VLemmy AWOL Investigation

What I know so far:

vlemmy is still "up" and intermittently accessible. It is running slow as hell, PLEASE DO NOT VISIT THE INSTANCE as it will likely only slow things down more and make it inaccessible again.

Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed. Closure date unknown
Reddit account still exists and has been messaged
No mentions of the instance in Element.io chats but still searching
They have almost certainly NOT lost their domain. Who.is historical records show no ownership or nameserver changes.

I have some minor personal details I've found that I'll be deep driving on later, but it's 1AM EST. I'm heading to bed but will continue on the investigation around 9AM EST.

Update 1PM EST July 9th:

Hi all, I'm working through about 40 different potential leads right now.

Although I need some help! Specifically, I need people who have viewed !kerbalspaceprogram@vlemmy.net to check their browser cache for this image:

https://vlemmy.net/pictrs/image/928b2f95-a37c-4e94-bd70-bc014c8655d4.jpeg

You can do so using one of the following NIrsoft tools:

Chrome: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/chrome_cache_view.html
Safari: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/safari_cache_view.html
Opera: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opera_cache_view.html
IE / Firefox / Misc: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/image_cache_viewer.html

I'm hoping since it's a historic image linked to their internet presence that it might generate specific leads.

I'll update more as things progress.

58 comments

Shame. Saw this instance get some decent support on Reddit, it was also one of the few prominent ones that wasn't blocked by anyone nor blocked anyone.
- They recently blocked a single instance due to the other instance breaking the law in the country vlemmy is hosted. I'm hoping all of this is just a database cleanup gone awry, I would have hoped @pyarra@vlemmy.net would have made a comment SOMEWHERE.
  
  His last post was about adding more admins to the instance. So it didn't seem like he was going to abandon it.
  
  I guess they tested the config change in production and the server went fubar.
- My main account was on it. I have to re find all my favourite communities now
  
  Someone posted some tools above for migrating/backing up subs.
  I have a kbin and a lemmy.world account. I'd like my own instance at some point, but I'll definitely be keeping these other two accounts handy.
- Yes, I really hope it comes back online, that's where my main account is. I hope the lack of communication ends soon anyway.

Stripe, Librepay, and Github accounts are all closed.
If this is the case, then it looks like they abandoned it.
- And people wonder why users flocked to lemmy.world with it's established, well known admin instead of "just dispersing onto smaller random instances to take advantage of the features of the Fediverse".
  Look I like decentralisation as much as the next guy but most people can't or don't have the time to research the trustworthiness of their local instance and its admin team before signing up.
  We don't want to put everything in one place, especially seeing as many are still waiting on Ruuds stance on Meta/Threads, bit there is something to be said for a big, reliable general purpose instance to help onboarding.
  
  I think it’s natural that there should be a small collection of large, production-class instances that host the vast majority of users. The important point is that there are more than a few, and certainly more than one.
  I also think it is important for instance admins to lay out their plan for how they intend to host and fund an instance if they intend to be production-class.
  We also need some kind of account backup and migration tool so that if an instance goes down, those users can easily recover on another instance.
  
  But if they really abandoned it as I said, then this is a stupidity of the admin. There will always be people to take over the instance. Why would you directly abandon 3.5k users? Like I'm hosting a instance with only 5 people in, I would never abandon it without notice. It should have been established from start I guess.
  All I said above are valid if admin really abandoned it BTW.
  
  I failed for the bait. Damn I thought Vlemmy was chill. I even had 3 communites there that were growing :(
  
  Personally, I don't think the Lemmy numbers are that big. There are some instances running bots of feeds, a lot of memes. A lot of discussion about Lemmy and other federated services. I do not really consider the volume of posts/comments about everyday topics to be that high.
  
  Lemmy.world just got fucked too.. wtf do we even do now?

My primary account is on there. Thanks for looking into it.

Anyone have the backstory here?
- https://feddit.nl/post/458654
  vlemmy.net stopped working (or stopped being useable) yesterday.
  The domain was showing as parked in a dynamic dns server.
  Nobody knows what happened so far.

Is there an easy way to ”backup” your subscriptions so that migrating to another instance is less cumbersome?
- In addition to the other suggestions, I have just published lemmy2opml which allows you to export your subscribed communities to an OPML file. You can then import that file to a different account.
- There is actually! ~~Going to look for the link and edit when I find it but~~ there’s a simple pc tool that lets you download and upload all your subs and blocks in two clicks
  There’s also a python script for it
  
  Is there a way to do so on a phone?

My leading hypotheses:
Admin got a request from the police or lawyers, and freaked out
Admin had a mental breakdown
Admin's parents found out about the server being run from their home's internet, and told admin to stop it.

While I understand everyone's belief that the admin, @pyarra@vlemmy.net, abandoned the instance, I do not believe so for a few key reasons:
They asked for additional admins no less than 24h before the first connection issues. This indicates their willingness to put in work for the instance and expand.
They raised a legal issue with having to defederate from an instance just a few hours prior to the connection issues. The instance in question was hosting content that can be seen as child pornography in Irish law - which is where vlemm.net is hosted. @pyarra@vlemmy.net was incredibly transparent with this issue. This level of transparency makes me doubt they would suddenly disappear purposefully. Speculatively I can guess that the legal issues may be connected to the going-dark.
The site is still occasionally loading, but extremely slow and not correctly. In addition to this, it shows a logged in user (PrinceHabib72) - which is not me.
There was a known security vulnerability in lemmy (see here ). The vulnerability includes cookie / token immitation and stealing. Having a logged in user (that is not me) when loading the site thus rings alarm bells to me. Apart from the logged in user, the inability to properly load the site most times but sometimes parts of it load (and the remaining requests time out, like getting icons and content etc.), screams denial-of-service to me.
Just like the other people in this thread, these are speculations. However, I have a weird feeling in screaming 'abandon' here. Given everything observed, that does not feel right to me.
- I just saw your post. I have this thread bookmarked since it's pretty interestibg, tbh. I'd love to know what exactly happened.
  I completely agree wih those 3 points, although I do think #1 is pretty weak (no offense, but I considered that and I wrote it off).
  #2 is interesting because of the timing. I saw the owner post about it, but there was no indication that he was in a panic because of it. Personally, so far I am leaning towards this as the smoking gun, although the donation links being down kind of throws a wrench there.
  #3 is something I believe can be significant. Problem is idk much about that area.
  What's your personal opinion about what happened?

Hopefully, something will come up soon about what happened to it. It's a definite shame that it dropped so quickly, it's been a really good instance up to this point.

Thanks for checking it out

Have you found anything new since the last update?
- I've ruled out a good amount of leads but I have not had contact with the admin yet :(

Out of the loop here
- https://feddit.nl/post/458654
  vlemmy.net stopped working (or stopped being useable) yesterday.
  The domain was showing as parked in a dynamic dns server.
  Nobody knows what happened so far.
  
  Many thanks!

Is there a way to migrate my communities?

Is there a way to migrate my communities?

58 comments