• Moderating a Group on Rocksolid Light?

    From Byrl Raze Buckbriar@news0@octade.net to rocksolid.nodes.help on Sun Sep 15 12:28:37 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

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    I would like suggestions for setting up a moderated news group on Rocksolid=
    Light. The goal is a moderated group to which only moderator approved mess= ages will post and propagate.

    I am not too picky about how the moderation occurs, whether via email or me= ssages held in a local queue. Whatever can be made to work will probably be=
    sufficient. The one exception is that I am not willing to install INN for = this purpose.

    What kind of software would be required for moderation and how would it int= egrate with Rocksolid Light?

    Is there a way to do a 'reverse nocem' or 'reverse cancel' method where the=
    group messages are hidden by default until a signed control message instru= cts the server to reveal the message? Ideally I would like a unforgeable me= thod to sign either/or/and a hash of the message and/or its message-id, whi=
    ch would approve it and make it visible. The simpler, the better. If a meth=
    od like this can be hooked in, then I could read them in the local spool an=
    d sign for approval.

    If anyone has ideas for hacking together such a method please don't be shy = and do share.

    --=20
    Byrl Raze Buckbriar . OCTADE . < https://octade.net >
    Hacker Hotline . voice & SMS . (781) OCT-AGON
    KeyOxide . < https://keyoxide.org/keyoxide0@octade.net >

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  • From Marco Moock@mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de to rocksolid.nodes.help on Sun Sep 15 15:13:49 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

    On 15.09.2024 um 12:28 Uhr Byrl Raze Buckbriar wrote:

    I would like suggestions for setting up a moderated news group on
    Rocksolid Light. The goal is a moderated group to which only
    moderator approved messages will post and propagate.

    Already exists and works as intended.

    rslight won't add it to the group spool, but post it via NNTP.
    The upstream NNTP server will send the message via email to the
    moderation address.

    Although, I haven't seen a way to post as the moderator with the
    Approved: header that will make it distribute by NNTP to the group
    itself.

    You can test it on my site with the moderated test groups.
    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1726396117muell@cartoonies.org

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  • From Retro Guy@retroguy@novabbs.com to rocksolid.nodes.help on Sun Sep 15 13:51:01 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

    On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:13:49 +0000, Marco Moock wrote:

    On 15.09.2024 um 12:28 Uhr Byrl Raze Buckbriar wrote:

    I would like suggestions for setting up a moderated news group on
    Rocksolid Light. The goal is a moderated group to which only
    moderator approved messages will post and propagate.

    Already exists and works as intended.

    rslight won't add it to the group spool, but post it via NNTP.
    The upstream NNTP server will send the message via email to the
    moderation address.

    Marco is correct, that rslight supports moderated groups. But this
    requires inn. I see in your question that you'd like to do this with
    rslight only.

    Someone maybe last year was working on this, but he disappeared :) I
    don't know if he ever finished it and reads here, maybe he has some code
    for you.

    I can easily dump articles into a folder and NOT add them to the spool
    when posted, but then the admin needs to read that folder and move the
    articles to '/outgoing/' to "post" them. This can be done with a script,
    but no such script exists at this time.

    There exists a feature to NOT automatically add to spool already, but
    wait for the article to return from the upstream server. Do you intend
    to use any upstream server, or are you looking for fully self contained?

    This can all be done, but let's work out the specific requirements
    first, so we don't rewrite it 12 times :)

    Although, I haven't seen a way to post as the moderator with the
    Approved: header that will make it distribute by NNTP to the group
    itself.

    This does not exist. It's is fully depended on inn (or another capable
    news server) to handle moderated groups.
    --
    Retro Guy
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  • From Byrl Raze Buckbriar@news0@octade.net to rocksolid.nodes.help on Sun Sep 15 23:57:43 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

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    On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:51:01 +0000
    Retro Guy <retroguy@novabbs.com> wrote:

    On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:13:49 +0000, Marco Moock wrote:
    =20
    On 15.09.2024 um 12:28 Uhr Byrl Raze Buckbriar wrote:

    I would like suggestions for setting up a moderated news group on
    Rocksolid Light. The goal is a moderated group to which only
    moderator approved messages will post and propagate.

    Already exists and works as intended.

    rslight won't add it to the group spool, but post it via NNTP.
    The upstream NNTP server will send the message via email to the
    moderation address.
    =20
    Marco is correct, that rslight supports moderated groups. But this
    requires inn. I see in your question that you'd like to do this with
    rslight only.
    =20
    Someone maybe last year was working on this, but he disappeared :) I
    don't know if he ever finished it and reads here, maybe he has some code
    for you.
    =20
    I can easily dump articles into a folder and NOT add them to the spool
    when posted, but then the admin needs to read that folder and move the articles to '/outgoing/' to "post" them. This can be done with a script,
    but no such script exists at this time.

    As the simplest possible method this sound great.
    =20
    There exists a feature to NOT automatically add to spool already, but
    wait for the article to return from the upstream server. Do you intend
    to use any upstream server, or are you looking for fully self contained?

    If I use a fully self-contained setup that does no upstream sync, where are=
    the messages currently held in limbo?

    For a self-contained peerless setup, simple movement of messages to a direc= tory would be great. For a Rocksolid-only network, with multiple peers, sig= ning the message then moving to sync queue would work, so that other Rockso= lid Peers with the same scheme would know to accept as if email moderation = had occurred, even without emailing to the moderator. I suppose it would be=
    similar to the BBS Mail feature, with messages moving in an access-control= led group until they are signed or deleted.

    The idea I was initially mulling is for any Rocksolid peer receiving a post=
    to a moderated group to forward the message to the peer of the moderator w= ith the registered signing key(s), who would then have it in a moderation q= ueue. Or, for better fault tolerance, the message could propagate in the ne= wsgroup, or in a hidden group, and be hidden by default until the registere=
    d moderator propagates a signature into the group, which would be read and = applied by other peers when they see it. The advantage of this is removing = the reliance on email entirely, omitting that potential point of failure fr=
    om the mix.

    As I understand it, Usenet moderation usually happens via email, rather tha=
    n propagation, until the assigned moderator key signs the message. Is that = correct?
    =20
    This can all be done, but let's work out the specific requirements
    first, so we don't rewrite it 12 times :)

    Yes, please don't write any code at this time. I need to think this through=
    to be sure I understand how it all works and also how it could work. I rea= lize that other NNTP servers would not recognize a propagate as hidden then=
    wait for signature scheme. However could they propagate as hidden control = messages? Is there a way to do an inverse cancel hack on standard Usenet pr= otocol? These are the wrinkles I am trying to iron out in my mind with the = hope being that maybe there is a way to hack it with complete avoidance of = email. Because, well reasons: if DNS is down or blocked or blacklisted, ema=
    il cannot work; and email is a point of censorship attack. But IP only woul=
    d continue to operate between Rocksolid peers. And a Tor-only network would=
    be more secure without the reliance on email.

    Although, I haven't seen a way to post as the moderator with the
    Approved: header that will make it distribute by NNTP to the group
    itself.
    =20
    This does not exist. It's is fully depended on inn (or another capable
    news server) to handle moderated groups.
    =20
    --=20
    Retro Guy

    I will need to think about this a bit before I chime back in.

    --=20
    Byrl Raze Buckbriar . OCTADE . < https://octade.net >
    Hacker Hotline . voice & SMS . (781) OCT-AGON
    KeyOxide . < https://keyoxide.org/keyoxide0@octade.net >

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  • From Byrl Raze Buckbriar@news0@octade.net to rocksolid.nodes.help on Mon Sep 16 01:41:31 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

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    On Sun, 15 Sep 2024 23:57:43 +0000
    Byrl Raze Buckbriar <news0@octade.net> wrote:

    Another idea just dawned on me.

    Messages to a moderated group inside a Rocksolid network could be propagate=
    d as encrypted BBS Mail via a newsgroup. Rocksolid Light could take it from=
    the client or the web interface, check for moderation flag, then push to B=
    BS Mail.

    Once the encrypted message propagates to the moderator peer, the moderator = peer would then decrypt and deposit in a moderation queue, and cancel the e= ncrypted BBS Mail message. Or if configured, the Rocksolid moderator peer w= ould forward from his server to his email address, if he wants to approve i=
    t the Usenet way and have it propagate to NNTP peers outside the Rocksolid-= only network.

    So the signature for a Rocksolid-only network would be different than that = for a general Usenet signature. Rocksolid-only signatures would propagate t=
    o Rocksolid peers but not to Usenet peers. This would offer two approval op= tions for the moderator, or the ability to later link a Rocksolid network t=
    o another NNTP network not using Rocksolid Light.

    Thoughts?

    --=20
    Byrl Raze Buckbriar . OCTADE . < https://octade.net >
    Hacker Hotline . voice & SMS . (781) OCT-AGON
    KeyOxide . < https://keyoxide.org/keyoxide0@octade.net >

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  • From Marco Moock@mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de to rocksolid.nodes.help on Mon Sep 16 20:13:20 2024
    From Newsgroup: rocksolid.nodes.help

    On 15.09.2024 um 23:57 Uhr Byrl Raze Buckbriar wrote:

    As I understand it, Usenet moderation usually happens via email,
    rather than propagation, until the assigned moderator key signs the
    message. Is that correct?

    The message needs to be send with an Approved: header to be posted to
    the group itself. This doesn't authenticate in any way, anybody that
    has access to a news server that allows such posts can post in
    moderated groups. That's why the operators normally only enable/permit
    that for people who are the moderator (e.g. by asking on the moderation address).
    --
    kind regards
    Marco

    Send spam to 1726437463muell@cartoonies.org

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