VPN and Tor use on the lemmy verse, is it banned ?

Hi, I have noticed for three days now not being able to post comments from my Lemmy.world account while connected via Tor (I was left waiting for a spinning wheel )! I thought at first It might be a problem with LW servers but after three days, I concluded they are banning Tor and VPN users from posting, I Have found a user post on their help community about VPN and tor ban.

then I tried signing-up to lemm.ee but was greeted with a couldflare of non ending page reload after solving captcha. so I created this account hoping to test this instance and ask Lemmy users with privacy concerns about where this is headed and should we expect the rest of Lemmy instances to go the way of reddit and entirely ban users behind proxies ?

The fact that very big instances hold the majority of the communities and discussions on lemmy and the fediverse in general is concerning. and adopting tactics like shadow banning and dark patterns is concerning as well. I dropped reddit for the same practices and I will drop Lemmy if it carries on like this.

WhatsHerBucket,
@WhatsHerBucket@lemmy.world avatar

Late to the party, but what was your solution OP?

I’m currently weighing my options, that’s how I found this post :)

anticurrent,

change instance, try smaller instances, like https://sh.itjust.works/ or https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/

Oha,
@Oha@lemmy.ohaa.xyz avatar

Dont wanna promote my instance but I run a tor version:
…ohaaxyz6hkgqlzgejiejlugvcsjtyb5c36jeaxm36pevyaoz…

TheAnonymouseJoker,
@TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml avatar

Avoid Cloudflare instances, they hate Tor/VPN and anonymity. They are Project Honeypot for CIA.

Use this website to check CF instances. lemmyverse.net

Omega_Haxors,

Lol World and ee didn’t want them so they became a sh.ithead, that would explain why that instance has the most groyped up users.

Max_P,
@Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me avatar

then I tried signing-up to lemm.ee but was greeted with a couldflare of non ending page reload after solving captcha.

That particular instance was very recently the source of a lot of CSAM and spam, so that’d be why. A lot of instances recently upped their security to combat that.

There’s nothing forcing anyone to use those services, but the reality is that instances that aren’t quick to respond to those kinds of incidents will get defederated.

Cloudflare is a lazy but very effective and economical solution to this. The alternative is staff to monitor everything that goes through 24/7 which for most instances isn’t easy or possible. Many can barely afford the infrastructure costs.

The fact that very big instances hold the majority of the communities and discussions on lemmy and the fediverse in general is concerning.

It’s concerning regardless of the whole proxy banning debacle. A healthy fediverse is a well spread out fediverse.

But I doubt all instances will ever be that way. You don’t need a lemmy.world account to use lemmy.world’s communities, any instance would do.

My instance for example doesn’t use Cloudflare or any CDN, although it is invite only because I really don’t have time to deal with moderation. But I can access it over Tor if I want, and you can access it over Tor and browse it (read-only) just fine.

Reddit on the other hand wants to keep the data for themselves. Their VPN, Tor and proxy block isn’t just for posting, it’s for reading too and that is a much worse problem. They want to hoard the data so they can train their own Reddit AI on it. On lemmy you’ll always have at least read access to the platform through Tor and VPNs through random instances.

At least on Lemmy, a fully featured Tor hidden service instance is entirely possible, if someone is willing to vet the account getting registered and potentially malicious uploads. And anyone can make it happen.

sunaurus, (edited )

That particular instance was very recently the source of a lot of CSAM and spam, so that’d be why. A lot of instances recently upped their security to combat that.

Just to add some more context, there was an attacker recently who created accounts on several Lemmy instances and used those accounts to spread CSAM. On lemm.ee, this attacker created 4 accounts over a 24h period, but was not able to upload any CSAM to our servers due to our stricter upload rules (we require 4 week old accounts to upload any images at all), and all of the 4 accounts were removed very shortly after creation (most of them within an hour of signing up). The attacker gave up trying to use lemm.ee very quickly, and moved on to other instances.

I just wanted to share this context to illustrate that while indeed the different measures we implement to protect the instance can have a negative impact on legitimate users, I really believe that overall, they have a net positive effect. In addition to Cloudflare DDoS protection and image upload restrictions, we also have a separate content-based alerting layer on top of Lemmy, which allows our admins to quickly notice when something suspicious is going on. As another example, this alerting has allowed us to extremely efficiently deal with a current ongoing spam attack on the Fediverse, and I bet many lemm.ee users aren’t even aware of this attack due to the quick content removal. We will continue to improve our defenses, and hopefully try to limit the impact on real users as much as possible, but some trade-offs are necessary here in order to protect the overall userbase.

Ludrol,
@Ludrol@szmer.info avatar

Lemmy.world had announcement a while ago that they won’t support creating content with VPN and Tor due to CSAM spam that is going on

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

It’s limited to voting and commenting right?

MrKaplan,
@MrKaplan@lemmy.world avatar

posting and commenting.

voting should work: lemmy.world/post/11967676

natsume_shokogami,

Though I know what this is for, but I am against blocking VPNs and Tor since it prevent privacy-conscious people like me and other people such as dissents or other having high risks of like harassment online.

The instances being affected the most are those with open registration, and don’t block registration from temporary email providers, and have don’t have like automatic filter or using Fediverse softwares not providing such.

Though given Lemmy development may not support blocking registration by emails or filtering keywords or filtering federation of very new accounts/new account having no profile, manual approvement registration or applying bots filtering repeating spams may be enough without blocking VPNs or Tor I think

rar,

I’m also against blocking proxies, but we the privacy minded folks are a minority that actually uses vpn or tor for everyday internet browsing. There are lots of bots and malicious actors using our resources to spam large instances, and if I were managing a popular fediverse instance, I too would have been forced to consider blocking vpn/tor, even if I didn’t want it.

streetfestival,
@streetfestival@lemmy.ca avatar

FWIW: I’m always on VPN and I’ve never had an issue with lemmy.ca

hellfire103,

Me neither!

brickfrog,

It depends on the instance, you just have to try different instances until you find one that works for you. For what it’s worth I’ve found that dbzer0 works okay with Tor Browser.

Carol,

Yes, I use my account with VPN and have never had any problems

sunaurus,

The nice thing about Lemmy is that you can always host your own instance, even if it’s only for your own individual use. You can basically use your own instance as a proxy - other instances will not see how or from where you are connecting to your instance.

Large instances are being attacked almost constantly at this point in smaller and bigger ways. Almost all measures we implement to combat these attacks come with some trade-offs for the rest of the userbase.

anticurrent,

Hi, I liked using Lemm.ee and the way you managed that instance. but cloudflare is a pain in the butt for everyone using VPNs or Tor, and I also understand the struggle of keeping an instance safe from trolls posting illegal stuff. anyways it seems this is the trend most websites are adopting these days, so I will have to make do with what works for now.

wizardbeard,
@wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’d be shocked if the dbzer0 (piracy) instance blocked it.

I’d also expect that this has more to do with cloudflare than the specific instances.

slazer2au,

How else do you prevent spam/illegal content originating from behind those locations?

There is nothing stopping you from running your own private Lemmy instance to get around those restrictions.

anticurrent,

It crossed my mind to host my own instance, but I am not very confident in my tech skills. It might create more security issues than it solves.

Lath,

It definitely will. Past CSAM spam used abandoned or ignored instances to smuggle into the larger ones.
When you build something yourself, you also become responsible for what goes through it.

S410,
S410 avatar

Simply disabling registration of new accounts using Tor/VPN should be sufficient and won't affect existing users.

Although, requiring verification of accounts made via those would be a better approach. Require captchas to prevent automated posting. Automatically mark posts made from new accounts and/or via Tor or a VPN for moderation review.

There are way to mitigate spam that aren't as blunt and overreaching as blanket banning entire IP ranges. This approach is the dumbest, least competent way of ensuring any kind of security, and, honestly, awfully close to being needlessly discriminating. Fuck everyone from countries with draconian internet censorship, I guess?

lemmyreader,

I am posting on lemmy.ml and piefed.social via Tor browser without issues.

anticurrent,

Yes, I am exploring other instances right now, I can post from sh.itjust.works fine, but I kinda arbitrarily disconnects me from time to time, It must be a bug. will check other instances if needed.

possiblylinux127,

Only instances using cloudflare won’t work.

anticurrent,

But commenting using a LW account used to work a week ago, they must have actively changed something.

lemmyreader,

Each time you start your Tor browser after having closed it, it could be using a different Tor circuit, isn’t it ? Maybe the Lemmy instances you’re using only blocked a few IP addresses that are Tor based. You can check what you are using each time, clicking on the circuit icon next to the lock icon in the Address bar.

anticurrent,

On LW I have been trying for over 3 days, and restarted the browser many times, cleaned the identity, changed the circuits many times as well. I am not concerned about that account. I just wasn’t expecting it to catch up with the fediverse this quickly.

lemmyreader,

Oh.That’s too bad :(

h3ndrik,

I think using Cloudflare isn’t very Fediverse.

You probably need to find a different instance.

tgxn,
@tgxn@lemmy.tgxn.net avatar

You can filter out instances behind CloudFlare on my internet web site, lemmyverse.net 😁 Choose the tags filter, and remove CloudFlare!

_haha_oh_wow_,
@_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

It likely depends on the instance.

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