. Sure it’s great my shit isn’t being monetized for bullshit reasons and ends and ads, but, if all this kind of decentralized thing doesn’t come without it’s own problems. It’s fairly new territory for most people and people easily lull into a comfort you know?
I’m
paranoidrambling, but thanks for the reply.In my honest and probably very controversial opinion, Lemmy is not more private than say using Reddit.
I mean that’s my point. I’d trust Reddit more than some completely random dude to handle my data you know? Why would I? At least with a centralized datamining piece of shit I know a part of what the data is used for, blindly sharing whatever with some rando who just comes up to you like “hey you want some privacy” is just fucking weird. Some random dude could be any weird fucked up person you know? Maybe I’m over/underthinking this, but sometimes all of this just seems weird.
On my instance we track what posts you look at, vote at and how long you view the post so it’s easier to host dedicated ads based on your browsing pattern. You have some weird fetish? Particular humor? Love or hate Palestine or Israel? Well we have just the ads for you! :D
Who knows what they do with the info, it probably ends up in the giant databases where the IP we sell is matched with the IP you use to browse your bank, mail etc. so you’re deanonymized. Don’t worry, it’s on page 6/21 of the TOS with small letters so you’ll legally agree that we can do it.
It’s a very good deal for us, it costs almost nothing to host your stuff but we get a lot in return for selling your info. Welcome!
That’s why self hosting constantly gets brought up. If someone has direct access to the database (I.e the instance owner) they can see all of it for that instance. But a general admin on that instance can not see it.
Likewise, the ActivityPub format that is used to connect instances, only really sends things like posts, comments, votes, etc. this is why you can’t log in to another instance and retrieve things like your saved posts.
So if you want the best privacy, and no one to see you’ve been closetly saving furry porn, host your own instance so you have control of access to the database.
Non-expert answer (those who know more, please correct): only public content is (needs to be) federated. That’s (one of the reasons) why you cannot log in with the same account on different servers. Only the server you are registered in stores your private account data (AFAIK).
That’s what I think too.