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Is impersonation a possible problem in the fediverse? (programming.dev)

submitted 2 years ago by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I mean, pretending to be someone in another instance, "stealing" the username, is trivial. I see the more likely targets being instance admins or high profile users. Should we worry somewhat about this?

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[–] lvxferre@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It's a bit of a problem, indeed. Here's a practical example of that:

In this example, I'm writing from a lemmy.ml account, but the display name impersonates another account in another instance (beehaw.org). Anyone could do this with someone else's account.

Based on that, I think that:

the Lemmy software should not allow you to use "@" as part of your display name. Ever. Reserve it as a special character.
clients should always show which instance you're from, even with a display name. A simple icon would be enough as long as instance admins set up uniquely identifiable ones.
two accounts in the same instance should never be allowed to use the same display name.

And for us, users: never rely on the display name. If the identity of someone is contextually relevant, always check the actual username, not the display name.

[–] skomposzczet@vlemmy.net 1 points 2 years ago

Twitter implementation seems good enough. Big display name with smaller unique handle below. Might be a bit bloat, but solves the problem.