this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023

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Lemmy.ml is blocking all requests from /kbin Instances (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by barista@kbin.social to c/fediverse@kbin.social

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I discovered yesterday evening that Lemmy.ml is blocking all inbound ActivityPub requests from /kbin instances. Specifically, a 403 'access denied' is returned when the user agent contains "kbinBot" anywhere in the string. This has been causing a cascade of failures with federation for many server owners, flooding the message queue with transport errors.

This doesn't appear to be a mistake; it has been done very deliberately, only on Lemmy.ml. Lemmy.world and other large instances do not exhibit the same behavior. It also isn't a side effect of the bug introduced in Lemmy 0.18. You can observe by sending the following in a terminal

> curl -I --user-agent "kbinBot v0.1" https://lemmy.world/u/test
HTTP/2 200
[...]

> curl -I --user-agent "kbinBot v0.1" https://lemmy.ml/u/test                                
HTTP/2 403
[...]

> curl -I --user-agent "notKbinBot v0.1" https://lemmy.ml/u/test
HTTP/2 403
[...]

> curl -I --user-agent "placeholder-user-agent" https://lemmy.ml/u/test
HTTP/2 200
[...]

Additional evidence of this not being a Lemmy 0.18 bug:

This occurs when making web requests to any location on the Lemmy.ml webserver, not just ActivityPub endpoints.
Go to https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy and pick an instance running 0.18.0. Perform the above commands, replacing the URL for Lemmy.ml with that particular instance's address.

If this continues, my instance may need to defederate from Lemmy.ml. This is especially problematic because Lemmy.ml continues to federate information outbound to other kbin instances while refusing to allow inbound communication from them.

Spoofing the user agent is less than ideal, and doesn't respect Lemmy.ml's potential wish to not be contacted by /kbin instances. I don't post this to create division between communities, but I do hope that I can draw awareness to what's going on here. Defederating /kbin instances entirely would even be better than arbitrarily denying access one-way. This said, we should all attempt to maintain a good-faith interpretation until otherwise indicated by the Lemmy developers. It's possibel that this is a firewall misconfiguration or some other webserver-related bug.

Relevant comment from me (#354 - [BUG] Critical errors/failed messages during messenger:consume)

Edits:

Yes, people have already tried reaching out to the Lemmy instance admins in their Matrix room with no answer.
Someone has posed a question on Lemmy.ml about the block here: https://lemmy.ml/post/1563840

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[–] Cloudless@kbin.social 68 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I am happy to see nothing from the tankies.

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So block the instances you want to block

[–] assbutt@kbin.social 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How? I'd love to block some instances, but nobody ever fucking explains how.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 45 points 1 year ago

On kbin (which you are) you can go to /d/theinstanceyoudontlike and there's a block button, just like every user page and magazine page.

[–] ZickZack@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Go to the relevant domain's front page (e.g https://kbin.social/d/kbin.social for kbin.social).
The URL scheme is "https://kbin.social/d/DOMAINHERE" assuming you are currently on kbin.social.
On the right in the sidebar you can see "Domain" and below that options to subscribe or to block.
Really it's the same thing as magazines, just that you generally don't visit the domain itself.

[–] assbutt@kbin.social 36 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Gotcha, navigating to the domain itself is what I was missing. I still don't see an intuitive way to get there from say, a magazine.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain rather than just telling me to do something that I don't know how to do.

[–] wagesj45@kbin.social 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

kbin is still in its growing pains phase. there are tons of little user experience items that need to be worked on. good thing is that @ernest is working hard on it.

[–] assbutt@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah no shade intended, just more reason to explain it to people. Ernest is a G.

[–] Mr_Figtree@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does that actually work for you? I'm still seeing posts from magazines on domains that I blocked that way. It looks to me like it only blocks articles, and also link posts to the domain, but not link posts on magazines from the domain.

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[–] 1st@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Now I'm curious what would happen if I defederated from Kbin.social on kbin.social

[–] ginerel@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Guess you'll simply no longer see posts from kbin.social

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[–] ginerel@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I hate tankies myself as well, but I also hate that some communities are only created on lemmy.ml. Plus some official subreddits moved over there as well (and no - no far-left ones).

[–] Cloudless@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

yeah I can't believe the Firefox community is on lemmy.ml

[–] Colombo@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Hate tankies as much as you want, but at least they don't deny that USSR was the real communism.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

Ask Lenin what it was and he'd say state capitalism. Because that's what he called it.

[–] gunnervi@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know wtf "real communism" is, all I know is that the communism I advocate for is not that of Lenin, Stalin, or Mao

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[–] communist 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Uh, they do, actually. The belief is that the USSR was attempting to build communism.

I reject this because they didn't implement any communist policies, even Lenin himself said what they were doing was state capitalism.

The tankie defense is that they were doing it to later establish communism, but nobody who knows what they're talking about actually believes the USSR achieved socialism.

They even refused to help Yugoslavia after they implemented an actually socialist policy (workplace democracy).

The situation with the USSR was rather clearly that an authoritarian dictatorship wanted to call themselves a utopia so they said they were communist.

I don't understand why people give the USSR the benefit of the doubt and assume they were actually trying to do something good.

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[–] CoderKat@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Problem is that there's a bunch of major communities on that instance. They have no affiliation with the server admins and mostly just chose the instance because it seemed like the default very early in the migration to the Fediverse.

[–] Silviecat44@vlemmy.net 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What is a tanky?

[–] Cloudless@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The term "tankie" is a slang term used to describe a person who supports or apologizes for the actions of authoritarian communist regimes, particularly those that have used tanks or military force to suppress opposition or maintain control. The term originated from the Soviet Union's use of tanks to quell protests and uprisings, most notably the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia.

While there may be varying interpretations and uses of the term, it is generally used pejoratively to criticize individuals who defend or downplay the human rights abuses, political repression, or atrocities committed by these regimes.

(ChatGPT)

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[–] Serosh@kbin.social 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

This is utterly baffling and goes against the whole idea of the Fediverse. To take advantage of the impending mass migration, just days before Reddit shuts down their universal API access for good, this all leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

So users now have to choose between two already-smaller communities when making the transition? This is only going to make a semi-complicated process even more confusing, and end up pushing users back to Reddit.

I had mostly used Lemmy.ml up to this point, but I didn’t leave Reddit to join another u/spez dictatorship. What a disappointing turn of events. Kbin is now my primary.

[–] Rottcodd@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

goes against the whole idea of the Fediverse.

Presuming for the sake of argument that it's a deliberate move by .ml to freeze out kbin users, it only really goes against the idea of the fediverse in that it's an underhanded way to accomplish something that was meant to be done openly. By design, every instance is entirely free to choose whether or not to federate with any other.

What a disappointing turn of events. Kbin is now my primary.

And (again presuming for the sake of argument that it's not simply a glitch), that's the fediverse working exactly as intended. Just as every instance is free to choose which instances to federate with, every user is free to choose which instances to join or follow.

[–] DreamerOfImprobableDreams@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

True, but the original intent was that defederation would be a nuclear option, reserved only for instances that totally failed to moderate stuff like hate speech, bot activity, etc-- given that it damages the Fediverse as a whole.

The lemmy.ml admins are free to federate or defederate from other instances as they please-- and we're free to criticize their decision as we please, too.

[–] Bobo_Palermo@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

We should not be moderating hate speech....that is a slippery slope. Simply disregard it.

[–] ChemicalRascal@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Something something, that's how you get a Nazi bar.

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[–] hugz@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Decentralisation means a clash of egos

[–] ginerel@kbin.social 15 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's a case of a personal ego here. I think it's something different, that has to go with the main devs' ideology. I feel like @feditips 's concerns are quite valid.

[–] tenet@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Lemmy.ml is about to find out what decentralization actually means. User migration is trivial, and absolutely nobody has had an account long enough to give a shit about it anyway.

[–] Semmelstulle@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think they're scared by the growth of kbin haha

No but for real, Federation is about being open in my opinion. We have modlogs, everything. Then please provide information about why you exclude x from doing y.

[–] Hondolor@kbin.social 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Kbin seems alot better so far than Lemmy. First time I"m hearing about it but so far it's a better experience

[–] cowvin@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Remember, it's not all of Lemmy, it's just lemmy.ml. lemmy.ml is the one run by pro-china folks.

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[–] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lemmy.ml is a hive of authoritarians. I'll be glad to not have to see their oppressive fascist fantasies here.

[–] ReCursing@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

From what I hear, they're authoritarian communist, not fascist. Fascism is not just a synonym for authoritarianism, it's a specific economically far right authoritarian political position.

[–] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Same end result; oppression of the masses, rejection of human rights and personal liberties, concentration of power and corruption. Fascist, authoritarian communist, tomato, tomAto, as far as I'm concerned. Their ideologies all stand directly on the throat of freedom and I want nothing to do with anyone who believes total control of the people is a positive thing.

[–] Machinist3359@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The distinction between a square and a rectangle is important, even if you don't like right angles and parallel sides. Fascism is a flavor of authoritarianism which is uniquely worse and focused on genocide.

[–] Colombo@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Fascism is not focused on Genocide. Even for Nazism, Genocide is only a (welcomed) byproduct.

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[–] ReCursing@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

You can dislike both (I do too) but they are not the same, and with the far right on the rise and making power grabs the world over right now we need that distinction

[–] AnonymousLlama@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

Yeah this isn't great to hear. If they're keen on taking pushing content outwards to kbin but not accepting incoming content, that's not really good enough.

If they're doing something shifty like that, how do we even know kbin users comments are even being recorded (and seen on that Lemmy instance)

What's the overarching issue here? Those admins are just being dicks?

[–] cockatoo010@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Isn't that the instance where an admin is afiliated with the CCP?

I'm not surprised at all

[–] Onii-Chan@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

The very same.

[–] DreamerOfImprobableDreams@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Wait, I knew the admins were CCP sympathizers, but does one actually have ties to the CCP?

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[–] ChemicalRascal@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

Well that's a bit fucked. I figured that maybe they'd just tried to block bots, but no, "testBot" goes through just fine. They specifically seem to be rejecting "kbinbot", though, not just anything with "kbin" in it.

[–] audricd@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Well, this is disappointing.

[–] Otome-chan@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

common lemmy.ml L. thanks for the heads up though that interacting on lemmy.ml stuff might be broken.

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[–] tjr@innernet.link 4 points 1 year ago

yeah, I've been getting hammered in my transport queue from this. I guess if this is intentional it is worth just defederating to avoid spamming the queue and logs.

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