I would encourage every Fediverse software project to implement a “dead-man switch" on registrations: if nobody with moderator permissions has been active in the last week, then disable new account creation.
The Fediverse has a significant number of abandoned instances that are used by bad actors to create accounts and send spam.
We implemented this in Mastodon (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318) and it has been highly effective.
Renaud Chaput /
npub1qw…hwsmk
2024-10-17 20:44:49
Author Public Key
npub1qwpfjy8caugpj782cv45tmx2gdjn47jky6m0mkpruy3zr4llu4jsahwsmkSeen on
wss://relay.mostr.pubPublished at
2024-10-17 20:44:49Event JSON
{
"id": "0a66eb816170998bcb512d0f165e081d1a6f932ca5e8fb1f48772ec05a43ef08",
"pubkey": "03829910f8ef101978eac32b45ecca43653afa5626b6fdd823e12221d7ffe565",
"created_at": 1729197889,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://oisaur.com/users/renchap/statuses/113324712860638520",
"activitypub"
]
],
"content": "I would encourage every Fediverse software project to implement a “dead-man switch\" on registrations: if nobody with moderator permissions has been active in the last week, then disable new account creation.\n\nThe Fediverse has a significant number of abandoned instances that are used by bad actors to create accounts and send spam.\n\nWe implemented this in Mastodon (https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/29318) and it has been highly effective.",
"sig": "faa0ba5942bcd7366a4e49f8d04a489c7f9c9b1ea9736486f48a688335922ca7ca9d3a4afd5019edf4e88e5f25327c821c07ea3892c8f3fd3faae4391991301b"
}