Post

I agree with everything Once Spaces launch, there needs to be very clear communication so users do not misunderstand that it's not E2EE (like I hope no app would try to mislead anyone but hey we never know) Admins need tools to help them moderate or Spaces will become a nightmare very quickly

Presumably with a notice first. Shouldn't be accessed except as specified in the privacy policy. Clearly visible on both sides, for the spaces admin and for the instance admin.

This would be ideal, and I can do this for the instance admin. There's no mechanism (yet) for alerting the spaces admin, tho. That would be on the app to implement, or on us to define as part of the spaces spec. FWIW, I think this would be an excellent thing to add to the spec.

Basically, spaces are fully accessible to server admins. This is the same for spaces hosted by HappyView, as well as spaces on your PDS. If somebody has access to the database, they can read anything in your spaces.

Wait really? I thought it's PDS hosted space, and therefore only the PDS admin has access. I didn't realize spaces also has access. If they do, HappyView should provide the admin overview

Theoretically, there's a separation of concerns here: • user = which apps can do what • PDS host = which app/user combo can access what data (read or write) • space host = which users belong to space (read access to view) • appview = which users belong to space (write access to view)

Yeah, the intent is that the repo host (the user's PDS in most circumstances) holds the space data. However, spaces isn't generally available yet so HappyView provides a polyfill for the time being that allows operators to implement spaces, even for users whose PDS doesn't support it.

From a technical perspective, this is not surprising. Spaces are not encrypted. They provide access control, not privacy. If you want privacy (even from admins), you need some form of E2EE.

From the perspective of a server operator, it actually makes a lot of sense. The operator of a PDS needs to be able to moderate the content on their PDS. We don't need bad actors creating spaces just to store their CSAM. That would be Very Bad™.