Image uploads are now disabled on lemm.ee due to malicious users

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨sunaurus@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨meta@lemm.ee⁩

Sorry for the short post, I’m not able to make it nice with full context at the moment, but I want to quickly get this announcement out to prevent confusion:

Unfortunately, people are uploading child sexual abuse images on some instances (apparently as a form of attack against Lemmy). I am taking some steps to prevent such content from making it onto lemm.ee servers. As one preventative measure, I am disabling all image uploads on lemm.ee until further notice - this is to ensure that lemm.ee can not be used as gateway to spread CSAM into the network.

It will not possible to upload any new avatars or banners while this limit is in effect.

I’m really sorry for the disruption, it’s a necessary trade-off for now until we figure out the way forward.

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Comments

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thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
whats the over/under wager that it was retaliation for the recent “h e x b e a r” shit?

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- TomboyShulk@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If a single hexbear user is participating in this (which I sincerely doubt) they will immediately be site-banned for 1984 years. CSAM is reprehensible and is not tolerated. I truly doubt this is the case. If Hexbear is occupying this kind of space in your brain, I would wholeheartedly recommend you logout-lemmy and meet some people.
  
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  - AeroLemming@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I don’t know what the Hexbears would have to gain from attacking lemm.ee. It’s one of the mainstream instances that hasn’t defederated from Hexbear, so there also wouldn’t be anything to retaliate against unless I’m missing some news.
    
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- PapaEmeritusIII@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  why did you type it like that
  
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  - WhyEssEff@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    they think we’re name-searching badeline-concern
    
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- BurgerPunk@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  jesse-wtf
  
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- robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  what the fuck is wrong with you
  
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  - thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Why so defensive?
    
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- Nakoichi@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This is the funniest, saddest, and stupidest shit I have seen all day and I work retail.
  
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- Catradora_Stalinism@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Dude if this is the shit you wager on, deal me in, i’ll have your house before lunch
  
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- BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Pretty fucked up to accuse our userbase of spreading CSAM. Call us Putin-loving China bots or whatever, but accusing us of actual crimes with no evidence is too much.
  
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- PeoplesRepublicOfNewEngland@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Don’t blame us for your hero logging on brandon
  
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- NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I have my issues with the HB mafia, but I don’t think they’d stoop that low.
  
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Flinch@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Thank you for your vigilance and action! 🫡

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Kalcifer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Are the lemm.ee servers not located in a region that protects online forums from the content that its users post?

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- KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’s not just about lemm.ee, the up/down of federation is that stuff from lemm.ee gets copied to all the other federated instances and vice versa. So lemm.ee’s region aside, this move tries to help protect the fediverse at large by removing a major distribution hub. It’s not a full solution in that regard, but it makes a bad situation incrementally less bad. Other popular instances may end up doing this as well till better tools come about.
  
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  - Kalcifer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    It’s not just about lemm.ee, the up/down of federation is that stuff from lemm.ee gets copied to all the other federated instances and vice versa. So lemm.ee’s region aside, this move tries to help protect the fediverse at large by removing a major distribution hub.
    
    That’s a fair point! Thanks!
    
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NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Seems fair enough, good on you for the speedy action.

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fer0n@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
If anyone wants to have a faster way of uploading images on iOS, here‘s a shortcut for that.

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Kbobabob@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Guessing there’s no way to track down the uploaders?

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- rar@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I suppose many of them probably are posting behind VPN or Tor.
  
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- blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’m no expert on this; but I’d assume that it is sometime easy to track them down, and sometimes very hard. Easy if they just do a direct upload from their home internet with a fixed IP address, using a regular lemmy account that they also use for day-to-day stuff. But hard if (for example), they use upload from some coffee shop wifi connection with a throw-away account using some tor / proxy / VPN shenanigans.
  
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- Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  That would be a lot of work for admins, but perhaps reporting the CSAM to the FBI or something. I’m pretty ignorant about how that all works.
  
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ExtravagantEnzyme@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Seems like this is still disabled, is it now in play for the foreseeable future? What about setting a time frame in which no images can be posted until it’s surpassed? Or maybe have an approval required for adding the avatar and banner?

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- sunaurus@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hey, this post is quite old, actually you can find the latest info in the sidebar of our front page:
  
  Image uploads are enabled 4 weeks after account creation
  
  Image upload limit is 500kb per image
  
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  - ExtravagantEnzyme@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    My account is almost 6 weeks old and I’m still unable to upload any images. They all are under 500KB too, this is why I felt it made sense to comment on the old post. Any idea’s what I can do?
    
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ryannathans@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Better shut the internet down then. This will only continue to worsen now that anybody can generate whatever images they want with AI assistance. Such image hashes will not be in CSAM databases (if AI generated imagery is even CSAM)

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zquestz@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Any chance that gravatar support could be implemented? This would allow some basic functionality without hosting content on lemm.ee servers.

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perishthethought@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Just checking – Is this in effect?

I assume this is why I can’t change the banner on the community I moderate (on lemm.ee).

I totally understand why this had to happen. I’m just looking for a status update.

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- stavrosD@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yes it is
  
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