[HN Gopher] Webmention (2017)
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       Webmention (2017)
        
       Author : tosh
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2022-12-11 09:38 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.w3.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.w3.org)
        
       | stoicjumbotron wrote:
       | Probably the only implementation which I've seen in the wild is
       | that of swyx's[0]. Example blog post: https://www.swyx.io/js-
       | third-age
       | 
       | Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see it
       | 
       | [0] https://www.swyx.io
        
         | qubyte wrote:
         | My personal static site has a custom implementation of dispatch
         | and receipt of Webmentions using netlify functions. I'm sure
         | there are many more folk quietly coming up with their own ways
         | to do it as well.
        
         | mananaysiempre wrote:
         | I don't know if one-off custom implementations count, but the
         | blog of Xe Iaso (Christine Dodrill) speaks WebMention as
         | well[1].
         | 
         | [1] https://xeiaso.net/blog/webmention-support-2020-12-02
        
         | arboles wrote:
         | A blog I read also uses Webmentions. This article is swimming
         | in them: https://seirdy.one/posts/2020/11/23/website-best-
         | practices/#...
        
         | input_sh wrote:
         | A lot of examples here:
         | https://indieweb.org/Webmention#IndieWeb_Examples
        
         | BaseballPhysics wrote:
         | There's plenty more besides. My own static blog supports
         | webmentions thanks to webmention.io, which is used by numerous
         | other blogs. Brid.gy also uses it to trucker syndication and
         | backfeed of comments from various silos.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | hadrien01 wrote:
       | (2017)
        
       | nathias wrote:
       | I find it weird that webmentions are on hn very often, and noone
       | is implementing it.
        
         | ptcrash wrote:
         | I'd argue it's because the risk is not worth the reward.
         | Pingback and Trackback is used to send a monsoon of spam and
         | I'd wager site maintainers are not too keen on enabling the new
         | version of an old problem.
        
       | soapdog wrote:
       | I am using it on my website. It is great and makes it so much
       | more fun to blog. I really recommend implementing it.
        
         | jwilk wrote:
         | What do you mean by "using"?
        
           | azangru wrote:
           | He probably means this (bottom of the page):
           | https://andregarzia.com/2022/05/On-rants-about-laptops-
           | for-d...
        
             | soapdog wrote:
             | Exactly that. I use WebMentions to gather information about
             | people sharing each blog post and also for comments. If you
             | want to comment on the site you can simply send a
             | WebMention. For example, sites such as Lobste.rs do that so
             | every time a post ends up there, the comments on the thread
             | appear on the site. The same happens on Twitter and
             | Mastodon. It is very neat.
        
       | epeus wrote:
       | More useful information at https://indieweb.org/Webmention-faq
        
       | ptcrash wrote:
       | I've read through the spec along with the FAQ that epeus so
       | graciously shared here. The idea of mentioning beyond the scope
       | of one website's walled garden seems like a very natural
       | progression of ActivityPub and the new-found hype surrounding
       | Mastodon. My concern is that I haven't seen much thought into the
       | security implications.
       | 
       | The spec makes it clear that they're trying to simplify pingbacks
       | but they don't address the fundamental security problems with
       | pingbacks in the first place. And anyone who's maintained a
       | Wordpress site will tell you, the first thing you do is turn off
       | the Trackback and Pingback features [1] because not only does it
       | attract the scummiest deluge of spam [2] but they've also been
       | useful for disclosing internal network info and [3] leveraged to
       | target other websites in DDoS attacks. [4]
       | 
       | The only thought given to preventing abuse is as follows from
       | Section 4.1:
       | 
       | >The verification process SHOULD be queued and processed
       | asynchronously to prevent DoS attacks per section 3.2.
       | 
       | >Receivers MUST verify Webmentions per section 3.2.2.
       | 
       | The first directive isn't a guarantee a DoS attack won't block
       | all IO, it just means don't make it trivial to bring a site down
       | with webmentions. The second directive sounds nice but if you
       | read through section 3.2.2 of the recommendation, it just
       | mandates that you should validate the application data that's
       | submitted. [5] There's no mechanism to authenticate messages,
       | validate the sender, nor limit mentions to a set of trusted
       | parties.
       | 
       | Am I missing something or is this recommendation just splitting
       | the pingback feature from the XML-RPC protocol? In my opinion,
       | that's not providing a lot of value because the feature is still
       | so very easy to abuse.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-
       | how-...
       | 
       | [2] https://blog.hubspot.com/website/trackback-spam
       | 
       | [3] https://www.acunetix.com/vulnerabilities/web/wordpress-
       | pingb...
       | 
       | [4] https://www.trustwave.com/en-
       | us/resources/blogs/spiderlabs-b...
       | 
       | [5] https://www.w3.org/TR/webmention/#h-webmention-verification
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _My concern is that I haven 't seen much thought into the
         | security implications._
         | 
         | You may find this interesting: https://indieweb.org/Vouch
        
           | giantrobot wrote:
           | That doesn't do anything to prevent the DDoS problem of
           | pingbacks/trackbacks, if anything it makes it worse because
           | checking the third party vouch address causes an
           | amplification attack. As with most things on the Internet
           | spammers and assholes have ruined *back systems.
        
       | z3t4 wrote:
       | I guess it's not popular enough to attract spammers, but if there
       | is an automatic way to put a link on someone else's page it will
       | be abused.
       | 
       | There's however Vouch (https://indieweb.org/Vouch)
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-11 23:02 UTC)