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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by quinten@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Probably a poor decision to be creating accounts on government operated instances. Since they own the server, they're in a position to:

  1. Siphon credentials and attempt reuse to gain access to distinct services
  2. Ban individual accounts
  3. Censor based on post content

I'm all for government support and adoption of open-source software so long as they're not in the position to disrupt how it's used by the public at large.

Edit (my perspective is relevant, but doesn't apply in this case): My nerd impulses outran my willingness to read the link's content. Seems it's not for public registration.

Edit 2: Like my cornbread eating American ass can read Dutch anyway 🤣

[-] TheWorstNL@lemmy.world 76 points 1 year ago

This is going to be a private instance. No normal citizens can create an account.

It's a response to Twitter shielding access to unregistered users. A lot of public services used Twitter to spread information.

[-] moitoi@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

And this is how all Governmental instances have to be, private. Mastodon is a great way to communicate for Government as they control it. They don't rely on a company and can manage the servers.

[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago
[-] 8uurg@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

From the post of the account linked here (in Dutch): it is going to be a place for official government communication, not for individual government employees (and I presume, by extension, public registration in general)

[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago
[-] fkn@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

This is literally all instances... Nothing you do here should be considered private or be linked to your real information.

[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Agreed, but we have to trust the instances we keep accounts on. Trust is subjective, but I certainly wouldn't trust a government ran instance for anything other than an outlet for information originating from the owning government.

If I run a private instance or know the maintainer of another, then I can have greater confidence in the security/privacy implementations.

[-] fkn@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I would trust most government instances more than most of the private instances. Would I trust them not to harvest all of that info? Absolutely not. Would I trust them to not masquerade as me? Way more. Governments have way more to lose by being caught.

[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I've spent quite a bit of time as a penetration tester and one of the first things we do once we recover credentials is check for validity against online accounts known to be good for a given user. We do that because it simulates attackers and government operators alike. It's a guarantee that free credentials will be abused in one manner or another when they're available to government entities.

The obvious control for this is to maintain a unique password for each account but that's not always feasible for users due to myriad conditions.

[-] fkn@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I didn't say they wouldn't be abused. I said they wouldn't be impersonated.

[-] JustinAngel@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Would I trust them to not masquerade as me?...

Masquerading is literally the term used for this.

[-] fkn@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Exactly? I'm confused. Did you not understand my position?

[-] mojo@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

This is likely exclusively for the government departments or employees, not personal use

this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
2548 points (100.0% liked)

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