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   admin :heart_cyber: (admin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Jul-2023 15:18:01 JST admin :heart_cyber:

   🚨 Kolektiva.social SECURITY ALERT 🚨

   This is an alert for Kolektiva.social users. Please read this post in its entirety!

   In mid-May 2023, the home of one of Kolektiva.social's admins was raided, and all their electronics were seized by the FBI. The raid was part of an investigation into a local protest. Kolektiva was neither a subject nor target of this investigation. Today, that admin was charged in relation to their alleged participation in this protest.

   Unfortunately, at the time of the raid, our admin was troubleshooting an issue and working with a backup copy of the Kolektiva.social database. This backup, dated from the first week of May 2023, was in an *unencrypted* state when the raid occurred and it was seized, along with everything else.

   The database is the heart of a Mastodon server. A database copy such as the one seized may include any of the following user data, in this case up to date as of early May 2023:
   
   - User account information like the e-mail address associated with your account, your followers and follows, etc.
   - All your posts: public, unlisted, followers-only, *and direct ("DMs")*.
   - Possibly IP addresses associated with your account - IP addresses on Kolektiva.social are logged for 3 days and then deleted, so IP addresses from any logins in the 3 days prior to the database backup date would be included.
   - A hashed ("encrypted") version of your password.

   🚨 👉 As a precaution we highly recommend that all users on Kolektiva.social *change their password immediately* to a new, unique, and strong password.

   We sincerely apologize to all our users and regret this breach. In hindsight, it was obviously a mistake to leave a copy of the database in an unencrypted state. Unfortunately, what would otherwise have been a small mistake happened to coincide with a raid, due to bad luck and spectacularly bad timing.

   We understand that our users and other people on the Fediverse will have a lot of questions. We will try to answer them as best we can, but please be patient and bear in mind that we may be overwhelmed with messages, and may be delayed in responding or unable to provide answers to certain questions for legal or technical reasons. As a security culture reminder, it can be extremely harmful to the individuals charged and to our community to openly speculate on the Internet about alleged criminal activity or about what law enforcement may be able to do with seized data. Our present awareness is that the seized Kolektiva data is unrelated to the federal investigation and prosecution and we are exploring legal avenues to have the seized data returned and copies destroyed.

   Thank you for your understanding and solidarity :black_sparkling_heart:

   👇 Please see our replies to this post for additional information (1/?) 👇

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   • Embed this notice
     admin :heart_cyber: (admin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Saturday, 01-Jul-2023 21:50:39 JST admin :heart_cyber:

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer

     thank you! added this in a reply.

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     Zed Not Zee ✅ (zednotzee@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 00:32:05 JST Zed Not Zee ✅

     • Håkan Geijer

     @hakan_geijer @admin What about security keys?

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     Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 02:12:33 JST Jay Baker (they/he)

     • The Yangsi Michael Dillon

     @FediFree @anantagd I'd be interested to know more for sure.

   • Embed this notice
     admin :heart_cyber: (admin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 02:12:35 JST admin :heart_cyber:

     in reply to

     Please see our previous post for full context 👆

     Why did we delay in notifying our users? After extensive internal discussions and advice from multiple movement lawyers, we made the difficult decision to delay informing our users, since an earlier public statement could have made the situation worse in a number of ways.

     To be clear, the physical Kolektiva servers were not targeted or affected by the FBI raid. Our actual, live servers are encrypted, in that the hard drives are encrypted at rest. We have no reason to believe that any Kolektiva.social data has been compromised, outside of the database back-up that was seized. Our admin's various electronic devices and other drives were encrypted, and we swiftly rotated all passwords and keys as appropriate for any potential breach like this. In other words, we have no reason to believe this is an evolving threat to our server integrity, or our users' data security.

     So then, why are we asking users to reset their passwords? The seized database did not contain user passwords, it contained hashed user passwords. To better understand why we recommend users change their password, here is a good explainer: https://www.troyhunt.com/we-didnt-encrypt-your-password-we-hashed-it-heres-what-that-means/

     Without offering any excuses, we also think it warrants mentioning that the seized data would be similar to data obtained in any raid or other unauthorized access of any typical Mastodon server. It is the same data any cooperating instance admin can hand over willingly when requested. Unfortunately, there are serious limits to what admins of Mastodon instances can do to protect the data of their users. Users should always take precautions to protect the privacy of information, especially any sensitive information, they share on the Fediverse or anywhere else on the Internet. We hope that if nothing else, this situation serves as a learning experience for our users, and others on the Fediverse. It certainly has for us. For an intro to operational security on Mastodon, we strongly recommend checking out this guide: https://distro.f-91w.club/masto-opsec/

     Going forward, we will continue to explore our legal options. Ideally, we would be presenting a comprehensive list of internal changes, policies and best practices that we plan to implement to avoid outcomes like this in the future. These are definitely conversations we have started having, and intend to continue, but we also want people to be aware that we're a small volunteer collective, and we are dramatically affected by these events. Things may be slow to develop. We also have to keep Kolektiva.social running and pick up the slack now that we are missing a crucial team member 💔 .

     Our admin's legal situation is shitty, but they currently have the support and legal representation they need. We will post any information or calls for support if that becomes appropriate or needed.

     As many understand, our political movements are currently facing high levels of state repression, which has resulted in an increase in digital and other forms of surveillance, raids and arrests, false and overblown criminal charges, increased use of pre-trial detention and lengthy prison sentences. At times like these, political movements are tested and solidarity and security culture become important touchstones for our work to make the world a better place for all.

     Thank you again for your understanding, solidarity, and time taken to read all this.

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     Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 03:27:34 JST Jay Baker (they/he)

     @FediFree Thanks! I'd be particularly interested in a comparable instance (as it pertains to interactions with most servers while blocking the bigoted ones, and in terms of anarchist politics).

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     Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 07:54:01 JST Jay Baker (they/he)

     in reply to

     • Nicholas Laney

     @nl @FediFree Sorry, I didn't mean to come across that way. I haven't made a decision yet, just trying to take in all this information from different perspectives with a view to making an informed decision while still maintaining my different accounts on their various servers, and explore new ones. Apologies.

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     Nicholas Laney (nl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 07:54:03 JST Nicholas Laney

     • Jay Baker (they/he)

     @FediFree @MediaActivist
     Hi, I would be really interested in a place without people who turn into vultures over a police raid.
     That means without you.

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     Jay Baker (they/he) (mediaactivist@kolektiva.social)'s status on Sunday, 02-Jul-2023 08:12:37 JST Jay Baker (they/he)

     • Nicholas Laney

     @nl @FediFree Ha, okay! Thanks, friend.

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     admin :heart_cyber: (admin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 06:25:11 JST admin :heart_cyber:

     in reply to

     Two additional points:

     If you are a kolektiva.social user and have already enabled Two-factor Authentication on your account you should also reset that, just like your password. (Also consider that it's a good idea in general to set up Two-factor authentication, if you are able, to secure access to your account!)

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     admin :heart_cyber: (admin@kolektiva.social)'s status on Monday, 03-Jul-2023 06:25:13 JST admin :heart_cyber:

     in reply to

     Some users have asked or pointed out, and yes it is the case that the database copy would also include cached copies of posts from users on other instances in the Fediverse, and this includes direct posts or "DMs" which were sent to or included a Kolektiva.social user.

     We welcome suggestions on how to most effectively notify (a lot) of Fediverse users in general of this, but we also ask for other instance admins to help by communicating this to their own users if it seems appropriate 🙏

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