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blog: Matrix Community abuse protection model: Security By Obscurity
Resolves: #268
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---
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layout: post
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title: "Matrix abuse protectiction model for community maintainers: security by obscurity"
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category: [english]
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tags: [matrix]
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---
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*I am administrator or moderator in multiple communities in Matrix, the most sizable
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being 23 rooms + two spaces. I don't have my own homeserver or Mjolnir. And I am tired.*
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If I was using Discord, I would make a guild, make roles within it and then
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right click people and assign them roles and they would be able to manage all
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channels those roles let them. Time estimate less than 15 minutes.
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Sadly I am not using Discord, I am using Matrix. This means that while burnt out
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it feels like no one has thought of the case where a community with more than
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a couple of rooms wants to use Matrix.
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## Setup
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I am tired, so excuse me for not involving complete documentation and just
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smaller steps:
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1. Use https://develop.element.io/ (or have a config.json allowing you to use
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labs)
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2. Create a space.
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3. Through developer mode `/upgraderoom {{ site.matrixLatestRoomVersion }}`,
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this should be a number at least `9`.
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4. Clear cache and reload so the old space maybe disappears.
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5. See also https://github.com/vector-im/element-web/issues/19208
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6. Now that there is a space, right click it to create a new room under it and
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select that it can only be joined by space members. You will hopefully end up
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with room version 9 (the default at time of writing is 6 and has even worse
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situation with abuse pretention).
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7. Go to room settings and set the room to public join assuming it's supposed
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to be public (14 of this worst case scenario are)
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8. Repeat steps 5-7 for all rooms you need, you can hopefully figure out how
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to handle a private space (9 rooms in this case).
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### Bus factor
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As we are a serious organisation using Matrix here, even if we have no money
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or people or homeserver or Mjolnir, what happens if you somehow become unable
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to access your account or are asleep or something when you are needed? You add
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more people with power and also register yourself on multiple homeservers, so
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if your main account goes down, you have power somewhere else.
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Let's say you have 20 rooms (you get it a bit more easy than I do), I think
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you have three methods to promote your other accounts:
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***WARNING: administrator status cannot be removed by others.***
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* A. Using the graphical user interface, invite the other administrators to
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the room and click the buttons to make them administrators. I am too tired
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to check how to do this, but it's a graphical user interface, good luck!
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Remember you will do this twenty times, once for every room/administrator.
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* B. You can type `/invite @user:example.org` and then `/op @user:example.org 100`
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and copy-paste it all the time!
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* C. My favourite, you can have a pre-formatted power-level event in json in
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a git repository from which you can copy-paste it to all rooms, first `/devtools`,
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then "room state", "m.room.power_levels", "edit" and you can paste your new
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administrators there and press "send"! This is the only mass option you have,
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and you will have to do this once every twenty rooms.
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Remember you will have to do this every time you add a new moderator (or they
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will be unable to act in the room when they are needed)!
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We also have a matterbridge (which has it's own configuration for every room, but
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offtopic here) which has administrator / power level 100 in every room, so if
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I am not available the administrator team can login as it and take care of
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the situation.
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## Abuse finds you!
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Congratulations, if abuse has found you, the security through obscurity model
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has failed and now you get to deal with it! That is very simple, you just check
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the abuser MXID, and paste `/ban @yourorgisbad:evil.example.invalid` to all twenty
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rooms.
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Did you find out that you have a lot of abuse from a single server and Matrix
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doesn't support wildcards in bans? No problem, [Matrix has your back with "Moderation in Matrix!"](https://web.archive.org/web/20211205204104/https://matrix.org/docs/guides/moderation/),
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you simply use `/devtools` and ban the entire server by sending a completely new event
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`m.room.server_acl`, luckily you are a professional `/devtools` user at this point
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so having to do this 20 times is nothing to you.
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### Icing on the cake
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Could this get any better? Yes, the abuse could happen when you are sleeping
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or otherwise out of the picture, so your fellow ICT team member (who has no interest
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in touching this mess with a long stick) has to step in for you and resolve the issue.
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It's a stress situation for them, will the ICT team be able to find the shared
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password for the Matrix administrator account you hopefully have and speedlearn
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to be a `/devtools` professional or able to handle even easier forms of spamming
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or flooding without you present? My money is on the spammer. Good luck, high-five
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for the next team meeting where you wonder what happened, how to prevent it from
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happening again and will you even support Matrix in the future?
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I hope someone thanked you for ever having your organization there, I know
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that I have only gotten complaints about matterbridge looking ugly and not
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using matrix-appservice-irc, \<redacted-for-similar-trouble\>, matrix-whatever-discord,
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etc.
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## Mikaela, are you ok, has this happened to you?
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Thank you for asking, I am not ok, I have a burnout and xmas is poor time for me
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in general, and this whole issue is ridiculous, someone could have thought of
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it since 2014, everything I am saying is public knowledge, but no one cares.
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It's whoever is running Matrix without hosting their own homeserver and Mjölnir
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(which brings all reasonable management for organizations) who is at fault (me).
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I wonder how much would a Mjolnir help if abuse was sophiscated enough to DDoS
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it off the internet before beginning.
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## What is this community with 23 rooms and two spaces?
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It's [Pirate Party of Finland](https://piraattipuolue.fi/en). I cannot say
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whether it's us or Matrix that is obscure enough to have avoided the nightmare I
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painted in this blog post, but as I am the only administrator at Matrix, I
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have locked it down so the rest of the ICT team can continue not touching Matrix
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or practicing `/devtools` first without a stressful situation.
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[Our main space](matrix:r/space.piraatit.fi:matrix.org?action=join) requires
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knocking before it can be joined. Don't ask me what Matrix clients support
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knocking, it's part of [Matrix spec version 1.1](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.1/rooms/v7/#authorization-rules),
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don't even ask me what Matrix servers support it.
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Our public rooms within that space require being a member of that space.
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Our more sensitive rooms that desire working peace from spammers are in a
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subspace, which again require belonging to it, and which requires knocking too.
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We have similar system in place at Discord where we just grant people a role
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once they have talked a bit and shown themselves to not be malicious and this
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is the best <s>we</s> I can do at Matrix.
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The above looks a bit weird as I was going to put the actual json events
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there, but I am too tired to bother with that.
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## Afterword
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If I am wrong at anything I said, please contact me instantly either in [my discussion channels](/discuss),
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[the GitHub issue for this post](https://github.com/Mikaela/mikaela.github.io/issues/268)
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or mention `@Mikaela` in any GitHub.com/GitLab.com issue (I am not reading my email actively though)
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as if I am wrong and there is a reasonable Discord-style interface for this
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without additional money, you are improving my life greatly as I am not just
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going to stop using Matrix.
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* Obligatory changelog link: TODO: add one here once it actually exists
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