this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
3318 points (99.9% liked)

Lemmy.World Announcements

29079 readers
206 users here now

This Community is intended for posts about the Lemmy.world server by the admins.

Follow us for server news 🐘

Outages πŸ”₯

https://status.lemmy.world/

For support with issues at Lemmy.world, go to the Lemmy.world Support community.

Support e-mail

Any support requests are best sent to info@lemmy.world e-mail.

Report contact

Donations πŸ’—

If you would like to make a donation to support the cost of running this platform, please do so at the following donation URLs.

If you can, please use / switch to Ko-Fi, it has the lowest fees for us

Ko-Fi (Donate)

Bunq (Donate)

Open Collective backers and sponsors

Patreon

Join the team

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

While I was asleep, apparently the site was hacked. Luckily, (big) part of the lemmy.world team is in US, and some early birds in EU also helped mitigate this.

As I am told, this was the issue:

  • There is an vulnerability which was exploited
  • Several people had their JWT cookies leaked, including at least one admin
  • Attackers started changing site settings and posting fake announcements etc

Our mitigations:

  • We removed the vulnerability
  • Deleted all comments and private messages that contained the exploit
  • Rotated JWT secret which invalidated all existing cookies

The vulnerability will be fixed by the Lemmy devs.

Details of the vulnerability are here

Many thanks for all that helped, and sorry for any inconvenience caused!

Update While we believe the admins accounts were what they were after, it could be that other users accounts were compromised. Your cookie could have been 'stolen' and the hacker could have had access to your account, creating posts and comments under your name, and accessing/changing your settings (which shows your e-mail).

For this, you would have had to be using lemmy.world at that time, and load a page that had the vulnerability in it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ThisIsMyLemmyLogin@lemmy.world 285 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I wish hackers would invest their time in clearing credit card debt, deleting hospital fees, or something else that actually serves the public good, instead of hacking ordinary people just trying to get by.

[–] riskable@programming.dev 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Deleting hospital fees/debt is very dangerous... In many HUGE regions in the US there's only one hospital and if that hospital suddenly can't pay its bills it could shut down, leaving a whole lot of completely innocent people in a very sad, people-are-dying sort of state.

In fact, something like this already happened:

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/st-maragrets-health-central-illinois-hospital-closing/

Hospitals are special in that they're often evil organizations (not all though) that are some of the easiest to hack but also provide critical services to the most vulnerable. One should tread lightly. Political solutions are better (hack some politicians that are against healthcare reform instead).

Clearing credit card debt via hacking is nearly impossible but I agree it would be a much more ethical choice for hackers to target. I used to work for the credit card industry. My unique insider perspective, deep industry knowledge, and personal experience is here to let you know they suck. They are just as evil and unethical and unnecessary as everyone thinks they are! Seriously: If Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and all the lesser players suddenly disappeared the world would be a better place.

Before that can happen though people need a backup payment method that doesn't go through their systems and no: Cash won't work (there's not enough in circulation and it's dangerous to carry large amounts of it). The credit card companies know this threat exists which is why they lobbied Florida (and probably other states) to outlaw alternative, government-run forms of payment (e.g. central bank currency).

As soon as people have a widely accepted payment option that doesn't go through Visa and MasterCard's middlemen (e.g. First Data) then hackers can take their gloves off! Until then though... Let's keep the payment infrastructure working, OK? Thanks!

There's no limit to the amount of good deeds hackers can do though. So let's encourage that! For example, there's plenty of cartels and evil religious organizations (e.g. Taliban, ISIS, Mormon Church, Prosperity Gospel scam artists) that have plenty of money to spare and enormous attack surfaces πŸ‘

[–] ReadyUser31@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

Hospitals are special in that they’re often evil organizations

Just want to state the obvious and say, this is pretty much only the case in the US.

[–] bev@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I think the alternative payment systems in the developing countries are actually good. UPI in India is very utilitarian. China also has the wechat thing. I guess the issue with these are that they are not universal and limited to a single country.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

clearing credit card debt, deleting hospital fees, or something else that actually serves the public good,

Inflation does very clearly not serve the public good. That aside, causing havoc in banks and medical institutions would have other unpleasant effects.

[–] jarfil@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How about cleaning the bottom 10%'s debt, with the earings from one week of the top 0.1%?

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ah, you mean unauthorized "redistribution", not unauthorized "vanishing debt".

Technically should do less harm in terms of inflation, but money lying around is different from money being used, so there'll still be an increase in inflation.

The part about causing havoc - kinda same, there may not be direct inconsistencies as in the initial variant, but there'll still be some confusion due to the "top 0.1%" possibly being petty and trying to get their money back.

I frankly prefer changing the rules so that there'd be fewer artificial barriers for competition and economic efficiency to this. Say, patent law and trademark laws and IP laws have basically outgrown their usefulness and are now just a plague. Same with various licenses and practices for medical/pharmaceutical stuff (I know that things should be tested and an average person can't tell a hoax from a normal thing, just entities doing certification shouldn't be able to block stuff which would then be used to create oligopolies). Same with telecom. And so on.

Except for air traffic, water traffic, road traffic and radio, of course. Not regulating those would mean, eh, real havoc.

[–] sab@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're ruining the circlejerk with your realism! 😠

Edit: I think Mr. Robot gave a good glimpse what would happen if all debts were wiped. It sounds fun on paper, but in the end, the people with the least money would suffer the most.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago

I personally just lose any interest in conversation when I realize that my counterpart doesn't want a working system or a better world or really some justice, they simply want to rob someone who has more than they do. No deeper purpose or something, just plain envy.

It's like certain moments in sex. So bloody frustrating.

And, of course, the only leftists I've encountered who wouldn't be what I describe were book characters. Yeah, nice characters, fascinating, really making me wish something like this was possible, but even with the depth limitations for describing an entire person on paper they were still deeper that RL leftists, FFS!!!

I have at least met living sincere good-willing ancaps and living sincere good-willing fascists (sic) even. The only people I know in person I could possibly call a real sincere good-willing leftist would be my sister, and maybe one of my cousins, and one DM (though from a few conversations I suspect he just has, eh, a leftist background, but is more literate in economics than such people usually are).

[–] jarfil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

you mean unauthorized "redistribution"

Fine, let's do taxes: how about cleaning the bottom 90%'s debt, with the income from 4 months of the top 0.1%.

...and that's just 30% income tax, it used to be 90% for the rich right after WWII: History of taxation in the United States

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's not that simple, there's a response of the "top 0.1%" moving their property elsewhere or distributing it by various legal means so that they'd have to pay less.

In dumb terms, you have to design a system where 4 people collectively owning 4bln$ would pay the same as 1 person owning 4bln$. Not even mentioning that they can have N friends abroad.

Also there are still "rich" people in Scandinavian countries, who may not directly own nearly as much as Bill Gates, but still have enormous power.

Also this will, in fact, affect inflation.

My point is - money represents power, which is convertible into other means, you can tax money or property, but you can't universally tax power.

Money-wise (as a universal equivalent in a non-coercive system) you can at least somewhat clearly evaluate that power. If you scare powerful people off to convert their power into more obscure media, you won't have that clarity.

So I don't see this as a problem one can solve, but I see other problems more accessible, like patent\IP\trademark\certification laws.

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have no idea why you got down voted, but you're right

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, I honestly in a way write such comments in a tone more likely to irritate people. Maybe not consciously. I just happen to have grown in a family and in groups where disagreeing and arguing was not considered disrespectful, and I am ironically not very tolerant to the other way of looking at this.

(Should think about this more often when I want to complain about life - some people were not that lucky.)

[–] DreadTowel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seems that a chunk of this platform's userbase are people generally angry at the establishment who upvote everything that wants to bring it down and downvote everything that rejects the idea. Happy that there's many reasonable people here too :)

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm generally angry at the establishment too, it's just that I see that establishment being pretty friendly to leftist ideas on economics in everything but direct admission of it.

[–] DreadTowel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Well, you can disagree without being angry. I in general think that anger is a liability, not an asset. It hinders debate and argumentation.

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Please don't confuse wealth and money.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] DreadTowel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already know I'm gonna be downvoted for this, but the top 1%/0.1% spending isn't gonna change, whereas the bottom 10% will cause inflation... That's why there's no magic bullet.

[–] jarfil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The bottom 10% don't have enough money to "cause" inflation, not even the bottom 90% have that much money. Inflation is driven by the top 5-10%, representing 70% of the wealth; the rest just get taken for the ride.

You're right the top 1%'s spending won't change, it's already 1000x above a person's basic needs, so what's the difference between 1000x and 900x (10% inflation).

[–] DreadTowel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Exactly, the bottom 10% don’t have enough money, meaning that any money you give them will go towards consumption. The top bracket’s spending as % of income or wealth is tiny and is mostly independent of their income. Their money is spent on investments, not basic goods and services. They practically don’t affect inflation.

I think money should be printed during periods of low inflation. E.g. Japan could have benefited from that. After this bout is over, governments can return to printing, carefully.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Having a dedicated sub for bad understanding of economics seems stupid, it's already spread over all subs, it's normal.

Of course, the extremes of bad economics would be usually found someplace with "soc" in the name.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm saying your statement is bad economics. Debts get discharged all the time and they have no impact on inflation. It's called the Bankruptcy System and it's been a part of American economic reality since the mid-1800s.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Debts get discharged all the time

Yes, so?

and they have no impact on inflation

Measured by whom? Logically they should.

It’s called the Bankruptcy System and it’s been a part of American economic reality since the mid-1800s.

So in your idea of good economics it doesn't matter for inflation if debt of NxM total gets discharged per month or of NxK total per month where K is much bigger than M?

I just don't get that pretentious acting.

[–] utopianfiat@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Logically they should.

No, they shouldn't. The money supply is unaffected by discharges.

So in your idea of good economics it doesn’t matter for inflation if debt of NxM total gets discharged per month or of NxK total per month where K is much bigger than M?

Discharge does introduce short-term shocks but it's not the doomsday scenario you're painting it to be. We did it in the 1800s and it was mostly fine compared to the regular bank panics before the greenback was adopted.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The money supply is unaffected by discharges.

Ah, OK. Maybe "inflation" is the wrong word, but there's a response. Insurance becomes more expensive, loans become more expensive, basically everybody for whom such an event is a risk reacts to its probability growing.

but it’s not the doomsday scenario you’re painting it to be

Well, I'm not saying it's literally a doomsday scenario, just that it likely wouldn't benefit the person dreaming about it more than it would harm them.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Considering some of the targeted instances and the stuff they left behind, it was likely some nazi.

[–] TwoGems@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] 4am@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

β€œMarty we started this journey together!”

β€œIt was a prank, Cos’!”