this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
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It's not just upvotes and downvotes. Instance admin also knows your email and can store your password in plaintext if they want to. It's up to user to decide whether to trust the instance admin
I think you need to clarify how they can see the password. It’s not stored in plaintext, but when the user logs in, the server administrator can see the password in the HTTP post data if they log it in the lemmy sourcecode. All apps are subject to this and it’s why to have to trust the instance owner.
and also the reason not to reuse passwords
How do you know that an admin has my plain text password? Typically passwords are stored hashed. Do Lemmy instances not do this?
Check this comment for details on Lemmy's security. https://lemmy.world/comment/765991
TL;DR: Password security is fine. Server doesn't get your plaintext password.
I didn't read the source code too deeply, but it appears the server receives the password, and only then it is hashed. How does it work?
Is it option 1 or 2 (or other). If option 1 an evil admin can collect the password, or am I misinterpreting something?
If the threat is an evil admin who can change the code it doesn't matter. The admin could change the server code to store unencrypted passwords, they could change the client code to send unencrypted passwords, they could make clients post plaintext passwords whenever you login. Hashing is damage control incase someone absconds with the password database.
That code may be client-side code, some of it refers to forms etc. Not familiar with the frameworks though , so can't say for sure.
Edit: no, that makes no sense at all, now I look at it again.
They do, but since lemmy is open source they can store it before hashing it, just use basic security practices and use a password manager
I didn't look at Lemmy's source but I'm pretty sure it is hashed. The thing is, password is hashed in the database only to protect users in case database gets hacked. But a bad admin of the server can always just change the code and nobody would know. When it comes to websites, open source doesn't provide any additional security, since everything that happens on the server is a black box. I'm not an expert on this though. Correct me if I'm wrong
If it's hashed it's impossible to see your password (hashing is a one way process, it's not encrypted). However nothing prevents someone from running a modded instance if they want to harvest passwords.
What you are saying is somewhat misleading 😒
But did you know over 50k people can see your Facebook password 🤔
But seriously, everything you send to a website/server can, of course, also be seen by it.
This has always been the case everywhere. I am a little surprised that this is suddenly something new..
If you call someone out for lying at least address the issue.
Looking through the rest of the comments, I think there were already enough explanations.
Making the accusation towards Lemmy that admins can see passwords in clear text is misleading.
It suggests that this is different from other platforms, which it is not. All admins can get your password from/for their respective websites. Either by logging the traffic before the password gets hashed or by modifying the application so that the password gets transferred in plaintext. This applies to Lemmy, Facebook, Google and literally any other service where you enter a password.
It doesnt. you interpret it that way. Thats fine, its your opinion. But please be a little more careful with those accusations.
They could also track the IP address it came from and sell the data if anyone wanted it. I'm sure there are corroborating databases out there for IP address to people lookups
edit: One should also consider that Facebook and Twitter actively sell whatever data they have on you, along with the ability for people to put things in front of your face in all the places you tend to read things. At least on lemmy, you've got a volunteer admin that might have scruples.
They store unencrypted passwords in the year of our lord 2023? Be this real?
They do not
This should definitely be mentioned when you're creating an account. Also, how secure are usually lemmy instances?
This is not the case at all and the parent comment was not clear
Seriously??? No hashing, no salting, no nothing??? WTF?
Sorry. I was misleading there. I edited it. The password is hashed and salted. I meant that admin can collect the password in plaintext only if they wanted to
I just thought the same thing. This cannot be true. I refuse to believe it
Jesus Christ that's a major security risk. Luckily I just created a random string for my password but imagine how many accounts those admins can hack by simply entering the same combination everywhere.
It's not. No sane person these days keeps password in plain text and to the point there's no benefit in doing so. Hashed and salted is the correct way to go. Rids developers of any future troubles they might run into in regards to passwords. That said password can be stolen by anyone anywhere if one is not careful. It's essentially trust based idea. That's why two factor is a thing.
Also a reason why VPNs are not a security measure, rather a convenience way of working that's been rebranded these days as security measure. They claim they protect your privacy online, but all it does is changes originating IP address of request. If you browse anything through HTTP protocol they can easily see what you are browsing except now spying on a single person got a lot easier. You just go to one VPN provider and force them to hand over your data.