EDIT
TO EVERYONE ASKING TO OPEN AN ISSUE ON GITHUB, IT HAS BEEN OPEN SINCE JULY 6: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3504
June 24 - https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3236
TO EVERYONE SAYING THAT THIS IS NOT A CONCERN: Everybody has different laws in their countries (in other words, not everyone is American), and whether or not an admin is liable for such content residing in their servers without their knowledge, don’t you think it’s still an issue anyway? Are you not bothered by the fact that somebody could be sharing illegal images from your server without you ever knowing? Is that okay with you? OR are you only saying this because you’re NOT an admin? Different admins have already responded in the comments and have suggested ways to solve the problem because they are genuinely concerned about this problem as much as I am. Thank you to all the hard working admins. I appreciate and love you all.
ORIGINAL POST
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/4273025
You can upload images to a Lemmy instance without anyone knowing that the image is there if the admins are not regularly checking their pictrs database.
To do this, you create a post on any Lemmy instance, upload an image, and never click the “Create” button. The post is never created but the image is uploaded. Because the post isn’t created, nobody knows that the image is uploaded.
You can also go to any post, upload a picture in the comment, copy the URL and never post the comment. You can also upload an image as your avatar or banner and just close the tab. The image will still reside in the server.
You can (possibly) do the same with community icons and banners.
Why does this matter?
Because anyone can upload illegal images without the admin knowing and the admin will be liable for it. With everything that has been going on lately, I wanted to remind all of you about this. Don’t think that disabling cache is enough. Bad actors can secretly stash illegal images on your Lemmy instance if you aren’t checking!
These bad actors can then share these links around and you would never know! They can report it to the FBI and if you haven’t taken it down (because you did not know) for a certain period, say goodbye to your instance and see you in court.
Only your backend admins who have access to the database (or object storage or whatever) can check this, meaning non-backend admins and moderators WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MONITOR THESE, and regular users WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REPORT THESE.
Aren’t these images deleted if they aren’t used for the post/comment/banner/avatar/icon?
NOPE! The image actually stays uploaded! Lemmy doesn’t check if the images are used! Try it out yourself. Just make sure to copy the link by copying the link text or copying it by clicking the image then “copy image link”.
How come this hasn’t been addressed before?
I don’t know. I am fairly certain that this has been brought up before. Nobody paid attention but I’m bringing it up again after all the shit that happened in the past week. I can’t even find it on the GitHub issue tracker.
I’m an instance administrator, what the fuck do I do?
Check your pictrs images (good luck) or nuke it. Disable pictrs, restrict sign ups, or watch your database like a hawk. You can also delete your instance.
Good luck.
seems like the solution to this should be to automatically remove images that haven’t been posted, after like 3 minutes
Or make it like 1hr and don’t let the user know the url of the uploaded image until they post it, that way it wouldn’t be able to be shared or reported.
This is one way to solve it.
3 minutes is way too short. You could upload and it be gone by the time you post.
Or just mark the resource as private and only serve it to the user who created it until they associate a post with it.
You would probably need a separate server to stage images like this, as your main image server probably shouldn’t have a login wall, which probably slightly complicates things but not badly.
Or you set a flag that says something like “incomplete image” and then only once user completes whatever operation by hitting “submit” do you then set it to complete.
And maybe while an image is not yet complete, only the uploading user can view the image.
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Imagine if the image link is shared to other people and you aren’t aware of it. You think that’s acceptable?
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Why does Lemmy even ship its own image host? There are plenty of places to upload images you want to post that are already good at hosting images, arguably better than pictrs is for some applications. Running your own opens up whole categories of new problems like this that are inessential to running a federated link aggregator. People selfhost Lemmy and turn around and dump the images for “their” image host in S3 anyway.
We should all get out of the image hosting business unless we really want to be there.
Convenience for end-users and avoiding link rot is probably one of the reasons.
and avoiding link rot
Lemmy seems built to destroy information, rot links. Unlike Reddit has been for 15 years, when a person deletes their account Lemmy removes all posts and comments, creating a black hole.
Not only are the comments disappeared from the person who deleted their account, all the comments made by other users disappear on those posts and comments.
Right now, a single user just deleting one comment results in the entire branch of comment replies to just disappear.
Installing an instance was done pretty quickly… over 1000 new instances went online in June because of the Reddit API change. But once that instance goes offline, all the communities hosted there are orphaned and no cleanup code really exists to salvage any of it - because the whole system was built around deleting comments and posts - and deleting an instance is pretty much a purging of everything they ever created in the minds of the designers.
Seems to not be paying off though; having whole communities and instances close is pretty inconvenient.
This is how it works. Since pictrs and Lemmy are two completely different applications (they even run in two different containers with two different databases) they do not communicate and tracking what images belong to what post or comment simply isn’t possible in the current state I guess.
How come this hasn’t been addressed before?
This is how the Fediverse works. There is so much bad practices, so much haphazardly implemented functionality and so much bad API documentation all over the place that I wonder why nothing has extremely exploded so far. We don’t even have proper data protection and everything is replicated to everywhere causing a shitload of legal issues all over the workd but no-one seems to care so far.
Sounds like the Internet Protocol I grew up with 😍
This isn’t unique to Lemmy or haphazard coding. It’s a common technique to get pictures into Github READMEs this way. You’d create a PR, upload an image, copy the link, delete the PR, and then paste the link elsewhere on Github for use.
Anyone in the US considering running a public Lemmy or Mastodon instance should check what their obligations are under the DMCA and Section 230 and do them.
Section 230’s protections and limitations are documented here: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/230 - note that the limitations are not unlimited but generally if you act in good faith you’ll be covered for almost all of the non-copyright related situations you’re concerned about.
The DMCA requires you take action to protect your forum, notably registering an agent (which can be you!) with the Copyright Office, and posting contact information on your website. https://borgheselegal.com/news/44-internet-law/85-reducing-company-website-liability-steps-to-verify-dmca-safe-harbor-compliance has information on how to remain DMCA compliant, but basically it means responding to take down notices in a timely manner. It’s bureaucracy you don’t want to do, but it’ll protect your website from Sony if someone uploads the whole of Morbius to it.
Remember when you’re panicking about evil people posting to your website that there’s a whole host of websites everyone knows about such as the various American *chans that have never, to the best of my knowledge, been the subject of a raid.
Thanks for this.
Yeah, this is a big issue. I know Lemmy blew up a bit before it was truly ready for prime time but I hope this cleans up.
the admin will be liable for it.
…
These bad actors can then share these links around and you would never know! They can report it to the FBI and if you haven’t taken it down (because you did not know) for a certain period, say goodbye to your instance and see you in court.
In most jurisdictions this is not now it would work. Even a less tech savvy investigator would figure out that it was an online community not obviously affiliated with CSAM, and focus on alerting you and getting the content removed.
There’s this misunderstanding that CSAM is some sort of instant go-to-prison situation, but it really does depend on context. It’s generally not so easy to just plant illegal files and tip off the FBI, because the FBI is strategic enough not to be weaponized like that. Keep an eye on your abuse and admin email inboxes, and take action as soon as you see something, and nobody is going to shut you down or drag you to court.
Doesn’t change the fact that this is an issue that needs to be resolved.
Never said otherwise, I just want to make sure we’re not scaring people away from Lemmy administration and moderation, as if they were risking going to prison as a child sex offender or something.
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So you’re telling me you’re NOT bothered if CSAM was sitting on your server and shared with others without your knowledge? Do you think all countries have the same laws? You don’t think any of this is an issue?
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You’re not an admin so of course you don’t care. How come every admin in this thread has expressed their concern? Because it IS a concern. :)
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https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/08ff5623-e553-4d00-a6e2-e9fb6798a972.webp
Here is another test ^ I use a different instance to better illustrate the point because it’s easy to upload images in comments. Nobody in shitjustworks will see this picture in their instance so nobody can report this picture.
This picture is just Salvadaor Dali by the way.
I can see it. It’s a very nice artwork.
There really needs to be an option for instances to upload images to imgur using their API.
imgur has been hosting images for years, and has the resources and experience to deal with stuff like CSAM.
It shouldn’t be the default/only option that hosting an instance means having to open the floodgates for anyone to upload images to their servers.
From a liability standpoint alone, it’s an absurd thing to just expect every instance to accept.
Yes. This is a great alternative solution.
In the USA, admins being liable is not really true
Most admins aren’t in the USA. But that’s not really the issue here is it?
Are individuals granted the same 230 protections as organizations when it comes to self-hosting an instance? I doubt people are forming non-profits for their self hosting endeavors
Yes. Section 230 has no requirements that someone needs to form a non-profit or anything like that. It applies to anyone who has responsibility for a website that accepts user submitted content, or more widely anything on the Internet not created by yourself. whether a private individual or a giant corporation.
https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 describes it in more detail, but to give you an example, even forwarding an email from someone else to a mailing list has some protection (https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/batzel-v-smith)
Thank you! That’s a clear and concise explanation of section 230. I’ve always heard it in reference to big social media companies but your link clearly shows the protections extend to individuals and users as well
Yes, an app designed to receive user generated content will allow users to upload arbitrary content. This is not really an issue unique to Lemmy, and can be fixed by banning abusive users
Except admins need to go through the database to catch it. Mods can’t catch it. Admins without access to the database or object storage can’t catch it.
As far as I know, people don’t homebrew Reddit.
