Infosec.exchange

screenshot of the CISA announcement

infosec.exchange is an instance on the ActivityPub fediverse which allows the presence of CISA, a US "Homeland Security" agency. Because of this, many other instances are defederating from them, and TootCat decided on 2022-11-23 to invoke a silence on 11/30 so as to give users a chance to do any migration or following that would not be possible afterwards.

Incidents

• 2022-11-22
  • social.polymerwitch.com/@polymerwitch «My decision to block them and to call for more to as well will likely have serious professional repercussions for myself. However, this is an ACAB account, and the community I have here is one where "spot the fed" actually means something. / No feds on the fediverse.» I'm not sure that's a sustainable policy... but I can see keeping them out of some corners of fedi, at least.
  • scholar.social/@researchfairy: «It took ~ 35 mins for users on infosec.exchange to start sending us harassing messages» after S.S briefly re-federated with I.E to allow a user to migrate there. (There is additional discussion in the thread.)

Discussion

• 2022-11-30 @woozle discusses the core issue and options for resolving it
• 2022-11-30 @dredmorbius asks: «@jerry Checking my understanding: CISA is an informational and advisory agency, not an intelligence agency per se. / It principally advises US organisations (commercial, governmental, and others) on practices and risks. It may have some monitoring elements. What it is not so far as I can tell is a surveillance or law enforcement entity. Though it does operate under the Dept. of Homeland Security. / As such, rationale for silencing an instance based on hosting CISA accounts seems ... questionable.»