Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" #8703

Gargron · 2018-09-16T00:31:26Z

Summary:

Redesign forms to
- Make better use of space horizontally
- Use labels instead of placeholders
- Add quick navigation to preferences page
- Reorder site settings thematically
- Improve how settings pages look on mobile
Add link ownership verification via rel="me"

How does link verification work? When a profile is updated, the local as well as remote servers (independently) check the links for the presence of a link-back with rel="me" attribute to the user's profile. If so, a timestamp of the check is saved.

Why is rel="me" required? Because intent matters. It is much easier to sneak a plain link on someone's website. For example, in a WordPress comment, or through a Mastodon boost, or a Tumblr reblog. However, custom rel attributes are usually not allowed in those. On the other hand, profile links set by the owner of a page can and do contain this attribute.

What does this give us? This is not a silver bullet. Nothing beats checking someone's government identification documents. However, that approach is closed off to federated platforms. It would not scale if done properly, it would be awful for privacy, and the most naive approach would be subject to trivial spoofing. So, this is the next best thing. If you have a personal website that people know is official, proving the ownership of that site is the same as proving your identity.

Why aren't you using DNS cryptography? An HTML link is the lowest possible barrier to entry. Editing DNS and messing with public keys would exclude a lot of, if not most non-technical people, and as such I do not consider those approaches worth the implementation time right now.

References:

Fix Redesign forms #7133
Fix No URL in profile #121

To some extent:

Verified links:

Forms redesign:

lfuelling · 2018-09-16T01:28:33Z

A TXT record for alternative verification would be nice. For example I wouldn't like having to add a link to my profile on the index of my GitLab instance and stuff like that.

Verifying multiple profiles is already possible with the current method. There should also be a way to confirm one link with multiple accounts using DNS. (comma separated links?)

Gargron · 2018-09-16T01:48:55Z

The complexity with doing DNS verification comes from the fact that each link needs a special verification string, so the field must be saved before that string can be given to the user for copypasting, which means the actual verification must be done in a yet another step (+ wait for DNS propagation)

Don't forget that each server must verify on its own. I don't see how the user could have any control over when the checks happen, currently it's just tied into when the profile has been updated.

ClearlyClaire · 2018-09-16T11:22:45Z

DNS verification could work in a similar fashion, listing domain or URLs to be honest. Although we probably want to check what kind of standards or proposed standards there already are for this.
A small issue I have with that scheme is that the info could get outdated. This is partially addressed by the title displaying the time at which it was verified, but this is not directly displayed. Furthermore, I see no place where that verification is renewed?

Another minor issue I have with this is that this requires you to basically advertise your other identities everywhere, while someone may want to have only one-way verification (e.g., I may have a “private account” that I don't want to advertise to other people, but that I want to verify as being the private account tied to my public account).

Finally, I would also extend this to @-mentions and allow to declare other identities in Mastodon itself. But that could be done in a subsequent PR!

sivy · 2018-09-17T16:48:27Z

I think this is a pretty good solution! Not complicated UI-wise, and doesn't require the user's browser to do the validation work.

sivy · 2018-09-17T17:15:02Z

@Gargron: how does the link verification get triggered?

sivy · 2018-09-17T17:20:30Z

"ownership of this link was checked..." might be better as:

Ownership of the linked site by this user was verified on [date]

with the negative case being:

Ownership of the linked site by this user could not be verified as of [date]

Alternatively, no messaging on unverified links might also be better, so that no negative connotations are applied to links that are not intended or desired to be verified. Perhaps a checkbox representing "this is me, please verify" ("I own this site" ?) to signify verifiable links? could also cut down on effort verifying non-verifiable links.

I'm still not sure what I think about using "verification" language in this feature, given the baggage it carries from birdsite, but it is terminology that users understand.

ghost · 2018-09-18T01:32:17Z

app/services/verify_link_service.rb

+  def link_back_present?
+    return false if @body.empty?
+
+    Nokogiri::HTML(@body).xpath('//link[@rel="me"]').any? { |link| link['href'] == @link_back }


Shouldn't the XPath read //link[@rel="me"]|//a[@rel="me"]? The copy you've written mentions <a rel="me" but this won't match that.

My bad, it should be a instead of link, not sure if link is worth checking at all, that would be a real rarity

True, both link and a are valid for rel=me.

I initially thought it was a “link” attribute and not a “a” attribute. Can't find the spec (if any) right now, but if link's in it, you should restore it, even if it “would be a real rarity”.

Gargron · 2018-09-18T14:17:10Z

@ThibG Okay, both anchor and link tags will be checked.

Regression from #8703

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from #8703 * Fix code style issue

UX-wise, people expect that saving the profile will re-check links even without changing fields content. Bug-wise, `@account` was undefined. Regression from #8703

* Verify link ownership with rel="me" * Add explanation about verification to UI * Perform link verifications * Add click-to-copy widget for verification HTML * Redesign edit profile page * Redesign forms * Improve responsive design of settings pages * Restore landing page sign-up form * Fix typo * Support <link> tags, add spec * Fix links not being verified on first discovery and passive updates

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from mastodon#8703 * Fix code style issue

UX-wise, people expect that saving the profile will re-check links even without changing fields content. Bug-wise, `@account` was undefined. Regression from mastodon#8703

* Verify link ownership with rel="me" * Add explanation about verification to UI * Perform link verifications * Add click-to-copy widget for verification HTML * Redesign edit profile page * Redesign forms * Improve responsive design of settings pages * Restore landing page sign-up form * Fix typo * Support <link> tags, add spec * Fix links not being verified on first discovery and passive updates

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from mastodon#8703 * Fix code style issue

UX-wise, people expect that saving the profile will re-check links even without changing fields content. Bug-wise, `@account` was undefined. Regression from mastodon#8703

ChameleonScales · 2018-11-14T15:58:31Z

How long should we expect the ownership verification to take effect?

ChameleonScales · 2018-11-14T18:17:03Z

Ok, so I deleted my link, saved, re-added it and re-saved and the green highlighting appeared instantly.
So I guess it only works if you add the link in your profile settings after you've added the rel="me" link in the website.

tasn · 2019-07-22T12:11:07Z

I think it would be a good idea to add a 2-hop check?
What do I mean?
If a page has rel=me pointing to another page that's not a mastodon account, check if that page has rel=me to the mastodon account.

Use case?
Many websites such as Twitter and Github mark your homepage as rel=me and only let you add one such link to your profile. This means a Mastodon user looking to verify their Github page would need to change the e.g. Twitter URL to their mastodon account (instead of e.g. their home page) which is undesirable.
However, with the suggested change people can keep these links pointing to the user's website and have verification work.

I've encountered this issue with EteSync. Relevant links to see what I'm talking about:
https://www.etesync.com
https://mastodon.social/@EteSync
https://github.com/etesync
https://twitter.com/EteSyncHQ

Gargron · 2019-07-22T19:44:16Z

@tasn I suggest opening a separate feature request for this!

tasn · 2019-07-22T21:37:28Z

Done. #11391

Sorry for the noise.

Conflicts: Gemfile Gemfile.lock app/javascript/mastodon/features/compose/index.js app/serializers/initial_state_serializer.rb app/views/about/_registration.html.haml app/views/admin/settings/edit.html.haml app/views/auth/registrations/edit.html.haml app/views/shared/_og.html.haml config/initializers/omniauth.rb package.json Look at f6df9d0 . The diff is too difficult to read however, in file app/views/auth/registrations/edit.html.haml, `simple_form.labels.defaults.password` was suddenly replaced to `simple_form.labels.defaults.new_password`. This can be proved by this file on ef27a0b which is a parent commit of that. However, this replacement has been continued for about 3 years. And there is no significant difference. So, I decided not to recover this replacement. ref: - 1cd0497 - increments#8 - f4d549d - mastodon#8703

Gargron added the work in progress Not to be merged, currently being worked on label Sep 16, 2018

Verify link ownership with rel="me"

c5654bc

Gargron force-pushed the feature-verified-links branch from dbb3406 to c5654bc Compare September 16, 2018 00:34

Gargron added 2 commits September 16, 2018 03:06

Add explanation about verification to UI

ff0055a

Perform link verifications

d6a3c3b

Gargron added the ui Front-end, design label Sep 16, 2018

Gargron added 2 commits September 17, 2018 00:22

Add click-to-copy widget for verification HTML

5842e06

Redesign edit profile page

c99543f

Gargron added 3 commits September 18, 2018 02:24

Redesign forms

ece011c

Improve responsive design of settings pages

5c8607e

Restore landing page sign-up form

96b072c

Gargron removed the work in progress Not to be merged, currently being worked on label Sep 18, 2018

Gargron changed the title ~~Verify link ownership with rel="me"~~ Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" Sep 18, 2018

ghost reviewed Sep 18, 2018

View reviewed changes

Gargron added 2 commits September 18, 2018 03:50

Fix typo

44b9c69

Support <link> tags, add spec

381f0c3

Fix links not being verified on first discovery and passive updates

3050036

ykzts approved these changes Sep 18, 2018

View reviewed changes

Gargron merged commit f4d549d into master Sep 18, 2018

ykzts deleted the feature-verified-links branch September 18, 2018 15:17

Gargron added a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 18, 2018

Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable?

fddbc14

Regression from #8703

Gargron mentioned this pull request Sep 18, 2018

Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? #8719

Merged

Gargron added a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 18, 2018

Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? (#8719)

bac8227

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from #8703 * Fix code style issue

Gargron added a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 18, 2018

Fix VerifyAccountLinksWorker not being queued

0b6af23

UX-wise, people expect that saving the profile will re-check links even without changing fields content. Bug-wise, `@account` was undefined. Regression from #8703

Gargron mentioned this pull request Sep 18, 2018

Fix VerifyAccountLinksWorker not being queued #8721

Merged

Espionage724 mentioned this pull request Sep 19, 2018

Allow custom rel link attributes for profile verification #8732

Closed

1 task

Gargron mentioned this pull request Sep 25, 2018

Improve appearance of settings pages for foreign languages and consistency #8493

Closed

mayaeh mentioned this pull request Oct 9, 2018

Fix that the copy button of verify link did not work #8938

Merged

koppepan1204 pushed a commit to koppepan1204/mastodon that referenced this pull request Oct 10, 2018

Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? (mastodon#8719)

8887699

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from mastodon#8703 * Fix code style issue

koppepan1204 pushed a commit to koppepan1204/mastodon that referenced this pull request Oct 12, 2018

Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? (mastodon#8719)

1e075e7

* Fix performance regression in Account::Field#verifiable? Regression from mastodon#8703 * Fix code style issue

This was referenced Oct 23, 2018

Integration with mastodon social Mastodon / GNUSocial keybase/keybase-issues#2948

Closed

Integration discussion: Gitlab keybase/keybase-issues#1242

Open

wd-shiroma mentioned this pull request Nov 2, 2018

display the verified link in profile fields. wd-shiroma/tooterminal#17

Open

wiktor-k mentioned this pull request Mar 29, 2019

If the protocol web:mastodon is not configured previously on Firefox, gives an error Aly-ve/Mastodon-share-button#5

Closed

wiktor-k mentioned this pull request Apr 22, 2019

[RFE] Keybase integration friendica/friendica#7016

Open

mei23 mentioned this pull request Jul 16, 2019

Mastodonのリンクの所有者認証に対応する misskey-dev/misskey#5160

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SISheogorath mentioned this pull request Feb 23, 2020

Show a badge for certified apps flathub-infra/linux-store-frontend#48

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Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" #8703

Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" #8703

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Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" #8703

Redesign forms, verify link ownership with rel="me" #8703

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