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   Renaud Chaput (renchap@oisaur.com)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 06:03:17 JST Renaud Chaput

   I would encourage every Fediverse software project to implement a “dead-man switch" on registrations: if nobody with moderator permissions has been active in the last week, then disable new account creation.

   The Fediverse has a significant number of abandoned instances that are used by bad actors to create accounts and send spam.

   We implemented this in Mastodon (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318) and it has been highly effective.

   • clacke likes this.
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     Renaud Chaput (renchap@oisaur.com)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 19:46:28 JST Renaud Chaput

     in reply to

     Another consideration: new installations should not allow open registrations by default. This should be a setting that the administrator needs to opt into, and this is a good place to inform them that open registration instances require moderation resources.

     In Mastodon, we display a warning when the admin chooses this option. Mastodon also support requiring moderator/admin approval for new sign ups, which helps a lot in preventing automated registrations.

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     Renaud Chaput (renchap@oisaur.com)'s status on Friday, 18-Oct-2024 20:03:40 JST Renaud Chaput

     • Kevin Beaumont

     @GossiTheDog It helps with some actors, but it is not an issue with many others, including the ones that use captcha-busting software (there are now even “dark" SAAS for this), or for human-generated spam using content farms (we see a lot of those in some countries like Nigeria and Vietnam)

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     chikorita157 🐰:unverified: (chikorita157@sakurajima.moe)'s status on Sunday, 20-Oct-2024 14:49:38 JST chikorita157 🐰:unverified:

     in reply to

     @renchap It seems that Misskey have implemented this feature in the recent release of Misskey (2024.10.1)

     This is translated from their release notes

     As an anti-spam measure, moderators are now automatically switched to invite-only (Control Panel -> Moderation >-> “Allow anyone to register” turned off) if they have not seen any activity for more than 7 days. ( #13437 )
     Moderators will be notified when the switch is made. If you want to keep registration open, please set it up again in the control panel.

     https://misskey-hub.net/en/docs/releases/

     clacke likes this.
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     Strypey (strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Wednesday, 23-Oct-2024 10:47:04 JST Strypey

     in reply to

     @renchap
     > new installations should not allow open registrations by default. This should be a setting that the administrator needs to opt into, and this is a good place to inform them that open registration instances require moderation resources

     I've been advocating for this for a while. Is invite-only registrations now the default in Mastodon? If so, this is great news.

     (1/3)

     Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} likes this.