Fediverse Fed Discourse [1/~]
My summary understanding of the discourse thus far:
Hackers.town is run by someone who's in the infosec profession and has had to comply with FBI information requests in the past, and I guess made a really shitty joke in reference to this fact as part of a presentation? The fediverse has taken this to mean that they're an FBI informant as a result.
https://hackers.town/@thegibson/101694354135726418
This makes me 
about a lot of things...
Fediverse Fed Discourse [2/~]
The fediverse seems eager to soapbox about the dangers of federation with these folks, but isn't willing to follow that line of thinking to its obvious end conclusion.
If anyone who complies with FBI demands is in effect a fed, wouldn't that mean all the FBI has to do to cripple and destroy a fediverse node is to make a data request of that node?
Fediverse Fed Discourse [3/~]
This would instantly put the affected node's admin in the position of choosing between heavy penalties (large fines or potential jail time for obstructing justice) or the death of their node.
....in short, the only winning move for an admin in that position is to tell no one the request was made.
...which is WAY WORSE than being transparent about it.
Fediverse Fed Discourse [3/~]
@mawr I think it’s tolerable to assume if an instance shuts down with no notice, and its admins suddenly go completely dark, they’re complying with an NSL (or equivalent).
Something I wonder about: whether Masto’s data portability can allow folks to rapidly failover to a new instance.
Not sure if this has happened with any nodes yet, but that sort of fault tolerance is worth considering by admins.
