I noticed that there were some accounts that were hijacked by the instance owners. All the posts from that user were then edited to say what happened.

This kind of surprised me, I figured instances could delete posts, but not edit them. So how much control do they have?

I assume they can’t see my password (hopefully). Can they post in my name? Do they have all the access to my posts to foreign instances that they do over local posts?

Edit: thanks for all the responses everyone! I’ve wanted my own instance for a while, but maybe I’ll get on it now

  • andkit@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    A lot of people here mentioned that passwords are hashed, but unless I missed it no one pointed out the following:

    The admin of your instance controls your login form and they can pull your password when you log in. So, as others mentioned: always use unique passwords, never ever reuse them.

    In general a server admin can do anything they want on their own instance.

    Federation wise I’d say if your home instance is the bad actor you are screwed, if it’s another instance then their capabilities for mischief hare probably (hopefully?) more limited. And any such action would likely cause a swift defederation of the malicious instance

  • Shadow@lemmy.ca
    0·
    1 year ago

    Just to correct the people who say they can’t see your password - this is only true if they’re running a stock copy of lemmy, which hashes passwords in the database.

    They’re free to modify their instance however they want, including storing unencrypted passwords or emailing your password on registration to a bot farm.

    Always use a unique password for every site you use.