Activist instance kolektiva.social suffered a data breach. FBI seized an admin's computer, which had an instance database dump. That dump includes public posts from many instances, including ours. It also includes DM conversations with users on that instance.

Any time a #SignsAndCodes user has concern that their account info may be a risk to their safety for any reason, please contact an admin. We'll do what we can to keep you safe.

https://kolektiva.social/@admin/110637031574056150

Hey, #SignsAndCodes friends! Let's all give a welcome to @Solestria, the latest to join our community. They're a friend I've known for years through various queer circles, and I told them this is a nice, quiet place to get going on the Fediverse. They can introduce themselves, but consider following them, saying hello, and all that.

So, @epilanthanomai and the #SignsAndCodes family, I figure we should have a conversation about this and out-in-the-open is best. This place was originally created in response to Meta's (then Facebook's) anti-sex-work and, briefly, anti-queer policies. Now it seems that Meta is looking into Fediverse-related projects, and has been meeting with major instance admins under NDA. If/when Meta arrives here, what sould our policy towards them be? All thoughts and opinions welcome, public or private.

#SignsAndCodes admin note. I unilaterally and preemptively defederated the boks.moe instance today. The user base regularly and routinely posts content that includes slurs against various marginal groups of people. It's basically 4chan culture on a Mastodon server, and I felt sufficiently justified in taking action without consultation with others. If anyone disagrees, I'm happy to consider an alternative plan.

@mcmcgreevy Welcome to #SignsAndCodes! You're sure to find some fun new friends on our local timeline, too!

@epilanthanomai So, a new follow bot to discuss. This one is @relay. The prospectus here appears to be an ActivityPub to Matrix bridge, which I guess is...okay? At this point, I'm kinda getting tired of people's follow bots in general. #SignsAndCodes

We've defederated from takesama.com. They're a private social network who state in their whitepaper that their goal is to bypass defederation and nonconsensually index user content.

#SignsAndCodes #fediblock

@epilanthanomai @scalene #SignsAndCodes I have removed the full instance block and we'll take a policy of going after individual offender accounts in the future. Thanks for the patience and discourse. This is why we have an open process here.

@epilanthanomai #SignsAndCodes Actually, looking at the instance from my alt-accounts, it doesn't appear to be wall-to-wall Azov material, and I don't want to cut off a Ukrainian-speaking instance unless we must. One of our users is my dear friend @scalene who may be impacted by cutting off federation to a Ukrainian instance. So, I'm willing to consider removing the block if it's too heavy a moderation tool.

@epilanthanomai #SignsAndCodes I woke up to multiple follows from the instance "soc.ua-fediland.de" this morning. One of which, "@Ukranian_Patriot@soc.ua-fediland.de" contained Ukranian neo-Nazi imagery. The other two featured the names of weapon systems. Instance rules in translation smacked of "free speech zone" stuff. I have strong sympathies for Ukraine, but this is way over the line. I'm defederating the instance and any users here are welcome to appeal that to me.

@epilanthanomai I'd like to open up discussion on whether or not to block the instance mentioned in this thread. It seems like a non-consensual use of instance that doesn't have any clear merit.
https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109585159213960986

#SignsAndCodes

I'm seeing from friends who admin Mastodon instances that the big public instances are having yet another mega-spike in new user signups.

Of course, #SignsAndCodes is still its little ol' cozy self and always will be. Everything is easier when you only have a handful of personal friends as the regular users.

But bless those folks on the mega-servers. I don't know how they're keeping everything up and keeping their sanity.

Hey @epilanthanomai just a heads-up that I saw a bunch of 500 errors being thrown and they looked a bit like this open issue: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/21960. Restarting just the mastodon-web service seemed to help #SignsAndCodes

#SignsAndCodes moderation announcement: We've investigated and blocked a few servers that are credibly accused of running spam bots. For details please see the thread linked below. This local thread links to the original report, which lists three domains. We've blocked all three. Please feel free to hit up me or @roadriverrail if you have any concerns or questions.

https://signs.codes/@roadriverrail/109452525857111017

@epilanthanomai I just saw this thread and it looks like the kind of thing we should get out ahead of. What do you think? #SignsAndCodes
https://glitterkitten.co.uk/@doot/109452155729936408

@roadriverrail @epilanthanomai it'd be nice to turn on the translation feature for #SignsAndCodes

What initially stands out to me with this current read is just how long the modern mind has been in existence. Literally 200,000 years of something that resembles abstract thinking.

#reading2022 #paleoanthropology #caveart #signsandcodes #homosapiens #homoheidelbergensis #nonfictionnovember

#SignsAndCodes I'm standing down from playing helicopter admin. CPU use from Sidekiq is down at around 33%. I've decided to keep the swap file for the time being (put it in fstab) and I'm also leaving the old monitoring script off since we never really made good use of it. I think we had the storage to spare on it, and it may help out in other ways.

#SignsAndCodes another update on the day. IDK if this is processing the vast backlog of federated traffic or what, but "fixing" federation has also meant a massive jump in system load, again to the point that I installed a local swapfile to help smooth out the load. I'll keep monitoring through the day. Hopefully, we won't need to go to a larger AWS instance type, because that'd mean an increase in the monthly bill.

#SignsAndCodes I think I've fixed the federation using the instructions in the link below. I'm seeing new posts come through my federated feed, but I also suspect it'll take a while for things to catch up.

Very frustrating that the #Mastodon release notes included only the most terse mention of "a new Sidekiq queue" with no concrete instructions on how to cope with it.