gabe

I'm asking around on matrix, but there seems to be something very wrong going on and man, I'm just tired.

Hey yall it's gabe and this past week has been hell in more ways than one.

So..... what the fuck happened?

Truth be told, I haven't the slightest fucking clue. Our last server host had so much issues in the past week it was absurd. I logged in and was trying to figure out what was going on after the server had been down for a bit, and immediately noticed that UFW and fail2ban were both uninstalled. I panicked instantly and shut down the instance. Afterwards, the server failed the properly boot outside of safe mode and the logs were of zero use to me to figure out what the fuck happened. From what I could tell was either the last server hosts persistent downtime did major shit to the VPS or someone hacked into it and basically decided to pull a minecraft griefer moment by making it so that the VPS wouldn't be able to properly boot up when it next restarted. I have no idea which, but I treated the situation as if someone hacked into it as a precaution and took everything down.

I have to be honest with you, I took all of it very personally even though there's a pretty high chance it was just the last host. Recovering from dealing with the CSAM spam and then this? It fully threw me into a panic. I fully had to take a step back on Saturday for my own wellbeing.

I also attempted to contact the last VPS host, but they were of little help.

Thankfully we had databases backed up properly. The last database was from the 30th of August that could be recovered fully unfortunately.

What has been done to secure things if this was some sort of hack?

We have fully migrated to a more stable host, as well are utilizing their embedded firewall options alongside the software firewall in case it was of docker fucking with UFW. We have abandoned fail2ban and are now using crowdsec instead as well. There's more robust security stuff on the backend as well that has been done as a precaution. Changing passwords, etc, etc, etc.

Alongside it is no longer just myself providing admin-y type stuff for the instance moving forward. Arthur (specifically who has a background in working with this stuff) has helped bring the server up and has offered to help as they can as well. Finally a backup admin!

What should I do?

The data that lemmy has is negligible in the case that we did have data stolen, but as a general precaution please change your password.

I think I should also state this loud and clear here, but I am sorry. I am sorry for breaking your trust, having the instance go down for so long and potentially compromising your data in the meantime. Although the risk is unknown, the fact there is any in the first place pains me greatly. Thankfully things have been locked down further moving forward as a general precaution and the instance now runs much more smoothly. Although things have been fixed and it is up and running, it hurts to feel that I betrayed this community in such a egregious way. I hope you can accept my apology and that you are willing to stay apart of this community moving forward as these fixes are implemented. Lemmy is a developing software with many quirks, and thankfully I feel a lot less alone in dealing with its quirks now.

They have officially begun federating with other instances

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minds_(social_network)

Users can earn money or cryptocurrency for using Minds, and tokens can be used to boost their posts or crowdfund other users.

Minds describes itself as focused on free speech, and minimally moderates the content on its platform. Its founders have said that they do not remove extremist content from the site out of a desire to deradicalize those who post it through civil discourse.

Place is a basically filled with klanma memes and spam

I am very sorry to those who use that instance. I am hopeful to bring it back up again sometime, but for now it must stay down as I cannot reasonably deal with two instances during these ongoing issues with lemmy. I cannot mentally deal with the toll of having to deal images on both instances.

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/759157

What the title says, I'm tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.

I'd like to read something different where we're the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender's Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.

Do you have any recommendations?

I did make a post briefly before this that I deleted that said I was going to move the instance tomorrow, but unfortunately I have to wait until next month or else some things will break as the new host blocks ports on your account until your first account invoice. I will still likely migrate when I can though, and will make it known when.

Our host says it is working on the current performance issues, but we will see. I am very dissatisfied with the server issues they have had these past few days.

I also very much am not a fan of doing this, but given today’s events and just generally the emotional toll of having to deal with such abhorrent content I’d honestly ask that if you are able to and enjoy using this site, please consider donating. It’s OK if you are unable, but it is seriously appreciated if you can.

https://liberapay.com/literature.cafe/

I love literature as much as the next person but sometimes I want to just shut my brain off and immerse myself in a simple engaging story. Any suggestions?

I won't go into full detail since it's a lemmy admin thing but someone in a community on another instance posted genuine CSAM today and it got federated across different instances. It was originally just one, but I was informed it was multiple.

This is an ongoing issue that is a topic of major discussion amongst lemmy admins. Please be advised that there is info regarding this that cannot be publicly shared at this time, but know that it is being handled carefully in a coordinated manner.

I'm sorry if I take a step back from posting for the next few days.

Newly federated posts should work as intended.

When posts are made on lemmy they can be federated over to any instance so long as the instance is federated with ours and the community is federated onto that instance as well. It's awesome! But for community building sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming.

Since the lemmyverse is so big, sometimes posts on our own instance communities can be drowned out by others on other instances. That's fine in most cases! We want discussion! More the merrier! But for the growth of communities such as this with a specific hobbyist focus, it can kind of stunt the creation of it's own community identity sometimes.

Hence, local only communities can aid in that. Which is why when that feature comes to lemmy I will be making one in hopes of encouraging more local community general discussion as this instance grows. The purpose will be a general all purpose chat, similar to this but for those who want discussions focused on users in our instance only or don't feel comfortable posting something that will get federated into the rest of the lemmyverse.

Some very important things to keep in mind with this:

• Lemmy does not currently allow private communities, this new community will still be viewable for users who are logged out and browsing that specific community. It will simply prevent the community from federating over into other instances. Be mindful of this fact.

• The purpose of this community will not be to shut people out, but as a way to make a more cozy space when users who want to talk with just literature.cafe users. Like a safe haven away from the chaos.