Very recently a brand new account commented on my posts with that looked a lot like pictures of my house. The account is @WellWellWaldo@programming.dev, they deleted their account but not the media uploaded.
@snowe@programming.dev @Ategon@programming.dev Please help, this is an emergency. The pictures are still live as far as I can tell and accessible from the modlog even though the comments are removed.
Because of federation they are probably un-deletable. Most likely federated to multiple servers.
pict-rs doesn’t seem to copy images except as thumbnails and these were comments. If the admins remove the pict-rs entries on programming.dev they won’t be accessible unless someone saved them.
Unlikely with as small of a community as we have, but plausible.
I’d be more careful to separate the you from you while you’re on the decentralized web. It pays in safety and peace of mind. Who’s anybody?
I never shared any of that stuff here ever. I’m not even sure how they would’ve found it unless it’s possibly a real life stalker. Would’ve had to be someone pretty close to me to get into my phone to see my profile here.
Maybe be more careful irl and online. And if you have some “truth” you’re intent on sharing, understand you need to be as intent on accepting unpleasant consequences, including unaliving, or being able to afford necessary security detail and apparatus.
Are you serious? This is some victim blaming shit.
I don’t see where you get “blame.” This is solid, practical advice.
Someone was able to link your username to a real person’s name (hopefully not yours!). Once they have that, they can start digging around. If they figure out your state (or however your locale is, if not US), then it’s a matter of plugging away at people search sites. They’ll get family member names, addresses, emails, phone numbers—it is a Google search away, and free at that. Go to Google Maps, plug in the address, and pull up Street View.
I found my info in seconds with a search of my name and state.
Couldn’t this be abused for propaganda or CSAM spread?
Yes, which is an inherently element of federation. The whole idea is that single nodes can only police their own node, including who shares to them, which puts a heavy onus on what they want to accept automatically as they need to ensure they don’t replicate illegal or problematic content through the federation.
Ah, good, so they thought of it.
While the images are public and likely hard to see fully gone, maybe you can try to get a judicial order to get the IP of the poster, and through that find and sue whomever the individual is? (And if over VPN, I’d imagine VPN companies would comply if the order is sound)
Also for matters that involve delicated subjects, I’d suggest contacting relevant people by DMs/email, as to avoid unwanted attention to it/Streisand effect.
None of that is going to happen. IPs do not match with users 99.99% of the time, because of CGNAT and 99.99999% of users not paying for a static IP…and if they are, then they’re not going to be dumb enough to not be on a VPN…on top of that, VPN companies don’t keep logs. And not just for privacy reasons, keeping traffic logs of users is extremely expensive on storage and it’s also a good way to get drug into court.
The Internet does not work like CSI
I did call the police when it happened, maybe they’ll be able to do something but somehow I don’t see this going anywhere.
Probably because it’s not illegal.
I don’t know what world you’re living in where it’s legal to post a picture of someone’s house and where they live, but in most places this is a crime, and it is a crime where I live.
It’s certainly not illegal in the US. Heck, Google Street View has images of most addresses online.
EDIT: Well, okay. There are forms in which it could be illegal, like if someone was, oh, trying to convince someone to kill a person and provided the images as part of that, where the act of trying to get someone to do so might be incitement or conspiracy or something. But it’s not ordinarily illegal in-and-of-itself to post it.
Zillow does it all the time, even when properties aren’t marketed. Also, Streisand effect.
If you keep making noise about this, you’re going to get the Streisand effect. It’s not a crime to post pictures of peoples houses where I live (USA).
Just move along.
the problem lies in the fact that they probably don’t live where you live, and it might not be illegal there. and even if it is, you would still need to contact the local police in their jurisdiction, because anything federal is unlikely to spend any time on something like this.
for that matter, even getting local police to do something will be an uphill battle. cops don’t enjoy actually doing their jobs.
That seems insane. I’d be more concerned by the fact that some rando somehow knew where I live. Good luck navigating this, it sounds shitty as hell.
